Talk:Abortion debate/Archive 2

message: For the individual views, would point/counteropint be effective? I.G. Pro life beliefs, followed by their pro-choice counter, and the same under pro-choice? It would allow both sides to present all their beliefs, and keeping it NPOV by showing both POVs on every issue, but would it be too awkward?  Daemon8666 14:21, August 24, 2005 (UTC)
:I don't think that is a very viable option. I think the current layout of the Debate section will work better, as there is no need to repeat. With point-counterpoint, there is repetition, which will almost double the size of the article, which is already far too long. KillerChihuahua 16:32, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible Format

message: Isn't this more an essay than an encyclopedia entry ?
*Yes, it is. And it becomes almost unreadable in parts. Most of this falls under WP is NOT a SOAPBOX rather than a summation of arguments.--DNicholls 07:28, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Concur this is an essay. IMHO all of "Modern arguments" is personal research with a few exceptions. I suggest moving the relevent bits into the Debate, Official positions, or History sections as is appropriate, and removing that highly redundant and verbose essay. This article is about 3 times the recommended size, and that section is unecessary bloat. It also ignores layout guidelines - if we have Modern arguments, then we should have Historical arguments, of which there are either none or practically none. All of the Debate section is either Modern arguments, or non-timespan-specific arguments. Please respond here if you think there is a valid reason to keep this. KillerChihuahua 16:28, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Essay ? 

message: And now to obliterate the next chunk of "foundation" upon which anti-abortionists base their argument:
One of the foundations upon which opponents of abortion build their argument is the claim that human life has inherent value that should be respected.  But is that a true statement?  How is "value" determined, anyway?  Answer: value is actually never an inherent quality of anything; the value of something is always defined in terms of associations with other things.  Here are some items of supporting evidence:
:First, the Law of Supply and Demand studies the association between a single item and a group of items of the same type.  How large is the group?  Given constant demand, then the larger the group (the supply), the less-valuable the individual item is declared to be, and vice-versa.  And does the Law of Supply and Demand apply to humans?  In a restricted way, YES.  Human labor is very much subject to this Law.  It is quite well documented that when labor for a particular task is plentiful, humans who demand high wages for doing that task tend to find themselves unemployed.  And certainly when only a few humans can do a particular task, they are often both well-paid and also given the task of training more humans to do it...thereby eventually and obviously diminishing the value of their labor! --Which in turn leads to a conundrum, because human life must be sustained in order for it to continue to yield labor.  The claim that human life is inherently valuable should thereby and obviously be bolstered by actions everywhere ensuring that a minimum wage exists for labor, such that that wage is always at least enough to sustain human life.  However, the fact is, a great many people who have time-and-again acted to oppose a minimum wage also happen to claim to oppose abortion on value-of-life grounds.  Well, if "actions speak louder than words", then the actions of those people falsify the claim.
:Second, throughout history numerous attempts were made to "fix" the price of gold, to make it a monetary standard.  This never worked over the long term, and today not only does the price of gold "float" in accordance with the Law of Supply and Demand, so do the relative (associative) values of practically all the world's currencies.  Similarly, human life has time and again been assigned associative values, especially in times of extreme struggle.  "Women and children first!" is a motto embraced by all cultures that have survived the long haul, simply because children are the future of a culture, and women can both teach and make more children -- consider the possible culture-recovering/growth speed of two groups of survivors, one group consisting of ten men and one woman, while the other group consists of ten women and one man. So, if the lives of adult human males are assigned a low relative value in times of struggle, when it is traditional for them to sacrifice themselves to ensure women and children survive (for an extreme example of this, study the history of Paraguay, its wars, population level, and changing male/female ratio), then by no means can it be claimed that human life has some inherent fixed value.
:Interestingly, it might be noted that if children can be considered more valuable than adult males, then a fetus also might be considered more valuable than an abortion doctor.  However, such a conclusion fails to take into account the specified/associative magnitude-and-type-of-struggle.  Abortion might indeed be utterly prohibitable when cultural survival is at stake -- or abortion might actually be declared an essential part of an overall effort to prevent an overpopulation-caused Malthusian Catastrophe.  The history of Easter Island proves that humans are indeed as subject to the observations of Thomas Malthus as any other animal; it is just that with Island Earth being so much bigger, the crux takes longer to reach.  Also, there are two other reasons why a fetus can be assigned a low value.  One involves associating them with the quantity of biological resources that have been "invested" in them -- the older they are, the more resources have been invested (including patience of the mothers), and this investment only increases after birth and throughout childhood -- while when young-enough for a morning after pill to be effective, the quantity of invested resources is trivial.  The other reason notes that aborted or miscarried fetuses are generally easy to replace (not necessarily by the same women, admittedly), and the current Malthus-challenging global population explosion, in spite of the number of abortions performed annually worldwide, is proof enough of that statement.
:Third, almost every life-form has a built-in survival instinct.  This is a simple consequence of the obvious fact that failures at survival tended not to pass their genes (and associated behavior patterns) on to the next generation.  Humans are in the unique position of being able to make choices different from those dictated by instinct.  Thus while perception of the survival instinct is common among humans, and frequently that perception leads to survival-promoting choices, often enough the perception is ignored in favor of other desires.  Skydiving for fun is an example of that.  Nevertheless, skydivers do take precautions to promote their survival, and often enough those precautions are adequate.  The point here is that whenever a human chooses to act in a way that promotes survival of the body, even if only by taking precautions prior to skydiving, that human is acknowledging an association between that body and the mind making the choice.  The existence of the mind depends on the continuing life of the body, so obviously it behooves the mind to value the life highly enough to take the precautions!
:That entirely subjective perception and valuation is typically extrapolated, thanks to another unique trait of humans.  The ability of one human to mentally place self into a situation being experienced by another human is something no animal can do.  And therefore most humans expect other humans to value their own lives in a similar way.  Nevertheless, that valuation remains entirely subjective and is not at all objective, as is evidenced by many troubles in History, which have been caused by humans who valued their own lives, but not the lives of others.  Isn't it logical to deduce that if human life was objectively valuable, there would have been fewer historic cases in which that value was ignored (fewer murders and more ransoms)?  Instead, the millenia-old slavery trade simply proved that humans value other humans subjectively, since slave auctions existed to get the most from whoever subjectively valued slaves the highest -- and it was not really the slaves that were valued, anyway, but what those slaves could do (labor) for their owners.
:The ability to put self in another's place can, like any other ability, be misused. To mentally put oneself in the physical situation of a horse is not to naturally interpret that situation in the same way as a horse, after all -- so abusing the ability in this instance would involve incorrectly claiming to fully understand the horse's mentality.  And, by extension, the magnitude of misuse only increases as the mentaltiy of the other creature diminishes.  When the creature has practically no mentality at all, such as a several-month's-old fetus, it would be pure folly to claim it has any understanding and valuation of its own existence.  And it happens that not even the staunchest defenders of a fetus make such a claim.  Instead they make the equally erroneous claim that human life has inherent/objective value.  Even though the evidence is entirely against them.
I intend to post the preceding to the main article.  And as before, it may be edited first, based on feedback.  Let 'er rip! V
I just wanted to put my two cents on the whole thing.  I'm writing a paper in school on Father's rights to protect their children.  Any school text you read will say that life begins at conception- in all animals, including humans. A report from Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 1981 reads: "Physicians, biologists and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being--a being is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings."
So that should settle the whole "when does life begin" arguement.
I completely agree that the fertilization process (note species not specified) can yield a distinct and new human life, just as it can yield a distinct and new fish life, or dog life, or snail life....  Why don't you tell us why the new human life, a mindless single-celled organism, MUST be valued more highly than the others?  Prejudice is not allowed, of course.  And there is no requirement in Nature that potentials be fulfilled. V
Another thing to analize is the 14th Amendment itself.  Has anyone done this yet?  Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment is the basis for Roe v. Wade and the legalization of abortion in general:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
It specifies "persons born".  No fetus qualifies.  Simple.  Also, see a little further below, where the Census is mentioned (one of the Sections of Amendment 14 is to modify the Constitution's description of census-taking). V
Specifically in the wording "immunities" protecting a women's right to govern the matters of her own body concerning pregnancy.  But after examining various other words that come up later in Section one, especially after reading SJC S-158, 1981, we see words like "shall not deprive any person of life (the child), liberty (the child, and the father), without due process of law (fathers have cases thrown out when trying to stop their uinborn child's mother from aborting their unborn children), nor deny to any person...equal protection of rights (there is inequality because only the mother has rights, the father and the child do not).  
First, the word "child" is inapplicable to any unborn human.  However much you may wish otherwise, the correct term for an unborn human, during most of a pregnancy, is "fetus".  Next, the ovum outweighs the sperm by 100,000 times.  And every single atom that is added, after womb-implantation occurs and major growth begins, comes from the mother.  So suppose you were a woman who invested $100,000 in a boat, and some man invested $1.  Also, you-the-woman made all other payments for maintenance and improvements in the boat, while the man directly contributed nothing.  If that man claims a half-ownership of the boat, do you think the claim will stand up in court?  Then why should a man's claim of half-ownership in a fetus be recognized? V
And that's that- Legal Abortion is bogus.  In a country that strives for egalitarianism sees how much further we fall short after studying the above.
-Chris Lawrence, 25 FRCC Colorado
Your conclusion is bogus, since it is based on invalid data and bad logic.  For more details about why the 14th Amendment doesn't grant rights to fetuses, see below.   V
The Roe vs. Wade decision referenced the 14th Amendment as being able to invalidate the decision IF the word "person" was defined to include unborn humans.  It is interesting that throughout the Constitution, the word "person" is used often, but the word "human" is not used at all.  (No wonder those beings in that TV show, "Alien Nation", found the US accommodating!)
Anyway, the 14th Amendment, Section 1, gives rights to "all persons born", and says nothing about the unborn.  But Section 2 is what I want you to think about here.  This Section specifies counting persons, so that the States' Representation in the House can be figured (it modifies earlier wording of the Constitution).  You may be aware that the purpose of the once-per-decade Census is to do that counting.  UNBORN HUMANS HAVE NEVER BEEN COUNTED.  If they were considered "persons", then they should have been getting counted since 1790.   And do note, please, that the Founding Fathers, who wrote the Constitution, were mostly alive to specify what qualified as a "person", for that first Census of 1790.
Thus the precedent, per ACTUAL IMPLEMENATION of the Constitution, long long before Roe vs. Wade, is that THE UNBORN DON'T COUNT; they have NEVER been considered to be persons worth counting.  (A rather high rate of natural miscarriages may be one reason why; it would be like counting chickens before they hatched.)  And even though the 14th Amendment altered certain aspects of Census-taking, those who wrote that Amendment, about 140 years ago, never used it as an excuse to count fetuses as persons.  The legal precedent set by the Founding Fathers stands, therefore.
And that's OK!  Per scientific measurements, unborn humans are not mentally more capable than ordinary animals.  Even just-born humans are not mentally  more capable than an adult cat or small dog.  If we want "persons" to be generic enough for "Alien Nation", but restrictive enough to always exclude the demonstrably animal, like cats and dogs, then NO WAY can unborn humans EVER qualify as persons. V
:The proposed entry is very long. Perhaps you could suggest a much briefer entry? The article is overlength as it is. KillerChihuahua 18:11, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: ===================

message: To Abortion debate. I like this title very much, but simpler is often better. What do people think. Also, beginning a Template:Abortion to consolodate related articles in a box. Might be nice if we took care of a template:Pregnancy first though. -St|eve 01:10, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree w the move. ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 23:10, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggest move 

message: I made a major edit, overhauling about 1/2 of the article. I noticed a near complete absence of discussion of violence, abortion clinic bombings, assasination of abortionists, and so forth. That, and some of the more extreme protest tactics should be elaborated on, likely producing a new section. ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 04:45, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major edit 

message: I have tagged this article with OR, because of the final two sections, "Against moral permissibility, regardless of personhood" (mostly latter half), and "Personhood", which are heavily original research (not to mention super-kooky). Sdedeo 16:12, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original Research Tag 

message: I changed the title of the above URL (in External Links) to "Abortion experience questionnaire of a self-selected sample".
The original description of the link - "Survey of which women have abortions, and why" - was misleading at best: the survey sample is a "self-selected sample of the those who had a 'bad experience'". Would have removed the link outright, considering how little relevant information the report contains, but I am new and this debate is scary. Also, it is apparently used to back up claims in the "Polarisation" section, but I don't see how it relates.
Shoryuken 01:45, 01 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  http://www.abortionfacts.com/reardon/statistics.asp 

message: I removed the most obvious original research. It had grown to almost 3,000 words (the rest being 7,500 words). Str1977 19:46, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: 216 Original "research" essay

message: The following quote appears at the head of the History section:  "Many societies historically considered abortion a crime against nature."  Can anyone provide any object evidence for this claim?  Further down in the History section is the claim that the United States and India are among the countries where women are forced to have abortions against their will.  Can anyone offer any evidence for this claim? Rick Norwood 21:47, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: The most recent edit makes two claims that I would like to see evidence for.  The first is that more Christians opposed abortions than did those of other religions of the time.  (The word "pagan" is prejudicial.)  Second, that in opposing abortion Christians drew on the Bible.  Rick Norwood 17:47, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Kudos, well done. KillerChihuahua 16:43, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  drawing on the bible 

message: "Pro-life advocates generally argue against sexual education on the grounds that they send "mixed signals" to teens, especially girls. They also note that there is a correlation between widespread sex education in schools and an increase in teen sexual activity, resulting in rising rate of teen pregnancies, abortions, and sexually transmitted diseases. Instead they advocate a strong family and community advocacy of abstinence until marriage."
Hmmm...What exactly does ANY of this have to do with abortion?  All of these things mentioned seem like religious issues and do not pertain to abortion unless one wants to make the point that the only people who are disqusted by abortions are realigious which I highly doubt.  What evidence is there that most (weasled into the article as "generaly") pro-lifers advance any of the above opinions, all of which are conspcuously religious?  What about the argument that just as easy to put a baby up for adoption as to abort it?207.157.121.50 06:21, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's not be obtuse here: Contraception and sex ed are deeply related to the abortion issue for the simple reason that no women has ever gotten an abortion without first getting pregnant.  You can argue with the word "need", but it's a simple fact that abortions are motivated by unwanted pregnancies, so anything that prevents these also prevents abortions. Social policies that affect pregnancy are therefore relevant to the abortion debate. Alienus 17:24, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  sounds like religion to me 

message: In reading this article, I have come across what seem like some very strange phrases, such as: 
* The abortion debate is part of a large banana: Who do we protect? 
* the arguments on abortion usually seek to french toast the change
I have never heard of "french toasting" change, nor have I heard the word "banana" used to mean "question" or "debate". I would just change these, but I am puzzled as to why someone else has not already done this. Is the Wikipedia inserting random nonsense these days in order to catch people who use it without giving attribution? 
DrDeke 17:19, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Very Strange Phrases

message: A recent edit describes sex education as either "abstanance only" or "extra-marital sex friendly".  This seems very POV to me.  What do others think? Rick Norwood 23:08, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Your latest edit improves on mine.  Thanks. Rick Norwood 00:11, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ditto.  I was too cautious in editing it down.  Alienus 00:45, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "extra-marital sex friendly sex education" 

message: No mention of anything but Christian? Islam at least is easy to find sources for. This entry is biased - I will try to find time to come back and fix, but if someone else can please do. KillerChihuahua 01:18, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This is certainly important.  I do not have the knowledge necessary, but I hope that someone here does. Rick Norwood 15:07, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Religion

message: How exactly are we getting official prolife/prochoice positions? Is there an international comitee regulating pro-life/prochoice registration, kinda like a political party that I am not aware of? Smart assery aside, a possible suggestion. Split the article, either literally or just by organization into abortion debate arguments, and abortion debate advocacy.--Tznkai 00:54, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Official positions? 

message: This is obviously an unstable article, and thus does not meet the criteria. --Tothebarricades 04:56, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Delisted GA

message: sounds pretty pov in a cheesy lifetime channel kind of way. come on, we can do better than that paragraph.
I agree that the paragraph is completely worthless Rubikcube 20:08, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "whom do we protect?" 

message: It is worth mentioning the issue of parental/spousal/biological father notification/consent - regardless of a person's view on the right of the mother, many feel the father should have a say in the issue as well.  On the Abortion page, I have added the following:
:"Debate also focuses on whether the pregnant woman should have to notify and have the consent of others in distinct cases: a minor her parents; a legally married or common-law wife her husband; or a pregnant woman the biological father.  In a 2003 Gallup poll in the United States, 72% of respondants were in favour of spousal notification, with 26% opposed; of those polled, 79% of males and 67% of females responded in favour."
I was finding it difficult to incorporate this into existing sections here - perhaps there are suggestions? DonaNobisPacem 23:43, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have added this to the "Rights" section. DonaNobisPacem 01:27, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New section? 

message: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10853178/
U.S. conservatives step up overseas activities 
Joseph d’Agostino of the Population Research Institute, a Virginia-based anti-abortion group. “But with the Bush administration, pro-lifers feel there’s a real opportunity to stop the U.S. government from promoting abortion and sex education and population control in the Third World.”
There is a lot more - I will leave it to the more active editors of this article to determine if there is a place for this here. KillerChihuahua?!? 03:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Recent news

message: I feel that the use of the title Pro-Life contests neutrality because the antonym of Pro-Death is inaccurate. I feel this is just a method used to villify opposing views through suggestion. It would be better suited to stop using the movements self proclaimed Pro-Life title because it goes deeper than that. Anti-Choice might be a better title as that is the basis of the movement, taking away the choice of abortion and the choice of a mother. It would be more objective to place both movements on equal footing by keeping the argument Pro/Anti Choice. Fear The Ether 17:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be an even worse violation of POV than the current usage. If you wanted something more accurate, you would use pro- and anti- abortion, as each side would probably view that as a positive description of their own movement. --tjstrf 00:25, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, that suggestion violates the wikipedia naming convention of respecting self-identity. Second of all, most pro-choicers don't like abortions and aren't "pro-abortion" (and I think there is a reason that pro-lifers object to being considered anti-abortion, but I can't remember it). Third of all, both pro-life and pro-choice movements deal with other issues besides abortion, such as stem-cell research and euthanasia on the life side, and contraception and womens health issues on the choice side. Like I said above, self-identity is the most neutral way to go. It is not our place as wikipedians to try to correct the 'wrong' or POV titles of these movements.--Andrew c 00:44, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I meant within the context of this particular article, where we are dealing specifically with abortion supporters and abortion detractors, not the larger issue. However, self-identification is probably the best way to go simply because they are best known by those names regardless. I was just replying because I noticed no one had ever addressed this after I restored an IP editors deletion of it here anyway, so don't mind me. --tjstrf 01:05, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Movement Choice 

message: I'm confused why Eric Alterman's opinion book has a section in this article? It seems to relate remotely to the topic, further Alterman's explanation of pro-choice bias is dubious at best- how could those who support the status quo (legal abortion), be "reformist"? In my thinking this section should go, any thoughts?
:This section should be deleted unless someone can explain how the issue of media bias has entered the abortion debate.  Even then I cannot see that media bias would deserve its own section.  Either way it should not remain as a separate section. --Algernon1980 11:57, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that this section Media Bias should be removed entirely.  It should be moved to its own page (a book review), or to Media Bias.—Red Baron 16:08, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alterman? 

message: How can a US State ban all abortions if it clearly violates the right to privacy?  I am currently studying AP Government in High School, and I thought that the states could not infringe on the right to privacy that is implied by the Bill of Rights.  I thought that this would violate the privileges and immunities of Section 1 of the 14th amendment.  Could anyone please clarify this?--BorisFromStockdale 20:02, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To clarify, I am asking abot the South Dacota ban.--BorisFromStockdale 20:04, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

text: When the Bill of Rights was first being debated, some people were worried that later on, someone might think that only the rights listed in the bill were protected. That is why Amendment 9, which explicitly says that listing some rights does not mean you do not have others, was included. Thus a "strict constructionist" who says only clearly stated rights are protected is like a "fundamentalist Christian" who does not take every sentence in the New Testament seriously, i.e. these people are using their favorite parts of a text to give authority to their positions. DanielCristofani 22:32, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Abortions Ban

message: Alienus wrote: The entire "Overview" of "Modern Arguments" section has grown from a brief summary to an OR essay that cannot be repaired. I'm not so sure that I accept Alienus' OR verdict but the section has certainly become too unwieldy for an encyclopedia article. I am leaning towards agreeing that it needs to be pruned back to a brief summary or deleted altogether. I'd like to gauge the opinion of other editors on this. AvB ÷ talk 22:38, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  The "Overview" section is in no sense an overview, it lacks focus and structure, and it tends towards OR.  At the least it should be pruned drastically, but I would not object to it being deleted entirely.  I think it should be replaced by 2-3 paragraphs summarising  arguments commonly encountered in the popular (as opposed to academic philosophical) debate over abortion.  This would then fit in well with the following section that does focus on the philosophical debate. --Algernon1980 11:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: ''Overview of Modern Arguments'' section

message: This needs serious cleanup. Not the least of which is a clear definition of the subject of the article. My understanding is that this is an article about the ways in which abortion has been debated. As such clear points of contention, dimensions of argumentation, etc. seem notable but we need to be careful in almost every part of the article not to cross the line to original research. We don't want users who stumble across this article to think that this is a debate between wikipedians over abortion. Rather this is an article about the abortion debate. savidan(talk) (e@) 20:27, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cleanup 

message: Isn't it worth noting that there are no medical conditions in which abortion is a medically recognized treatment? Also, it is important to note the difference between performing a hysterectomy on a pregnant woman and an abortion; the two are not the same. Don't give an Ameriflag 06:41, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't believe that your statement is accurate.  There are a wide number of life-threatening conditions whose treatment that cannot be performed upon a pregnant woman without endangering the fetus.  For example, if a pregnant woman is diagnosed with aggressive cancer, she needs immediate chemotherapy to have any chance of survival, but these medicines would likely kill the fetus.  Therefore, before such a treatment, an abortion is indicated on medical grounds.  There are also other examples where an abortion is needed as part of treatment to stop uterine bleeding after, say, a car accident.  In short, I suggest that you research thing further before making any changes to this effect. Alienus 18:05, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  To save the life of the woman 

message: I have finished the major changes I wanted to make to the "Modern Arguments" section.  Hopefully the quality has been improved somewhat, but if people have concerns then by all means raise them here.  The length of this part of the article is about 3,300 words, which I think is reasonable considering it's about half (7,000 words in total wouldn't be against policy, would it?).  I'm now wondering if anything can be done to improve the first half of the article, which is currently unreferenced and rather piecemeal.  I myself would be less confident about making changes there, though I'd like to help where possible.--Algernon1980 11:46, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am also getting involved in working on this page; I have a few issues with the section you worked on (thanks for doing so much work, by the way) but I'm working my way down from the top first. I'm not sure if the parts I take issue with are your writing or not, but I'll definitely post details here when I get to them. In the mean time, please let me know if you (and anyone else too, of course) have any issues with my changes. Thanks, romarin[talk to her ] 01:57, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Modern Arguments" Overhaul Complete 

message: I think there really needs to be a section on the argument over fetal pain.  Does anyone know enough about that to contribute? MamaGeek Joy 11:12, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Only if a NPOV view is taken, and counter arguments presented: For example, a pro-life person could point out that Leprosy is a disease that often leaves adults with the inability to feel pain, and they still have right to live. CobraA1 05:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fetal Pain 

message: what this have to do here?wikipedia is not just usa.It should be moved.--Ruber chiken 13:56, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  History of the debate in the United States 

message: All the debate is turning in circules.In general the isues it's about arbitrary distinctions of thing that trensform gradually.we pass from white to black thrue all the scales of gray,and then we attemped to set a clear dinstinction for when white became black.But if you see the isue from a extremly technical side the problems desapear.In nature,natural selection makes it's best to increas the efficiancy of it's organism(acording to technical limitations).So for humans ther's instincts that ame to optimise the reproduction ,in a optimum balace of quantity-quality-self preservation(of the parents).So in the human population,peopol by peopol some instincts are more present than other's(to abort or not to abort),but on average they balance them selves to fit natural selection requirement's.That seem's a very hacked solution but nature does that all the time.So what i am saying is that the debate is rendered unsolvable in purpess because natural selection is interested primarly on the average result.So i'm saying that we schould take a decision acording to purely technical isues since aure emotions(insticts) were tempered with(biased) to accomodate other needs.--Ruber chiken 18:03, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  natural selection 

message: "Political sides have largely been separated into absolute extremes — either seeking to make all abortion illegal, or to [b]permanently remove laws restricting all forms of abortion[/b]. However, most citizens have more moderate or nuanced views than those espoused by pundits and politicians."
Emphasis mine. I realize this could be interpreted several ways, but the first interpretation that comes to mind is that the pro-choice movement wants to eliminate [b]all[/b] abortion laws, including the ones forbidding, say, end-of-third-trimester abortions. I've showed this excerpt to a few friends of mine, and all but one (out of 7 that happened to be around at the time. Strategy game night) initially understood it to mean that. As the paragraph doesn't seem to say much which isn't stated by the previous one, I suggest it be removed. 82.166.53.176 02:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right, so I removed it.  Al 03:58, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second paragraph a bit misleading 

message: I'm sure that most wikizens are liberal and pro-choice, but that doesn't excuse letting the article lean in that direction.
Clearly, people are trying not to do that, but there are a few places where this still needs to be addressed:
"The majority of both pro-life and pro-choice advocates believe that the values underlying the pro-life position are derived from religious beliefs. Many pro-choice advocates, however, believe that any resulting morals, ethics, and laws built upon religious values are predicated upon an inherent religious bias, in contrast to values derived from scientific fact and unbiased logical reasoning which they believe lead inevitably to morals, ethics, and laws consistent with their own position."
This paragraph glosses over the fact that some atheists are pro-life, and also makes the entire pro-life camp look anti-science.
Since this is a controversial issue, I didn't want to just make the edit, but how about this?
"The majority of both pro-life and pro-choice advocates believe that the values underlying the pro-life position are derived from religious beliefs. However, there do exist pro-life atheists, who contend that abortion is a moral and political issue rather than a religious one---but these are relatively rare. Many pro-choice advocates do argue, however, that since anti-abortion ethics are largely built upon religious values, they have no place in a secular society."
Here's another place that seems a little left-leaning as well:
"One aspect of the issue involves defining at what point an embryo or fetus qualifies as a person, and gains the legal and/or moral right to life. Even if that could be agreed upon, that right would still need to be weighed against the rights of the woman."
While strictly true, something about this last sentence seems to suggest that proving that a fetus is a person would be grossly insufficient to challenging abortion, but it wouldn't. It's a major factor---if not the major factor---in the debate. 
Here's my suggestion:
"One aspect of the issue involves defining at what point an embryo or fetus qualifies as a person, and gains the legal and/or moral right to life. Since it is generally considered wrong to end the life of a person intentionally, proving that a fetus qualifies as a person would pose a strong argument against abortion. However, it would still be necessary to weigh this argument against the rights of the woman, and many pro-choice advocates (e.g., Thomson) maintain that personhood is not enough to make abortion immoral."
Just my two cents; trying to preserve NPOV on an issue where that's especially hard. -Patrick N.R. Julius 04:14, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some sneaking POV 

message: This section on the whole is good, but it's really short, and it doesn't cite sources who hold these particular views or present any (even brief) arguments regarding each. -Patrick N.R. Julius 04:14, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regarding the timing section 

message: Why do we want any more? 87.242.143.17 00:07, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Babies

message: reading this over, i agree that it not only has neutrality and sourcing problems, but think it may not belong in article at all. that both sides have strong feelings is common sense, but how it has been presented in this section is speculative, biased OR. (with the pro-life "feelings" set up as a straw man for a separation of church and state argument, not opposing "feelings.")
...and what does it really add in terms of "light" to the debate to say that it is sometimes an emotional one? without neutrality and sources, section should stay out. "underlying values," section also.  if adequate sources can be located to explicate values/emotions, that combined subject probably only needs a sentence and can be worked into the pro-con pro-life/pro-choice arguments sections.
Cindery 15:56, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, it could be argued the other way very reasonably: Genetically, a fetus or zygote has a gender, even if the organs aren't developed yet. Full sexual maturity doesn't occur until the human is around a dozen years old. Same with the nervous system: It starts developing in the womb, and continues to develop outside of it. CobraA1 06:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "emotions" section

message: someone deleted this:
thumb|140px|left|Unborn childs grave in Bytom, Poland. "Dedicated in memory of unborn childs – victims of abortion." The poem says: "You will not hear my voice and my heart beat. The heart, that wanted to love you. Why didn't you want me mommy, why didn't you want me papa?"
image as "biased". 
I like Reductio ad absurdum so I will aks you: Is this: 
picture also "biased"? No, it is not – there is a fact shown on this picture. Just like on "unborn childs grave" - you can be antiantisemitic but you can denied that there was such  cover of german newspaper, and most of all you can't tell that this image is "biased" (bacause in few days some nazis will tell that Jews terryfying pictures from Oświęcim are also "biased" (because they show only one point of view). But actually this pictures shows facts – fact that Der Stürmer put extremly antisemitic article on cover, and fact that there is an unborn childs grave in Bytom - nobody tells if this facts are good or bad - but they exists, and "biased" is to trying to make them not exist by deleting them. Szczur Zosia 06:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Here are my thoughts. Images still have to conform to the NPOV policy, and verifiability. I could not find anything about this site on the internet. I serached for "Unborn childs grave" and "dzieciom nienarodzonym". I know the internet isn't everything, but this raises both notability and verifiability questions. On top of that, because of the supposed lack of significance of this image, are we giving the position held by the makers of the grave undue weight? --Andrew c 13:29, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Your nazi picture was in the way of our discussion so I commented it out.  --Chris Pickett 19:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Biased picture 

message: What in the world does because they allege that a fetus is a part of a woman's body mean. Is the fetus secretly not part of a woman's body? Is the giant lump that grows inside of a woman's body simply an illusion, and the fetus floats around in some autonomous zone outside of the woman's body? I'm not trying to be smart, but I don't see how this simply statement is an 'allegation'. What am I missing? Is the phrase "part of" controversial? Could it be changed to something else, because adding that 'alleged' part seems very odd, and possibly overly critical/skeptical simply because the statement is associated with the pro-choice position (comparatively, when pro-lifers point out that fetuses have the genetic make up of a homo sapien, should we word this as a simply allegation? of course not. Biased positions can mention basic biology without the need for qualification, no?)--Andrew c 06:24, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that the pro-life argument is that a fetus, while it develops inside of the woman's body, is genetically distinct from her, and thus should not be considered "a part of her body." Perhaps we could edit the sentence to establish that the pro-choice argument is not, generally, "a fetus is a part of a woman's body," but, "Women have the right to control their bodies. Fetuses develop inside of a woman's body, and, thus, women have the right to terminate a pregnancy." -Severa  (!!!) 06:42, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm... I think I understand. I guess I was right about the 'part of' being the disputed phrasing. There is something implied that a woman 'owns' everything inside of her body, while this idea is disputed. I think an alternate wording could work, but I'd like to see imput from Ross, or anyone else.--Andrew c 06:49, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Basic biology 

message: A real encyclopedia (the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) has absolutely no problem describing Thomson's thought experiment as "striking and effective".  Why is this so problematic here on Wikipedia? -- Cat Whisperer 12:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It should be described as such with appropriate citations, but in the article about the essay.  This article is about the abortion debate, not about a particular, admittedly influential essay that just so happens to discuss the abortion debate.  The fact that the article devotes text to the essay at all indicates its importance to the debate.  Why further bolster the prominence of the essay in this article?  And like I said in an edit summary, why not use "oft criticized" instead of "striking and effective" to describe the essay here?  The choice of one set of potentially objectionable descriptors over another is where the NPOV problem appears.  I added "well-known" to its description because I thought it would satisfy everyone and not be objectionable, though frankly that's not even necessary, since it wouldn't be included here if it weren't well-known.  But, again, it all comes down to the appropriate place to describe the essay, which is in the essay's Wikipedia article. · j e r s y k o talk · 15:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree.  I didn't know it was well-known before I came here, and in fact that was one of the reasons I removed "celebrated" and "famous" in the first place.  Michael Jackson is well-known, George Bush is well-known, but I've never celebrated A Defense of Abortion, and reading about something that is "well-known" without having known about it before makes me as a reader feel like part of the out-crowd.  Now, if you want to have "well-known within the field of modern philosophy" that's fine, but there's already a quote about that in the intro of the article, and it's too wordy for this page.  And finally, I'd disagree that well-known is a neutral adjective: it's leaning towards renowned and notable (would you say it was a good or bad thing to be well-known?).  If anything, why not put "controversial", since that implies well-known and also implies many pro/con arguments all in one word.  Or is controversial too negative for you?  Do you see why it's a POV issue?  Adjectives, even if justified by some quote somewhere (btw, 128 citations in Google Scholar is not a whole bunch; I know of papers with 10,000 citations, and they aren't even in Wikipedia), still don't really contribute anything; it's better to aim for dry scholarly brevity and relevant non-obvious facts (it's obviously well-known, since it has a highly-edited article and section in this main debate page; it's also obviously written in English; it's also obviously written by a female author; etc. etc.).  It might not be as entertaining for some people to read, but you're far less likely to annoy others who are trying to get to the meat of the article. --Chris Pickett 19:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, as I said, I don't think "well-known" is even necessary, and was proffering it merely as a compromise.  In any event, agree with the sentiment that it's best to simply not have any characterizations of the essay in this article. · j e r s y k o talk · 19:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry I was mostly replying to Cat Whisperer and not to you. --Chris Pickett 19:53, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Try assuming good faith every once in awhile.  Really, it helps. · j e r s y k o talk · 23:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what you mean by this.  I fully believe that your given explanation of why you are so dead set on removing what I consider to be highly useful and informative adjectives is your true motivation.  In other words, I am assuming good faith on your part, and I do not believe that you have some "hidden agenda", or whatever else might constitute bad faith.  I just disagree with you, and I honestly believe that your edits in this vein are making the article less informative and less useful to potential readers.  How does this go against WP:AGF? -- Cat Whisperer 01:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But "I will leave it to you all to remove any and all adjectives that you find offensive" is a little more than mere disagreement on the facts, no? (i.e., it assumes that we are editing because we find something "offensive", though I don't, for what it's worth)  I'm happy to drop it there, though, if you are. · j e r s y k o talk · 01:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's drop this then. -- Cat Whisperer 01:58, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Real encyclopedia vs. Wikipedia