Talk:Anti-abortion violence/Archive 1

message: "resort to ... violence in an effort to prove their point."
To prove a point is not the only reason given and likely not the foremost one. I know that one reason has been to simply stop abortions; with a doctor or clinic out of commission, they reason that some abortions may not take place, or at least it puts strain on the system. Another frequently given reason is defending/protecting innocent lives. (I'm looking at  where some statements are available.) I would guess that another is extra-legal justice. Others I saw included opposing the pro-choice government, getting attention to various aspects of the situation, etc.
Suggestions for better phrasing? Darrowby 08:20, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This source says  " In recent years, some abortion activists (especially on the "pro-life" side) have engaged in unconventional, sometimes illegal, and occasionally violent activities.". I found that with 2 minutes of googling.-Andrew c 15:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That souce does not expressly state that the violent activity is more prevelent on the pro-life side.  It discusses uconventional, then illegal and then violent activities.  Is the "especially" referring to the unconventionality?  To the legality?  To the violent nature?  It is simply too vague to support the specific statement made in the intro to the Wiki entry.  And while the author has a list of references at the bottom for the article as a whole, this particular statement has no backing; there is no indication of how this observation was arrived at anywhere in the article.  It is a similar problem as I have described below in the "Recent Changes" section concerning the NAF data set presented.  This article does not conform with Wikipedia standards for sourcing, as it does not present numbers and explain the tabulation methodology from which this writer drew his conclusion.  As such, this conclusion cannot be verified in any way and thus fails the test of corroboration as a reliable source.  And, once again, by not describing any methodology of the collection of the numbers from which the author based his judgement, there is no way to examine flaws in methodology or misrepresentation of data sets.  This fails the test of replicability and declaration of sources as a reliable source.  That's three strikes against it:  corroboration, replicability and declaration of source material from which it's conclusions are drawn.  And since the statement itself is vague as to specifics, it doesn't support the position of whether anti-abortion violence is more prevalent.  Keep googling, but let's remove that statement from the intro until it is backed up with numbers and a source that is not vague.  As a suggestion, try spending more than 2 minutes this time.  HastelloyX 12:27, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Intro

message: I fixed the wording of this sentence, but I was surprised at the claim itself. Have there really been no incidents at all? Thanks for adding the citation needed tag, Quasipalm, as I meant to do it but forgot. romarin[talk to her ] 15:20, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Even if there is no actual physical violence, what about adding information about harassment? Here is a recent story: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-2078782,00.html romarin[talk to her ] 15:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I've removed the section, as being only one sentence and featuring no specific information, it seemed unwarranted. Futher research could definitely produce a more informative section. -Severa  (!!!) 20:45, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incidents in the UK 

message: Chooserr raised the issue that the National Abortion Federation article, "Incidence of Violence & Disruption Against Abortion Providers in the U.S. & Canada," used as a source in this article is not neutral. However, in my experience, NAF is the only organization to collect such detailed data on this subject. Thus, there is no impartial alternative, as even an article from Religioustolerance.org, "Violence & Harassment at U.S. Abortion Clinics," is just quoting the numbers reported by NAF. The Feminist Majority Foundation also gathers statistics but, again, this is hardly a non-partisan player in the abortion debate. A 1995 article from the Washington Post, "Clinic Killings Follow Years of Antiabortion Violence," also contains statistics on incidents — but these are 11 years old. For the time being, I am going to restore the source, but note in the text of the article that the data are from the National Abortion Federation.  -Severa  (!!!) 20:08, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Severa, I personally don't feel that this source is capable of being netural, however since there isn't a better source available I don't have problem with it being kept so long a notation along the lines you mentioned is used. Chooserr 21:12, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chooserr's source concern 

message: Given concerns recently raised in the Talk:Pro-choice thread, "Pro-choice violence," would it be warranted to move this article to Abortion-related violence or Violence in the abortion movement? -Severa  (!!!) 02:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Article move

message: The Human Life International source is problematic, not because because it is produced by a pro-life organization, but because it conflates many non-politically-motivated crimes with "pro-abortion violence." We should careful in maintaining a consistent definition throughout this article: the incidents in question should have been committed for political reasons. After all, this is the standard in the "Anti-abortion violence" sub-section, and this standard should be adhered to throughout the article. For this reason, I think we should refrain from relying upon AbortionViolence.com, and instead indepenedently source information. -Severa  (!!!) 21:28, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed.  The AV site is excruciatingly difficult to cite, because of their blurring of the political and non-political.  The numbers I used were checked quite carefully; the difficulty is in coming up with a single source that can summarize those numbers.  Otherwise, we'll be 20 meters deep in footnotes.  Until there's a better site out there, one that does a comparable job of quantitative measurements, I think editors are just going to have to use their discretion and be careful in their editing.  I am, for the time being, going to restore the paragraph that was there, because it was pretty well-grounded.  --BCSWowbagger 06:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Abortion Violence site

message: As many articles have pro and anti sites in the external links sections, this should as well. There are plenty of anti sites already. I attempted to add sites in favor of anti-abortion violence, but someone removed it. If I try again, will that be alright? Tim Long 00:57, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just checked the edit logs--there's no sign of you being reverted on anything recently.  At least, not on this article.  Are you sure you saved the edit?  As for your actual question, if they meet the guidelines for External Links, there shouldn't be a problem.  It really depends on the links, I think.  --BCSWowbagger 19:28, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Pro" sites

message: since the Pro-Choice violence section is pretty small I'm going to suggest that it simply be merged into Pro-Choice as that article currently has no mention of pro-choice violence whatsoever.
Pstanton 02:47, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been quite some time since I've been on Wikipedia, but I tend to disagree; the pro-abortion violence section is 1) Not exactly pro-choice, nor something the pro-choice movement would generally countenance (arguably), and 2) Pulling that out would strip this article of one half of its fork.  Opinions from more regular editors who are more familiar with current situations are, however, to be taken with more weight than mine own. --BCSWowbagger 05:18, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pro-Choice violence merger 

message: As much as the anti-choice people want to dress it up, there is no evidence in the articles of actual pro-choice violence - that is violence intended to rob anti-choice people of their right to free speech, or to force them have abortions. 
Why does this article put responsibility for crime on the non-criminals? 
Berniece LaFever 21:24, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not totally sure how incidents of assault, vandalism and death threats against anti-abortionists don't constitute violence.  Clearly, there have been several more cases of major violence (bombings, etc.) against pro-abortionists (or, to use the terminology in the same unfair way you did, "pro-deathers"), but there is a significant amount of somewhat less pyrotechnic violence on both sides.  The article, you'll note, also puts responsibility for crime on criminals--from both sides--and only on criminals.  This is the one article in Wikipedia that I am aware of that does not use the "pro-choice/pro-life" terminology, instead referring only to the extremist wings, which are referred to as "anti-abortion/pro-abortion."
However, greater documentation of the pro-abortion violence, as well as significantly greater detail on the most prominent incidents would, I think, be very beneficial to the article and help put to rest some of your concerns that these acts and crimes are purely imagined.  Hope that answer helps.  --BCSWowbagger 01:41, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The article should be titled: Violence in the anti-abortion movement.  

message: The title is really unhelpful in its reference to the "abortion movement" - as far as I can tell, there is no such thing.  There's a pro-choice movement and a pro-life movement, and an abortion debate between the two.  Calling it "violence in the abortion movement" leaves the impression that it's members of the abortion rights movement (another name for pro-choice) that's primarily responsible.
It's arguable people who kill in protest against abortion can't readily call themselves "pro-life", but, the principle seems to be to refer to groups by what they call themselves.  I'll have an edit and see if I can make it sensible and fair.
In terms of weighting and balance as well, the pro-life violence section begins with fluff about a small fraction and a vast majority, before the actual examples or any actual analysis of what it's about.  This reads as POV to me - this article isn't about the vast majority of the pro-life movement and how they feel about it, it's about acts of violence.  After the examples/analysis, it would then be appropriate to cite pro-life supporters as denouncing those acts of violence, particularly if they represent large groups.  That way, the majority point of view is represented at the same time as fairly describing the issue. --Tirana 07:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Would the title Abortion-related violence be more clear? Also, it is important for the lead-in of the "Anti-abortion violence" section to place these incidents within the larger context of opposition to abortion, as to avoid issues of undue weight. We do not want to give the impression that most pro-lifers commit or condone such acts of violence. However, "a small fraction" and "the vast majority" could be simplified to "minority" and "majority," if they give the impression of POV. -Severa  (!!!) 04:00, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought yours was a good suggestion; it is much more accurate.  I have moved the article to Abortion-related violence.  Joie de Vivre 19:18, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title and terminology 

message: Perhaps I should have argued for that alteration more explicitly, but I strongly disagree with describing violence in abortion politics as happening in many countries.  From the information that's on this page, it's restricted to the US, Canada and one incident in Australia.  If there are incidents in other countries they should be listed and the beginning amended, but as far as I can tell, every other country has managed to deal with the subject without violence. --Tirana 20:20, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I  agree with you on the point that most of the abortion-related violence in Canada can be traced back to U.S. culprits. However, the 2000 stabbing of Dr. Romalis of Vancouver, British Columbia was independent of Jame Kopp's series of shootings, and, although it remains unsolved, there's nothing to suggest it was done by an American. I have also edited the introduction to read "in a few countries" per your suggestion. -Severa  (!!!) 04:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Many countries?