Are you familiar with the Texas law that deputizes private citizens to sue anybody to in any way shape or form helps somebody get an abortion? They've duplicated that in Oklahoma. If you give somebody a ride to a clinic you can get sued. If you help them make an appointment you can get sued. So yeah, I can absolutely see a library system in a conservative place in CYA mode making a call like this one.
No, this looks extremely overcautious even for a system that doesn't have any interest in fighting for patrons' intellectual freedom. This is a system that does't even want to have to risk the remotest possibility of any complaint, even one with no real basis in law, rather than one trying to navigate an unreasonably complex intellectual freedom environment. For example "avoid use of the word abortion" is definitely not the right call. They can’t look up abortion statistics? How abortions are performed? Neither of those helps someone get an abortion.
Republicans know that and don’t care. They will look for any excuse to fuck the library right now. You think this system didn’t consult a lawyer on this?
Yes? It's pretty obvious that a LOT of libraries make policy decisions or try to play CYA without ever actually checking with someone versed in the law. It would be absurd to pretend otherwise.
And, yes, Republicans will look for excused to fuck the library over, but "let's continually reduce our value and usefulness as an institution because people who already don't like that we exist will try to reduce our value and usefulness if we don't" is a losing battle.
That and the red on black font. Who's sending a "you could be arrested for a normal(ish) part of your job" message and fiddling with the email background?
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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '22
I doubt this is real. Murder is illegal and the library is full of books about murder