Talk:Abortion/Archive 26

message: This article has been fairly stable for some time, and there have been no major content disputes in a while. With the recent effort to reduce the wordiness, I was wondering if anyone else thought it may be time to try for FA status.--Andrew c 04:21, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would love to see this article toward FA status (or, at least, some other other article in WikiProject Abortion). Most WikiProjects have at least one Featured Article under their belt, but we don't even have a Good Article. However, this article still needs a lot of work, as the lengthy to-do list and B-class rating which the Release Version assessment team recently gave this article prove. I've set up the WikiProject Abortion Assessment Department, which has yet to begin assessing articles, because I'm not going to rank 200+ articles on my own, as that would be horribly biased. As it is, I'd probably rate this article A class, but, the standards of the Featured Article review team will be a lot different. They're going to be judging the article by a different criteria. Call me a pessimist, but, I don't think the article would pass the FA test as it is currently. I think we should go with Peer review first. It'll give other editors the opportunity to comment on how the article can be improved, in an informal manner, instead of jumping headlong into an FA nomination and ending up disappointed. -Severa  (!!!) 04:47, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur.  A peer review is safer, and there's no cost to doing it.--BCSWowbagger 06:00, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whoops. I was wrong about WikiProject Abortion not having a single feature article. We have Roe v. Wade. :-) -Severa  (!!!) 15:30, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Note that the very definition in the intro is still heavily disputed. See also the next thread. DirkvdM 10:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That thread has been moved to Talk:Abortion/First paragraph. Please see there to continue discussion. -Severa  (!!!) 23:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So there is a discussion over the very intro that is so severe it was moved to a separate page. Not a very good indication for featured article status. DirkvdM 10:07, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have a more optimistic view. I think the controversy makes issues seem larger than they are, this article is good, so I've surreptitiously nominated it for FA:GA. Vicarious 07:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It appears the Farsi Wikipedia does not yet have a Good Article system if i'm interpreting that page right... Homestarmy 01:02, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured article? 

message: Abortion was just added to the "causes of death" category. I don't think it belongs there. Abortion in the US (which is the only place I know statistics for) is safer than many other types of surgery, and only causes about one to ten in a million deaths deaths of the mother per procedure. Probably more relevant, it always causes the death of the fetus/embryo/baby/child/whatever. That said, the controversial nature of the topic (whether a fetus is a human person or not) makes this category a no-go for this article. The cat is explicitly about the death of human people. To include abortion in the category is an explicitly anti-abortion POV. To not include it looks, at worst, like an oversight, even if you're pro-life. I prefer the oversight to the blatant POV of inluding this article in the category. Your thoughts?--Kchase T 10:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks like pretty hard POV-pushing, to me. Rossnixon said in a recent edit summary "re-add cat:Causes of death. This is a npov scientific fact. Abortion is a cause of death in humans. It's not debatable, is it?" -- under what medical authority? If there isn't conensus among the medical community that this is so, it hardly seems our place to assume that it is. Doing so would naturally be original research. One way or another, I see no reliable source for this, and it doesn't seem NPOV. Lacking a more complete explanation, I can't support this, either. Luna Santin 22:16, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Kchase02 said The cat is explicitly about the death of human people. No, it doesn't say what it covers. So does it cover humans, or does it cover people? If it covers humans; there is no medical/scientific authority that states that the embryo/fetus is not human. rossnixon 04:15, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Line 2: "However, it should not include all the many specific methods by which people can deliberately kill one another" (emphasis mine). There is a dispute about whether fetuses are people. That's the crux of the abortion debate. Also see Luna Santin's lucid point, below.--Kchase T 04:32, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Either my brain has turned off thanks to having to take exams this week, or we both interpret that same line in the opposite manners :/. Homestarmy 04:35, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Homestarmy, I'm requesting that you refrain from restoring this edit. In an editorial dispute, the onus is on the person making a contribution to provide sources supporting to their claims. Original research, NPOV violations, and unverified claims diminish the quality of an article. Ross Nixon must provide such sources supporting the inclusion of this category before it is included (and, even then, WP:CAT is clear that controversial categorizations are better not being made at all). Thanks. -Severa  (!!!) 06:02, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I normally dislike reverting past one revert unless its something I care extremely strongly about, and adding Category:Causes of death isn't one of those things. (Jesus, on the other hand, is.... :D) Homestarmy 06:04, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand you probably were unaware of the ongoing discussion on Talk at the time of the revert and did not intend to be difficult. My note is not so much directed at you, but at all readers who come upon this discussion, not to restore the edit until we've reached a consensus. It would be a lot better if we could avert an edit war before it even starts. I'm sorry that it seemed that I was singling you out. :-) -Severa  (!!!) 06:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Can we continue in the next discussion only? (Both discussions are essentially the same).rossnixon 09:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[:Category:Causes of death]]? 

message: Congrats, great article and I see this as a potential FA candidate. Great job! —ExplorerCDT 07:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you! This news is extremely welcome (and, if I might say, somewhat unexpected). Congratulations and thanks to all of the editors here, past and present, because you have helped to make the article what it is today. Let's keep up the great work! -Severa  (!!!) 21:12, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

text: * Not to diminish any of the other GA guidelines or the comprehensive aspects of the article that I had considered in approving the GA status, but what impressed me immensely was that the article portrays a very-POV-passionate issue with a cool NPOV attitude in the best traditions of the Wikipedia policy, between that and having a low-incidence of edit wars, etc. Those two factors stand out, and are definitely a mark in the "pro" category when it comes time for FA nomination. If you do recommend it for FA, do let me know, you'll have my support. —ExplorerCDT 21:37, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, sure. Andrew c recommended above that we nominate this article for FA. I was pessimistic, given the divisive nature of the topic, but, now that this article has passed the GA test, I'm more hopeful that it could pass FA. However, there is still a lot that remains to be done (see the To-Do List), and, as far as I know, it isn't preferrable for large changes to be made to an article after it becomes an FA. Is this the case? Also, I probably shouldn't nominate this for FA myself, given my long history here, but, should anyone else want to, feel free! We could always discuss any major future additions to ensure they meet the FA standards. -Severa  (!!!) 22:04, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

text: * I would first put the article through Peer Review, if you haven't already done so.  That way, a lot of the issues that will come up in FA are already dealt with.  If there are large swaths of material to do, I'd do them first...just to have a better, more comprehensive article to present for FA.  There's nothing stopping you from proposing this as an FA.  No rules against nominating an article you've worked a lot on. (I thought about that with my first FA candidate Paulins Kill, but realized...no one else would do it, so I had to.). —ExplorerCDT 22:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for clearing that up. However, I am still concerned, because aren't article size considerations also a factor in FA nominations? I fear that, if we expand the article too much more, it won't meet the criteria (although mark-up, external links, and refs don't count toward article size — and this article has a lot of those). -Severa  (!!!) 23:47, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Thanks and great work everyone! --Andrew c 21:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: GA Passed

message: I'm glad this article is not stacked with bias on one side or the other.  This is how Wikipedia should be.  Facts are usually well agreed upon and easy to cite.  Opinions should be stated as opinions.  This page is a good example, I think.  Maybe.  (ShitakiMan 11:00, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Credit goes to Severa who has worked tirelessly to maintain balance on this article, which given the emotional nature of the subject, has been a very difficult task. KillerChihuahua?!? 11:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's only natural that maintaining balance on this article would be difficult. However, I can't take sole credit for this article, because we've had a lot of great editors who've helped to make it what it is. :-) -Severa  (!!!) 21:31, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  I'm Glad 

message: just a comment from a viewer:
I think you guys did a wonderful job on the article.
I understand that there is missing data in the public opinion section. But the poll numbers, coming all from anglo-saxon countries, are not representative at all of opinion around the world.
At this stage, since this sample is not representative, and represents the anglo-saxon culture only, I question its relevance. Or at the very least, you should put a mention of this.--Left of the right 12:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I found a few international polls last night and integrated them into the article. I suppose if the section gets too long, though, we can always move some of it to Abortion and public opinion. -Severa  (!!!) 20:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  public opinion 

message: I'm sorry, but is this some sort of joke? Has no one noticed the incredibly biased manner in which this article has been written? "Abortion should be illegal in all 50 states" is NOT A FACT. It's an opinion, which can certainly be left out of informative articles.
Honestly, I was appauled to read that. Whether it's what you believe or not, this isn't the place to be writing something like that. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.165.220.154 (talk) 12:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That was vandalism, which has been reverted. You will also sometimes see every instance of the word "abortion" replaced with "MURDER" which is also vandalism. Next time you see vandalism, revert it: view article history, and "edit" then "save" without making any changes, the version PREVIOUS to the version edited by the vandal. KillerChihuahua?!? 14:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biased much? 

message: The article currently says: "The risk of spontaneous abortion decreases significantly after the 8th week.[11]"
I am now changing it to read: "The risk of spontaneous abortion decreases sharply after the 8th week, i.e. when the fetal stage begins.[11]"
As Severa requested, I will not link to any other Wikipedia article in this sentence, nor will I include additional footnotes.  The already-footnoted BBC article says that the risk diminishes "dramatically" at this point.  No thesaurus equates the words "dramatically" with "significantly."  Severa says that she doesn't like the word "dramatically" because it's doesn't have "encycopedic tone."  I suggest that we use the word "sharply" which does have encyclopedic tone, and is synonymous with "dramatically"  (also see Lennart Nilsson's non-political book "A Child is Born", page 91 (1990): at eight weeks, "the danger of a miscarriage . . . diminishes sharply").  I also think it's informative to briefly point out that this point is when the fetal stage begins.Ferrylodge 00:14, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Spontaneous Abortion

message: The hierarchy of geographic articles related to abortion is currently very awkward.  Currently, there is a link at the right-hand-side of this article to "abortion by country" under the heading of "law".  However, there is no reason why it should be under such a heading, since the articles within "abortion by country" are not limited to legal articles.
Additionally, I think that all the countries with a general page about abortion should be listed in "abortion by country", instead of only listing regions.  A Wikipedia user will become frustrated having to click so many links from this general abortion page just in order to get to a general abortion page for a particular country.
I was in the process of listing all the general abortion pages for each country, in the category "abortion by country."  However, I see that those edits have been reverted, and even the few general country-pages that were listed in "abortion by country" have now been deleted.  This is the wrong way to go, in my opinion.Ferrylodge 23:33, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is an established system to categorization overseen by WikiProject Abortion. "...By country" is the titling convention set down in WP:NCCAT. See the post I made here. -Severa  (!!!) 23:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Today I created the Oceania & Australasia category for abortion, and this hopefully conforms to how Wikipedia wants it done.  Moreover, at Abortion by Country, I have simply linked the abortion pages for various countries, without altering the categorization.  I still think that the link to "Abortion by country" at the main abortion page should not be tucked away under the "law" heading.Ferrylodge 23:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Categories aren't intended as lists. See Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists) for information on how to create list articles. -Severa  (!!!) 23:53, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have linked in this article to the list of country articles about abortion.Ferrylodge 00:06, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Category:Abortion by country was already linked in the article under "See also." -Severa  (!!!) 00:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the changed link for "Abortion by country" in the template.  I have also modified the headings.Ferrylodge 00:46, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Hierarchy

message: This article lacks mention of the terms "interruption", "interruption abortion", "interruption of pregnancy" or "artifical interruption of pregnancy", which are often used as synonyms for "induced abortion" in popular articles about the topic (and in some states like Slovakia the terms "interruption" and "artifical interruption of pregnancy" are almost always used instead of the much more precise term "induced abortion", even in scientifical papers). I suggest to mention them in a bracket (suggested sentence: "other popular names: interruption, interruption abortion, interruption of pregnancy, artifical interruption of pregnancy") immediately after the "induced abortion" term in the second item of the list in the "Forms of abortion" section, probably with a warning that these popular terms are confusing and imprecise and thus should be avoided.
Jozue 23:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would suggest adding this sort of information to "Definitions" rather than "Forms of abortion." We could have a brief note on differing terminology and its use throughout the world. -Severa  (!!!) 04:26, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternate terms

message: This article has been chosen to appear as a Selected Article on the main page of Portal:Medicine  for the week of January 29, 2007 - February 5. Congratulations! -Severa  (!!!) 13:50, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Portal:Medicine

message: There are graphic photos of penises in Penis (with and without erection...), graphic photos of vulvas in Vulva, a lot of photos of breasts in Breast, but... NO photo of abortion in Abortion... Go figure... 193.219.28.146 18:14, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Er... I do not believe there are any copyleft-licenced photos of a procedure which occurs inside a woman's womb. We can't include things that don't exist, and there are obvious difficulties in our usual method of obtaining photos, i.e. a Wikipedia user taking one specifically for the article. Cynical 19:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I first suggest that you review the talk archives. Not only has this topic been discussed extensively in the past, but there are already two threads open on this page covering this topic. I next would ask you to familarize yourself with wikipedia policy concerning graphic images. The policy says that graphic images cannot simply be inserted, but must have talk page consensus to be included. That has yet to occur for this page. Pointing to other graphic images on other pages is not enough to go on. We could point to pages that do not have graphic images (not that that is a good argument either. We should discuss graphic images on a case by case basis). On top of that, I ask that you read about wikipedia's image use policy. Images have to be fair use, or have some sort of free copyright. There is a real shortage of such images when it comes to medical procedures (especially of abortion).-Andrew c 19:36, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pictures (i.e. photos)? 

message: As a part of the human race. I dissagree with people who choose the easy way out of life.  There are many other options on how to deal with this type of situation68.108.75.148 03:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not a place to discuss individual views on abortion but to discuss the creation and editing of the article on the subject, and to make sure that the result is as neutral, factual, and informative as possible. — Emiellaiendiay 03:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  People shouldnt choose abortion as a way out!!! 

message: There is a great many consequences with abortion. People argue that the constitution says you have the right to kill your baby. Well, in no part of the constitution, or at least the US Constitution, does it say anything about it. Why? Two reasons. #1 They never thought we would sink as low as to kill our own offspring. #2 They didn't have any medical procedures to do so. No Where in the Constitution does it say we can murder our children! In the famous case, the teen that wanted to abort her baby turned around and is pro-life. Is it any different when a teen has a baby and throws it in the trash? Yes. One difference. It's legal to murder the baby as long as it's in the stomach, so they can't see the human life they are ending.
Remember the picture on the article? "It's our choice, not theirs." So the sign says.
Now, we are violating another piece of the Constitution. Not only are we murdering, which I last checked is against the law, but we are now taking the right away from the baby. How do they live with themselves knowing they support a murderous behaviour?
Another consequence is financially. You know how Social Security is a big issue? How the young people are paying too much for our elderly? Well, when abortion was legal thing, without big debates, women had abortions left and right, never thinking they are killing us. They're are more of that generation, and less of us because they aborted alot of our generation. Now, one of us has to pay for several of them. Think about it. -66.218.18.17 04:31, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Err, actually, the baby is in the uterus, if it was in the stomach I think a woman would have far worse problems than needing an abortion. Homestarmy 22:06, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consequences