Word abortion removed from medical database searches.

A friend of mine on Facebook had a link up to a New York Times article on John Hopkins University's medical database Popline ignoring the word abortion in searches of the database. Why might you ask? Well the US federal government under G.W. Bush told them to. Now supposedly the dean of the school has ordered the word restored to the search engine, it was being ignored in the same way as "a" or "the", but it creates some disturbing questions. Specifically, are the Bush clone Harper Conservatives doing the same thing here?

It is difficult to tell, of course, since the Tories eliminated the Canada Health Network as one of their first acts upon taking power, so there isn't a comparable database here in Canada to search. Perhaps that's the reason the database was eliminated since it's replacement, healthycanadians.gc.ca doesn't mention the topic. It would seem that the reason the Tories aren't touching the subject of abortion legislatively is that they're taking a page from the Bush Republicans and just using budget policy to restrict access to information at best and actual abortions at worst.

In fact, the new website doesn't seem to have any information related to sexual health at all. Nothing on STI's, or safe sex that I can see. I'm not certain that poking around the site would lead you to any of that information either. As for the old Canadian health network link, you're redirected to the Public Health Agency website. On the PHA's website there is a link about reproductive health which leads to a page with a link for a pamphlet on STI's. No mention of abortion or unwanted pregnancy on the site. It would seem the Harper Conservatives don't want people to know about that option. Again a small step to the banning of the procedure in Canada.

In the bigger picture it's all part of the neo-con plan to reshape Canada in the American neo-con image. Unlike the US were a large part of the population is willing to swallow the Kool-Aid without question, Canadians outside Alberta are more likely to question radical change. This of course poses a problem for Canadian neo-cons like Harper since they can't just radically change things, as they'd be tossed out of office in the next election and the changes reversed. So they do things slowly, incrementally, without using parliament where, even if they had a majority, their policies would have to undergo scrutiny in the harsh light of day. So they use budget restrictions, tax cuts and changes to regulation to slowly undermine the fabric of Canadian society. Yes people will complain, but since it's only a small amount of disorganized people here and there, it doesn't amount to much. Like the proverbial frog most people won't do anything until it's too late. Which is, of course, what the neo-cons want.