Talk:Abortion/Archive 11

message: *The 2004 Fourth World Conference on Women's Platform for Action stated in paragraph 96 that "the human rights of women include their right to have control over and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, including sexual and reproductive health, free of coercion, discrimination and violence." While ratified by 198 member states of the United Nations, the Platform for Action is non binding.
The above is what I have written because I thought this was a UN thing. It has 198 signitories.
There are 191 member nations to the UN, one observer state, and about a dozen other observers such as the IRC. I am bloody confused people. Can we sort this out so we can restore this interesting piece of information?--Tznkai 16:14, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am currently looking for such a list. I referenced the info from a news article; but, unfortunately lost it, and am now looking for another ten-year-old neutral reference (most of the sites that are returning hits are summaries of the event from feminist or pro-life interest groups). The number is actually 189 signatories, from my memory, so it appears that the source of your confusion might be a transposing of these last two digits (189 to 198). Here's the UN sie featuring the BPfA text to which I orignally linked: [Beijing Platform for Action]. --Kyd 16:24, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: that would make a great deal of sense. Unfortunatly the UN seems to have forgotten to note who ratified it. If you're sure about the 189 figure I or someone else can restore it.--Tznkai 16:32, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Side note, I am a moron. For some reason I said it was 2004 not, you know 1995!--Tznkai 16:36, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  From the mouth of the horse? Or, at least, the U.N. web site. This is a summary of Beijing 5+, the follow-up conference in 2000, that mentions the 189 figure from the Fourth World Conference on Women: ["Background of Beijing 5+"]. Also, a break-down of the various U.N. women's conferences that mentions the same number: ["Key conference outcomes on women and gender equality"]. The jury's still out on who actually signed, though. --Kyd 17:07, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Well, as the paragraph notes, there isn't a lot of international binding agreements that are actually binding anyway. Its not really given equal wieght its just a fact and a point of intrest in the study of international law concerning abortion.--Tznkai 17:02, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Why is the nonbinding Universal Declaration of Human Rights mentioned in the article (with your blessing, no doubt, because you're the one who added it)? Surely, its implications for abortion, either way, are mooted by the very fact that it is nonbinding? You are splitting hairs, 214. This distinction, nonbinding versus binding, is not the real reason you object to the inclusion of the Beijing Platform for Action. The reason we must give the BPfA "equal weight" with the OSA document is because it would be POV to do otherwise. It's not your position to reject the BPfA out of hand for the reasons you have stated (other than the whole nonbinding thing, but I thought Tznkai and I resolved that by noting the difference). I'm not objecting to the ACHR being presented (although I do question the whole interpretation/speculation thing). But I do object to a slanted presentation of information; if there is no reason to present the BPfA, then I cannot see a reason to present the ACHR. --Kyd 17:32, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I'd prefer binding laws, but, this being a Wiki, things get amorphous rather quickly. The ACHR has a got a wonderful loophole as well, "generally". Right now these two are our best examples of internationa laws and conventions representing the range. Hopefully as time passes, we will get better ones. Right now, both are reasonably relevant.--Tznkai 17:22, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Precisely. "Generally" could be interpreted in a manner that would be compliant with the coexistance of Roe v. Wade and the Unborn Victims of Violence Act in the U.S.: the unborn have a right to life, insofar as protection from acts of violence (i.e. an assault on a pregnant women that results in miscarriage or stillbirth), but the "generally" leaves wiggle room for individual nations to determine if abortion constitutes a similar violation. Apparently, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights already considered this implication of Article 4 of the ACHR, according to this article, ["International Human Rights Law and Abortion"] by Human Rights Watch (see the "Right to Life" section). I used this article as a reference point when researching the BPfA. Very infomative even if you don't agree with its conclusions. --Kyd 18:16, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

text:  The ACHR, the CPoA, and the BPfA reference either "a right to life from conception" or "reproductive rights" -- which, to me, seem directly applicable in the debate over abortion legislation. The UDHR, on the other hand, does not contain anything with such an explicit applicability. You can interpret "right to life, liberty, and security of person" in a fashions that are favourable to either the pro-choice or pro-life ideology -- but it is a far greater stretch. So, to me, grouping it with the other three documents would be more along the lines of editorializing than fact-presentation. I liked Tznkai's solution of linking it to discussion of philosophical basis for abortion laws. We could rework it if the article would "flow" better with the UDHR mentioned in the international law paragraph/section/list/whatever. --Kyd 05:48, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

text:  Mostly agree with your analysis.  I agree that the other three are more relevant - but I also thought my edit did point out that the UDHR did not expressly speak to abortion or fetal rights.  Your "rework it" suggestion is a good one. 214.13.4.151 07:53, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 214.13.4.151 06:48, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

text:  I understood this horse to be dead. The UDHR has no place here as it does not address reproductive rights, a right-to-life from conception, or anything else that could be construed as having direct bearing on abortion law without resorting to speculation and wild fancies. Making note of this fact does not make it any more relevant to the section. I can't disagree that the BPfA doesn't specifically address or create a right to abortion. But I'm removing "and attempts to add language that did so were defeated" until this claim can be substantiated. But, as we're in the mood for qualification, souldn't we also note that the words "in general" in Article 4 of the ACHR leave a big, gaping loophole in which signatory countries are free to legislate abortion howsoever they see fit? The Inter-American Commision on Human Rights seems to have reached such a conclusion. --Kyd 23:03, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Beijing Platform for Action 

message: The debate is about medicine. Medicine very often concludes on one study-- especially if it is well planned and executed. The reason is-- it is hard to justify repeating an experiment where one is almost certain to harm patients.  Also, meta-analyses are the way things are done.  I have the feeling a few people here are not familiar with The Cochrane Collaboration.
:LOL, so it was well planned and executed? You say that as if you know what your talking about. Right off the bat I have cause to revert anything you do, because you appear to think an ABC study showing no link was "well conducted". That's the implication I'm getting from this first paragraph... "about medicine" indeed! Meta-analyzes are one way things are done, and they can be subject to selection bias... as many people noted for Brind's meta-analysis (which he worked on with pro-choice researchers). I see no reason to use a double standard here; others disagree, which is fine since it clarifies to me where they are coming from.
Familiar with the results of the Women's Health study?  It is a huge study where they fed women the sex hormones (estrogen and progesterone)-- result... breast cancer rates were quite similar.  It casts doubt on the physiologic reasoning behind the ABC hypothesis.
:If its the same as this one then yes. Have you gone throught ABC article yet? And I'm unclear as to how that casts doubt on the ABC hypothesis, since it relies on hormones making physical changes... which as I understand it the WHI study unintentionally confirmed.
Even if one doesn't want to believe Beral-- (which is published in one of the top 4 medical journals)-- there is broad agreement that women that are older when they bear their first child are at a higher risk of breast ca.
    That is one reason to doubt the ABC hypothesis... --women that abort bear children later.  Women who don't have children at all are at higher risk for breast ca than women that have had children.  How do we know the increased ca risk isn't just from delayed childbearing/not having children?  
:You are aware scientists use controls in their studies to account for confounding factors, delayed child rearing is only one. Again I ask, have you read the article yet?
Another reason is that the socio-economic status of women who have abortions are quite different than ones that don't ... and this has a multitude of impacts on cancer risk.  Describing the faulty physiologic reasoning with out a counter-argument is not presenting both sides.  Women that abort tend to be more likely to be abused and have a lower education, eat less healthy, smoke more often and tend to suffer more from mental illnesses.  Who is to say that one of those isn't the cause... if a difference exists above and beyond the one associated with childbearing and age of the mother when the first child was born?
:This is beginners stuff, don't waste our time. But as to describing the reasoning without a counter-argument, there is no counter argument insofar as physiology is concerned. The Beral study, nor any other study I've seen has "countered" or disproved the argument. They just argue it doesn't exist when they don't find an ABC correlation; not the same thing. I think that position is given with the NCI workshop opinion.
  
Beral's paper disputes the reasoning -- if the ABC hypothesis reasoning were true spontaneous abortions and elective ones would be assoc. with higher breast ca. rates.  Interestingly, the opposite appears to be true.  
:Spontaneous abortion differs from elective abortion in their hormone characteristics. Interestingly you don't seem to know that. Again, read the article.
The mainstream medical community dismisses the ABC hypothesis
as junk-science.  The proponents haven't managed to come-up with convincing evidence that shows causation.  No scientific organization with any credibility supports the theory.  Nevermind the fact the main proponent's background makes him suspect for his religion trumping his science.
:Some people, notably fervent pro-choicers call it junk-science, the mainstream medical community does not. I entirely agree Brind's background is suspect, but that can cut both ways if you bother to see bias knows no idealogy (be it pro-choice or pro-life). Showing "causation" isn't necessary for something to be occurring, and the Russo and Russo rat studies do elaborate on a likely cause. Of course that doesn't count for humans, but it does provide a line of reasoning for causation which has yet to be discounted or even properly examined.
Why delete the part about causality?  
For anything in medicine-- and this applies to science as well-- correlation does not mean causality.  Causality is A causes B; it is very different from correlation.  I can give you a beautiful correlation for shoe size and intelligence ('cause little babies don't know a heck of a lot).  In medicine, there are strict criteria for causality (see above link) and the ABC hypothesis doesn't come close to fulfilling them.  I think the removal of causality makes the article poorer because causality is really central to the whole issue.
:You make a decent point while at the same time insulting my intelligence, bravo! Causality is central to making or breaking the ABC hypothesis, however not finding it does not defeat it, since absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Especially if the association is weak, which can be because of poor science, or because the association is ACTUALLY weak, particularly with women who are fortunate/smart/decisive enought to get an abortion early on. To say no cause has been found is to incorrectly imply there is no cause, and that there isn't even a consistent theory as to what the cause could be, which there is. And because a cause as not been confirmed, it remains a "hypothesis" instead of "theory" or "link".
Response bias and recall bias are different.  I don't think it is so much that women that have abortions forget they have had them (that's recall bias).  Beral's criticism  is response bias -- why incorrectly represent the counter-argument?  Also, isn't possible that the people who are surveying people for a link between breast cancer and abortion might have an agenda -- and that might lead to response bias? Nephron 22:59, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've seen recall bias and response bias used interchangeably, in both pro and anti choice articles and scientific studies. But it makes sense that response bias is the better term. Changed. PS: Further discussion on this topic should be made on the talk for the ABC article. - RoyBoy 800 17:21, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  physical health section - not balanced 

message: "not an official catholic organization". I changed it for "not a catholic organization". If you check the canonic code, you'll see that no one can call their own group "catholic" without having permission from the vatican and this organization does not have it (they were excommunicated). "I'm not entering this discussion (on the rest of abortion)... I was just skimming the text and found that... Believe me, I would change the article almost completely (to start with, the definition of abortion...) but it's no use here on wikipedia anyway. User: 200.42.177.66 01:24, 10 September 2005
:You need to be careful about the difference between "catholic", "Catholic", and "Roman Catholic".  Anyone can call their organization an official (lower case c) catholic organization.  That just means they consider themselves universal rather than local.  With the upper case C, the Episcopal church, for example, is a self-described "Catholic" church, but not a "Roman Catholic" church.  Rick Norwood 12:56, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: But in this case, the group member claims to the group to be Catholic a.k.a. Roman Catholic. Str1977 13:07, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I am reasonably sure that: 1. The Vatican does not control the legal usage of the word catholic, capitalized however you wish and 2. readers will generally not have the foggiest idea that the above is true.--Tznkai 18:57, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

text: What the general public thinks does not excuse a lack of care in Wiki.  If the Episcopal church can call itself Catholic, and it can and does, then you need to say "Not an official Roman Catholic organization. Rick Norwood 20:45, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Now the description reads, "Excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church".  A step in the right direction, but not the question that arises is whether an organization can be excommunicated.  I was under the impression that only individuals could be excommunicated, not organizations. Rick Norwood 20:52, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Rick, the point of mentioning the public doesn't know its true is to point out the need to use wording that is accurate and communicative.--Tznkai 01:18, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I think that "not an official catholic organization" is probably the best annotation; "Excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church", in this context, is very biased. Are there any objections against "not an official..." ? --Benfergy 23:42, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Ben, "excommunicated ..." is not biased (just like sentenced for this or that crime isn't), but it is still problematic since an organization cannot actually be excommunicated (I think), though all members can. "Not an official ..." seems allright with me, though the word "official is maybe a bit weak. Hence further suggestions are welcome. Maybe something like "... denounced by the Church". Str1977 09:22, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  edited at the bottom of the page 

message: Ok, for all the long standing article editors as well as news, I'd like to celebrate having a computer by starting a research collaboration. The health risks section is in serious need of work. Before we start editing and proposing changes though, I'd like to see everyone do their best to bring current and notable research to the table. Lets not only have brilliant and neutral prose, but rigerous research backing it up!--Tznkai 18:46, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Am I supposed to be heeding this? (cut ABC explanation until necessary) As to premature birth, we can stipulate as Lucavix pointed out... that the study is uncorroborated, and its findings have not been adopted by abortion providers and/or medical community... although the latter more difficult to establish, since conservative medical associations may have adopted it. Further research/studies is good, but it will likely be inconclusive studies from the past calling for more research... which will be slow in coming. Just don't want you to get your hopes up. :'D - RoyBoy 800 20:45, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

text: I wouldn't mind contributing. Don't know how much help I can be, though. --Kyd 21:18, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Research Collaboration 

message: I think str1977's "question" is legitimate in the context of a discussion of the abortion debate.  Rick Norwood 22:37, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Ann Heneghan (talk) 22:48, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Assuming that this refers to my revert/reinsert of the "choice" question, I obviously agree with you. However, this was not my question but rather what Tznkai posted in his section overhaul and which someone deleted, calling it "tempering some extereme and absolute language". Str1977 22:56, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: my inclusion of it was an attempt to achieve a compromise. As a future note, I will gladly accept improvments to my prose, but lets all do eachother a favor and stop just removing/deleting when we can? We're all guilty of it, so lets all improve.--Tznkai 05:43, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question 

message: I have tried to create a reasonable compromise for the debates that have been going on recently. The terminology section in the beginning of the article is primarly for words that have multiple and hidden meanings because of the ambiguties of common parlance, and other things that need to be settled before even discussing abortion itself. The law section is for discussing laws, civil or criminal penalties, laws restrict or prohibit. The debate section refers to pro-choicers, pro-lifers, and terms that find use primarly during debate. This should allow everyone to make their points in a neutral fashion.
In summation: Put it in the right section, keep it general and neutral, and everything should be fine.--Tznkai 23:07, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terms. (Law, Debate, Terminology) 

message: I have removed what I termed a mole link posted by User: 61.246.40.19 into the pro-life links section. It clearly doesn't belong in there as it is shockingly pro-abortion. The first paragraph reads
"Abortion is the spontaneous or induced (therapeutic) expulsion of the products of conception from the uterus before fetal viability (fetal weight < 500 g [17 5/8 oz] or gestation < 20 weeks)."
This is not only factually incorrect ("before fetal viability"?), but the wording is ghastly beyond what I could have imagined.
I don't know how this link entered this section, but maybe it was an honest mistake. If so, 61.. may post it somewhere else. Str1977 16:08, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Already removed it once, and the link is not good enough to include anyway.--Tznkai 05:42, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mole link 

message: Poll info has been listed for a long time. Quasi removed it and replaced it with a poll he liked.  I reverted and added links to the sources (2004 and 2005 polls done by Zogby, ABC and CBS). 214.13.4.151 18:23, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Polls 

message: "*The choices at stake: the woman's choice to abort the fetus vs. the rights of the fetus to self-preservation."  This is certainly an improvement over the sentence it replaces, but it still isn't quite right, since "self" preservation is not what we are talking about, but preservation by others.  How about: "The choices at stake: a woman's right to choose whether to have an abortion or not vs. the right of an embryo or fetus to be carried to term and be born."  I'll leave this here for comment until tomorrow. Rick Norwood 20:31, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I changed it to "self-preservation" in a quick edit over the previous version, which was certainly more POV.  I too am not completely happy with the word "self" and like your suggestion much better.  --Quasipalm 23:35, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll make the change, if you haven't already done so. Rick Norwood 14:05, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  new sentence 

message: Isn't abortion legal in Puerto Rico? I thought since it's a Commonwealth of the US, it would be. Anyone with info? 70.34.243.44 04:13, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error in Map