Talk:Abortion/Archive 35

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"unsafe" v. "safe"

In short, what? Is "unsafe" a type the same way surgical is? What is "safe" abortion? Even under the best of circumstances an abortion is an invasive medical operation and the mother does incur risks. This section is stange, illogical and contradictory, I think there should be a link to the article Unsafe abortion at the end of this article but the two section should be removed. - Schrandit (talk) 05:22, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I included the definition of unsafe abortion in the edits I made. This is a categorization used by the World Health Organization, and one that is prevalent in the scholarly literature on abortion, so you might want to take it up with them. I think everyone agrees that abortion carries a small but finite risk (as does childbirth). What exactly do you find contradictory? MastCell Talk 05:32, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
No MastCell, everyone does not agree that abortion carries a small but finite risk. In fact, a pretty sizable majority of the American people believes that the later in pregnancy an abortion is performed, the greater the risk that it is equivalent to homicide. Speaking in shorthand at this talk page might not be so bad, if the article itself avoided such shorthand, and did not totally fail to discuss the reasons why this risk is thought to exist. The article starts out by acknowledging that death is involved, but people are justifiably comfortable with death. Thousands of sperm die every time a male masturbates. What this article avoids like the plague is any description of the reasons why so many people believe that not just death may he involved, but something equivalent to homicide, as pregnancy advances into it's later stages. Am I missing something, or is this a big oversight in this article?Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:01, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
Not exactly what is being discussed here, but I guess you can keep bringing it up in every single discussion here if you want. We currently clearly states the anti-abortion position argues that a human fetus is a human being with a right to live making abortion tantamount to murder. Would you be happier if we changed "murder" to "homicide"? I guess you want more detail than just that? I just don't think we need to mix ethical and political banter in with the medical explanations and details. Compartmentalize them, if you will. Also, I don't think interjecting the same argument over and over on the talk page is helpful. Keep it in one discussion header. (and I'm not helping, I know, by continuing this discussion in an offtopic location).-Andrew c [talk]13:39, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
If anyone is undecided about which word to use in a particular context, simply look at the words used by the reliable sources specifically discussing the issue. If the preponderance of sources use one of those words, then we use it. We shouldn't be imposing our preconceptions on what the sources say. --RexxS (talk) 14:18, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

"Safe" is a politicized definition, it describes an activity that is inherently risky (not outrageously dangerous, but by no stretch safe) as safe for the sake of political expediency, not fact and I think we're above that. It might make sense to discriminate between abortions that take place in a medical context and ones that don't but it doesn't make sense to pander to these definitions. It also doesn't make sense to include these distinctions in with a list of abortion methods. - Schrandit (talk) 06:19, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

"Unsafe abortions are characterised by the lack or inadequacy of skills by the provider, hazardous techniques and unsanitary facilities." World Health Organization page 3. If you'd read the source, you'd have known that. This talk page is for discussing improvements to the article, not a forum for expressing personal opinions: "an abortion is an invasive medical operation ..."; "everyone does not agree ..."; "a pretty sizable majority of the American people believes that ..."; "so many people believe that ...". First read reliable sources - there's plenty of them. Then neutrally summarise what the sources say. If there's uncertainty about what the sources are saying, bring it to this talk page and discuss those sources. There's no place for unattributed assumptions and speculation here. --RexxS (talk) 07:14, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I have looked at the source, a political body has decided to take something that is red and call it blue. This is not the WHO making a numeric or otherwise verifiable claim, in this instance they have decided to give one category of abortions a politicized name and that name is far from unassaliable. "Safe" is neither a accurate or helpful description and we are under no obligation to use it. - Schrandit (talk) 08:35, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
Do not use this page for voicing your own opinions on the subject (e.g. "is red"). Instead, discuss how this article can best provide a neutral summary of what reliable sources say. It isn't just a good idea, it's policy. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 12:27, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
It's not your place to look at a reliable source and decide that that it is being made by a political body or that the author is making unverifiable claims. Those sort of assertions and opinions about sources carry no weight, and for good reason. Articles are not made by writing your opinion and then cherry-picking sources to match it, while rejecting those that don't for spurious reasons. If your point is that WHO is not a reliable sources for health information, take it to the reliable sources noticeboard and get some consensus for that supposition. --RexxS (talk) 12:50, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps my last edit will address some of the concerns? I didn't like that we had two section headings in the article for "unsafe abortion", and I didn't like having one/two sentence, short paragraphs. So I combined two really short sections into one, which acts as an introduction to the health risks section. Seems relatively elegant to me, and it gets rid of the "safe abortion" header, which some found problematic. But make it clear, I made my edits to try to improve flow and readability, and not because I think the WHO has politicized a significant public health issue "unsafe abortion" or that I find the WHO unreliable or anything like that. -Andrew c [talk] 13:57, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
That looks a good deal better to me, thanks. - Schrandit (talk) 06:06, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Proposal on the labels. Drop them completely

Lots of angst above on the use of pro-choice, pro-life, pro-abortion, anti-abortion, etc. I propose using no labels at all.

I've been looking at the article on the musical group the Bee Gees. Yes, music, nothing to do with this complex moral issue, but it had a problem with where the members, or the band, came from. Musical articles like to say things like "Joe Bloggs was an American entertainer", explicitly stating where he was from. But the members of the Bee Gees were born in the Isle of Mann (not part of the UK), began their musical careers as kids in Australia, went to the UK to live, and also lived in the USA for a while. And that's what the article now says. It doesn't try to give them a simplistic label. That's what we should do here. Describe positions as briefly as we can, but avoid the politically and morally loaded labels completely.

It may be worth saying that some people, particularly those with extreme views, like to use the labels, but apart from that not use them here.

HiLo48 (talk) 21:33, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to explore this possibility further but I do think that there is utility in describing the two sides as we have articles on both that expand on the topic. - Schrandit (talk) 21:56, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Including all of abortion's names

The way that Climategate is referred to as "CPU research hacking incident", "abortion" should also be called by its other equally legitimate name, "baby murder". From a pro-life POV this is baby murder and we should not be oppressed by the leftist academic/government class. We should be able to include (after "abortion") the term we use to refer to abortion, baby murder. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.109.157.245 (talk) 12:46, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I have no objection to the basic argument here, because it is general WP policy to lay down redirects to an article under all terms which are commonly and unambiguously used to refer to the subject of said article. Thus, "Climategate" is a common and unambiguous moniker for what would be called (more precisely) the "CRU research hacking incident". Closer to home, WP applies the same principle in the case of partial-birth abortion (precise article title: "intact dilation and extraction," a phrase which, while hideously Orwellian, is also inarguably more precise than "partial-birth abortion").
However, while I see your general point, 71.109.157.245, I don't think it applies here. As an active pro-lifer, I very rarely see my fellow pro-lifers call it "baby murder" in public. They certainly liken it to baby murder, and abortion is certainly morally equivalent to baby murder, but they don't actually call it that. They call it, simply, "abortion." Maybe they shouldn't surrender that piece of rhetorical ground; maybe they should call it unbornicide. But they don't, and WP would be wrong to adopt an alternate name for abortion that isn't in common use.
Nor would the term "baby murder" be unambiguous, referring, as it often does, to infanticide rather than feticide. My two cents. --BCSWowbagger (not signed in on 24.245.45.254 (talk) 19:06, 18 April 2010 (UTC))
Well, for something to be called "baby murder" one would think it should have some direct connection to either babies or murder (or even both!). Unfortunately, whether elective or spontaneous, abortion is not murder, nor does it have anything to do with the death of a baby. This is not an ideological platform, it's fact. In many cases we are talking about some kind of feticide, as mentioned above, but this is far from the only aspect of abortion that is (and should be) addressed in the article. In any case, "killing" + "fetus/embryo" is a far cry from "murder" + "baby"... Let's not start clogging a surprisingly well-balanced article with inaccurate (and more than a little silly) terminology. 66.41.65.237 (talk) 21:48, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
Agreed, the very usage of the word "baby" for an unborn human (or other animal) is itself POV-dependent. George Orwell taught us, through mis-use of a language, to be careful! So, we don't count chickens before they hatch, because some eggs don't hatch. Similarly, we shouldn't count babies before they are born, because some are born dead not alive, and therefore a too-early count would be incorrect. V (talk) 15:40, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a forum, and it is ESPECIALLY not a political forum! So all posters in this section need to chill out immensely. The term I use to refer to Nazis is "Russian target practice" but I don't think that should be in the article about it. Baby murder is a completely and utterly POV term that is not even widely used. I agree with BCSWowbagger that it should really be called partial-birth abortion since it is more commonly used (see Talk:East Germany for a similar discussion on the names of articles), but I feel I need to point out that the term "intact dilation and extraction" is the polar opposite of Orwellian. In 1984, Newspeak shortens words so that they are as refined as possible to limit any possible interpretation other than the Party-defined one. As opposed to lengthening it for scientific/euphemistic purposes (depending on your view) which is the opposite.

Also, to the IP who started this section, it shows a complete lack of good faith and neutrality to assume that because a Wikipedian disagrees on whether or not we should call it baby murder, you are being oppressed by some vast left-wing conspiracy. Furthermore, you actually said you speak from a pro-life POV and not a neutral POV, in complete contradiction of the tenets of good editing and just plain common sense. I'm sure I don't need to remind you that as a Wikipedian, your POV is meaningless here. Commissarusa (talk) 20:59, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Maybe we shouldn't feed trolls (or continue forum-y conversations from over a month ago ;P ) -Andrew c [talk] 21:16, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Safer than childbirth

There's a sentence in this article that says: "Early-term surgical abortion is a simple procedure which is safer than childbirth when performed before the 21st week." There was previously a lot of discussion about this, because some editors felt that it denies abortion is unsafe for the embryo or fetus. So, there have been times when the sentence instead said: "Early-term surgical abortion is a simple procedure which is safer for women than childbirth when performed before the 21st week."

There was a big discussion about this in September 2007. I was not involved, being otherwise occupied. It's in Archive 29, here and here. Another option, instead of including "for women" in this sentence, would be to modify the heading so it's clear we're talking about health risks for the woman (though Andrew c has just reverted that approach). I don't really care which way it's done. Maybe there's a third way ("maternal health risks"?). But it does seem to me that something should be done.

If you like, I can go back through the history of this article, and figure out how this particular sentence and/or the heading has been phrased over the years. I do seem to recall that there has been a pretty firm consensus at some points in the past for including "for women" in this sentence (and some admins reverted changes with some pretty emphatic edit summaries).Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:50, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I've looked into this some more, and the person who put it best was the editor ElinorD: "Those two words don't push anything, but leaving them out does."[1] That phrase ("safer for women than childbirth") appears in reliable sources. For example, see:
McLain, Linda. The place of families: fostering capacity, equality, and responsibility, page 237 (2006): "safer for women than childbirth".
Goldstein, Leslie. Contemporary cases in women's rights, page 21 (1994): "safer for a woman than childbirth".
These sources are not implying that there's someone else who may be unsafe, but merely using the word "woman" because it fits well in the sentence. I realize that there will be objection to using the word "mother" or "maternal" (which are normal medical terms), so why not use the word "woman"?
Here’s what our third cited source (Grimes DA (1994). "The morbidity and mortality of pregnancy: still risky business". Am. J. Obstet. Gynecol. 170 (5 Pt 2): 1489–1494. PMID 8178896) says:
The three leading causes of maternal death today are pregnancy-induced hypertension, hemorrhage, and pulmonary embolism. Although comprehensive data on pregnancy-related morbidity are lacking, about 22% of all pregnant women are hospitalized before delivery because of complications. Women of minority races have much higher risks of death than do white women, and the same holds true for older women and those with limited education. For most women, fertility regulation by contraception, sterilization, or legal abortion is substantially safer than childbirth.
Also see:
Goldstein, Laurence. The Female body: figures, styles, speculations, page 61 (1991): "abortion is safer for the mother than childbirth".
Senderowitz, Judith. Adolescent health: reassessing the passage to adulthood, page 17 (1995): "safer than childbirth for women age 15-19".
Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:38, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Your "reliable sources" google search is deceptive. You listed the ONLY two books that contain your desired phrase. Yes, there are a total of two hits on google books for your preferred wording (in all fairness I've found two additional sources that have a similar wording "Abortions are statistically safer than childbirth for the mother during the first trimester" and "early abortion is 24 times safer than childbirth for women age 15-19". But, how many hits are there for "safer than childbirth" without such modification? If none of these sources feel it is necessary to add such a qualification, I feel like we are supporting a minority view, and thus violating weight, by going with the minimal sources we could google to support our preferred wording... We say in the first sentence that abortion results in the death of an embryo/fetus. DO we also need to say that health considerations for women undergoing the procedure are excluding the outcome of the POC? I think not, and the majority of "reliable sources" based on a google book search agree. -Andrew c [talk] 14:46, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
Please note that WP:MEDRS calls for a better standard than just WP:RS in cases like this. Journal articles describing the authors' research are treated as primary sources. We look for recent reviews, and where possible, recent systematic reviews. I would suggest PMID 18319189 and PMID 19201657 as providing a more WP:WORLDWIDE perspective than the above developed world focused sources. The vast majority of maternal deaths clearly occur in developing countries. Limiting the focus to rich countries misses the point entirely. LeadSongDog come howl! 15:47, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Andrew c, sure there are a lot of sources that also use the phrase "safer than childbirth". Likewise, there are a zillion sources that use the term "maternal health" and yet this article leans over backward to never use the word "mother" or "maternal", though this issue would be easily solved by writing "maternal health" in the heading instead of "health." One way we could preserve the phrase would be to write: "Early-term surgical abortion is a simple procedure which is safer than childbirth for most women, when performed before the 21st week."

Can we at least please track the cited sources? Abortion is safer than childbirth for "most women". Saying so in the article cannot conceivably imply anything "pro-life." You can even say the "vast majority of women" or "almost all women" or "women in most countries" or "women in almost all countries", et cetera. The point is to be less categorical (per the sources), while also not denying (or affirming) that there may be health risks for someone else.

Mifepristone is contraindicated with adrenal failure, hemorrhagic disorders, inherited porphyria, and anticoagulant or long-term corticosteroid therapy. Surgical abortion is contraindicated in patients with hemodynamic instability, profound anemia, and/or profound thrombocytopenia. In some cases childbirth is safer (and LeadSongDog is correct to point out that the degree of relative safety also depends on what country a woman lives in).

You're correct that this article starts out by mentioning death of the fetus or embryo, but that doesn't mean it would be okay to say much later in the article that "abortion is a completely harmless procedure for everyone involved." Which is how some people will reasonably read the sentence in question.

According to pro-lifers, the phrase "abortion is safer than childbirth" is a mantra for abortion advocates.[2] Can't we use a phrase that is a mantra for neither side, and that is more accurate too?

We might also consider using the word "slightly" given that (in the U.S. anyway) the risks from both early abortion and childbirth are vanishingly small. There is less than .01% risk of maternal death from childbirth in the United States and Europe. Additionally, perhaps we should also mention that early abortion is extremely unsafe relative to being nonpregnant? Let's not deceive readers into thinking that early abortion is risk-free.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:40, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

When a woman becomes pregnant, she has a choice to terminate the pregnancy or carry it to term. Therefore, the comparison generally made by reliable independent sources is between abortion and full-term pregnancy/childbirth. If you're aware of reputable sources making the comparison you suggest, please point them out.

In an absolute sense, the risks of death from childbirth and from (legal) abortion are both extremely small. In a relative sense, in the US, childbirth (7.06 deaths per 100,000 live births) is about 14 times riskier than abortion (0.567 deaths per 100,000 procedures, figures from PMID 16389015). So it would be accurate to say that abortion is safer than childbirth, that it is ~14 times safer, and that both childbirth and abortion are very safe in an absolute sense.

It might also be appropriate to note that these figures assume that abortion is legal and readily available. In countries where abortion is illegal, or where it is legal but access is restricted by various extralegal means, unsafe abortions are a significant cause of death (e.g. PMID 17126724).

I don't think anyone is trying to "deceive" readers into thinking abortion is risk-free. MastCell Talk 04:21, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with a lot of what you said, MastCell. I agree that we would be accurate to say that both childbirth and abortion are very safe in an absolute sense (which the article does not currently say). I agree that it would be appropriate to note that the figures about the relative safety of abortion and childbirth assume that abortion is legal and readily available (which the article does not currently do). And I'll AGF and assume that no one is trying to "deceive" readers into thinking abortion is risk-free (I hope that Andrew c would AGF and assume that my Google search was not meant to be "deceptive").
Also, we should not omit that there are risks associated with early abortion even in countries where abortion is legal, like the U.S. (as the article currently does). By putting in your factor of fourteen, we could accomplish that.
But here's what I think you haven't addressed: why can't we put "most women" somewhere in the sentence that says abortion is safer than childbirth (or alternatively put the word "maternal" in the section heading)? Merely saying that abortion has minimal health risks is really a lopsided method of expression.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:09, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm a little agnostic about how to best present the risk level. Going back to WP:MEDRS-friendly sources, PMID 15096333 (a review from Annals of Internal Medicine) states:

Abortion is one of the safest procedures in contemporary practice. However, in some developing countries where safe, legal abortion is not available, 50,000 to 70,000 women die of unsafe abortion each year.

Which is sort of what I was getting at above, although more concisely put. That same review compares the safety of abortion favorably with that of penicillin. (The risk of dying from an anaphylactic reaction to a dose of penicillin is 2 per 100,000, about 4 times higher than the risk of death from abortion). Whether that is a useful comparison to cite in this article would be a matter for discussion; I have no strong position.

It is generally understood that abortion is safer than childbirth at any gestational age. UpToDate says as much ("Overall, elective abortion at any gestational age is safer for the mother than carrying a pregnancy to term.") although I don't think it's an ideal source, and I'd rather cite the actual literature if we choose to include that fact. I'm not quite clear on what the proposed addition of "most women" refers to - is it meant to cover situations where abortion is illegal or otherwise inaccessible, where the risk of abortion is demonstrably higher? If so, IMO we should probably just come out and say as much, in the interest of clarity. MastCell Talk 18:06, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

If elective abortion at any gestational age is safer for the mother than carrying a pregnancy to term, then where the heck did the "21 week" figure come from in the present article? My understanding was that abortion gets riskier as time goes by, and eventually gets riskier than childbirth. If what the article presently says is flat wrong, then I hope someone corrects it.
As for including new info, I hope someone will insert that both childbirth and early abortion are very safe in an absolute sense, given that maternal mortality in developed countries is less than .01%. This is essential for NPOV. Also, if we say that our statistics apply for "most women in developed countries where abortion is legal" then we needn't necessarily get into details about what happens in other countries, or details about the women for whom the statistics might be different (e.g. women with contraindications). All of those details could be in footnotes or via footnotes. Additionally, we need to mention that even for those "most women" there is some risk involved (which is where your factor of fourteen would be helpful assuming it's accurate), and again this seems necessary for NPOV.
Using a term like "for most women" would kill two birds with one stone, if you will. It would not only help achieve the NPOV goals described above, but would also help us to avoid saying the equivalent of "abortion is very safe," which may not be quite accurate from every point of view (i.e. death of a tiny human being is involved, so something unsafe must be going on).Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:23, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Hmm. Re: 21 weeks, it appears to be based on a Guttmacher Institute fact sheet, which is in turn based on PMID 15051566 from the CDC. Figure 1 of that article shows mortality by gestational age, but the abscissa only goes up to 21 weeks - presumably because abortions after 21 weeks are extremely rare and data is lacking. I assume that the "21 weeks" figure was inserted here out of caution, since the cited source only shows data through 21 weeks. On the other hand, the UpToDate authors were probably willing to extrapolate existing data beyond 21 weeks, but as best I can tell that is a matter of expert opinion rather than hard data. MastCell Talk 22:08, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Well, we seem to have consensus that it would be okay to fix up this section of the article in one way or another. Do we need a draft at the talk page first, or shall one of us just go ahead and edit the article, subject to change? And which editor would like to take the lead? There's no sense having multiple first drafts.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:12, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure we're agreed on what needs to be fixed. In any case, I'm going to step back - it might be good to hear from some other editors on the topic. MastCell Talk 22:29, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Okay, maybe Andrew c or others have some thoughts about it.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:34, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm all for making revisions based on better, medical sources for the purpose of accuracy and WP:MEDRS. I consider the initial issue raised here unimportant, and I don't think we need to give a nod to the view that "while abortion may be safe for pregnant women, abortion isn't safe for the tiny human being" anywhere in this section. That is not to say that I may not be convinced otherwise based on new, significant WP:MEDRS. But I really don't think it is a good practice to come to an article with a POV, then go looking for sources. We should be following sources, and representing majority views, and taking not of weight were applicable. All that said, I'm all ears to proposals. And feel free to make bold changes to the article as well (anyone!) As it stands, it seems like there is basic agreement that there may be some technical adjustments needed to the figure concerning safety, and perhaps a clause added about relative safety of both procedures. This is a bit technical, and I haven't looked into any of the sources, and have been busy with other matters, so I'm probably not a good candidate for a re-write. -Andrew c [talk] 23:25, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Andrew c, if I were to insert into this section that, "abortion has a low risk for everyone involved, relative to childbirth" then that would be fine with you? It implicitly denies that there is any significance to the death that occurs. Arent' we supposed to be NPOV? I think we should steer as far from such statements as possible. Anyway, I'll go ahead and try some bold changes when I get a chance.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:30, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
I think we can give the reader a minimal degree of credit and assume that they understand the impact of abortion on the fetus. It seems awkward and repetitive (at best) or polemical (at worst) to belabor this point in the "health risks" section. MastCell Talk 23:44, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Nor should we go out of our way, at all possible opportunities, to use phraseology that denies anyone is involved but the woman. Neutral phraseology should be acceptable.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:53, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
I agree with that principle, but I do not agree with your application of it here, nor with your concept of "neutral" language in this instance. I don't believe that an objective (or even minimally literate) reader, reviewing this article, would conclude that it "denies" that abortion harms the fetus. I will withdraw and await additional input. MastCell Talk 23:58, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Been a while since I've weighed in an abortion discussion, has it ever been outlined/debated when we draw the line in the sand for the fetus' health matters, if ever? I regard the fetus as a welcome parasite, meaning that in the end indeed it is the host that matters, and that is what we write towards. On the other hand, acknowledging the "death" of the fetus is appropriate, but that doesn't seem to be a health risk, rather a result. Also, obviously an abortion is for a women, not a fetus. So grammatically that follows, I think. - RoyBoy 04:07, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Looking a 4th time found an issue, every"one" involved, determines the fetus is an individual. That is not the case, a fetus has the elements of an individual, but they are in development. There is a difference. - RoyBoy 04:22, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
The initial point here seems to include women on the phrase, it's reasonable and I don't see the problem of making that change. Although it should be already implied to most of the readers that abortion causes the death of the baby other consequences can't be suddenly ignored when saying it's safer, otherwise it may imply the fetus has the same chances from dieing during the pregnancy process compared to the successfulness of the abortion procedure in killing the fetus.
Another point raised is that abortion is only safer when done in specific conditions.
RoyBoy, your position that the "fetus is not an individual" is not a NPOV, others disagree. From the medical POV human fetuses are usually cared as humans with individual characteristics and needs. Most individuals are also "in development" during a large part of their lives after childbirth--Nutriveg (talk) 12:36, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
It's closer to NPOV than the alternative. An individual is a separate entity, a fetus is not (attached to mother-to-be). Disagreement does not alter this. Medical POV is merely a reflection of their individual characteristics (elements mentioned above). If I am missing something I'd be curious to know, but to even infer a fetus is an individual is less NPOV than clarifying they are not yet. - RoyBoy 20:05, 29 May 2010 (UTC)
No. The opening of the lead paragraph makes it clear that the death of the foetus is involved. It's not an implication but an explicit statement. That is nowhere hear on the same level as an implication - in your opinion - that because we do not explicitly refer to the woman, that the foetus might be as likely to survive the abortion process as to survive pregnancy. The longer I think about this point, the more it sounds like a pro-life talking point. I can imagine the sneering tone, "Yeah, abortion is safer... for the mother." That's the problem I see with it. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 13:36, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Well I do hear claims like " in the first days there's low probability that an embryo/fetus will result in a successful childbirth", some methods described in the intro (like herbal abortifacients, the use of sharpened tools, physical trauma, and other traditional methods) aren't very much effective and an unskilled reader may not know the significant efficacy difference between those methods. So mentioning the woman should avoid other implications by some readers.--Nutriveg (talk) 13:52, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
I removed two sources from the Guttmacher Institute that supported the phrase because that's not a neutral source, I'm unaware of who Grimes is, the author of the other source, so I can't say anything about. That 1994 article conclusion does not support the text, it's a US review, it says "for most women" and can be used only to compares risk of mortality, not other health risks.--Nutriveg (talk) 14:15, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
  • To go back to a request for sources from Anythingyouwant regarding the relative safety of abortion vs. childbirth: Elective Abortion] from eMedicine states: "At every gestational age, elective abortion is safer for the mother than carrying a pregnancy to term." MastCell Talk 20:48, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Okay, thanks, I will get around to re-working this section of the article in "due" time. If you have further sources regarding the other issues we've discussed in this talk page section, please feel free to share.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:38, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
Having thought about this a bit more, I don't think it's appropriate to insert into this article a comparison of the risk of death from childbirth relative to the risk of death from abortion. To be NPOV, it would also be necessary to include a comparison of the risk of death from contraceptives, for example. Likewise, it would be inappropriate to insert into the childbirth article a comparison of the risk of death due to abortion. The place to include all of these comparisons would be in the family planning article, and I have done so.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:26, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
It's not about being completely neutral, and giving all possibly views equal weight. It's about presenting all notable views with due weight. I believe it has been established through multiple reliable sources, and google search results :), that this comparison IS notable in the context of abortion. Is it notable in the context of the much more broad and general topic pregnancy? That's really not something worth discussing on this talk page, but perhaps something to consider elsewhere. -Andrew c [talk] 17:30, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Given that multiple editors do not find the comparison particularly useful for this article, why not just have a Seealso at the top this section pointing to the pertinent section in the family planning article? I really don't think that the comparison is any more suitable for this article than it would be in the childbirth article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:42, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
With all due respect, I'm always wary of editors finding sources useful or not, so could I suggest that we go back to our sources for abortion, especially reviews? If the comparison is made within such sources, then it's a good indicator that something about the comparison should be included in this article – if not, then we can see it is not relevant. --RexxS (talk) 17:58, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I'm not suggesting that the comparison to childbirth is non-notable. It definitely is notable, and reliable sources say so. The only issue is putting it in the correct Wikipedia articles. If it were to go into this article, then I don't see why it wouldn't also belong in the childbirth article. Comparisons like this belong in a Wikipedia article that compares different family planning methods. It's much more relevant there.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:15, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Sorry I wasn't clearer. There are many sources that deal specifically with abortion. I was hoping that consulting those would give us the indication about whether those writing in the field made use of the comparison. If the writers on childbirth also made the comparison, then I could see a good reason to include it there. I'm no expert on this topic, so I'll always prefer to follow the lead of our sources. I must admit – and it's probably a cultural phenomenon – that I've never considered abortion as a family planning method, but if reliable sources on the topic say it is, I'm certainly not going to disagree. --RexxS (talk) 19:10, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Looking at the universe of reliable sources on abortion, I don't think they're requiring us to include the comparison to childbirth (and not the comparison to contraceptives) in this particular Wikipedia article, as opposed to a more general Wikipedia article like the family planning article. If you search on Google Books for abortion, you get 1,920,000 hits. But then search for abortion and childbirth: only 143,000 hits. And then search for abortion and childbirth and death: 36,400 hits. These results are not determinative, but they do perhaps suggest that the pro-choice mantra "abortion is safer than childbirth" does not have to be documented in this particular Wikipedia article, while omitting the comparison to contraceptives. A few days ago, I was willing to support inclusion of the mantra in this article, because it does have a factual basis. But since then other editors have persuaded me otherwise, though my mind is still open about the matter.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:27, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
A "Google search" is not WP:RS, we can certainly cite that as pro-choice mantra, but I'm not sure it should belong to the health section since we should cite other POVs as well which can turn that section lengthy.--Nutriveg (talk) 19:51, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I was not suggesting that this article mention or cite a Google search. A Google search "is helpful in identifying sources, establishing notability, checking facts, and discussing what names to use for different things (including articles)." See WP:Search engine test.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:57, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Thank you, AYW, I understand better now. I had honestly not made the connection between "pro-choice" and the phrase until now. Perhaps because I live in the UK, such polarised positions have never impinged on my perception of abortion; I don't think I've ever interacted with anyone expressing a strong "pro-life" stance in real life. I can understand that those subscribing to the different viewpoints would be sensitive to statements that seem to favour one side and perhaps react as a "red flag to a bull". Apologies for my cultural near-sightedness. Nevertheless, I'd still urge editors to go back to the reliable sources and reflect only what they say. I accept that there is a vast literature on this topic, but it's not unique in that respect. The solution that Wikipedia recommends to us is to forget our own beliefs and concentrate on reporting sources, as best we can. I know that can be difficult. --RexxS (talk) 20:01, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Well, I'm not pro-life (I seem to be repeating this a lot lately), not that you necessarily implied I am. It's important for this article to stay on topic. See Wikipedia:Writing_better_articles#Stay_on_topic (this is a good explanation that I recommend).Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:06, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Why Not Have a Section on "Dependency of attitudes on developmental stage" ?

Most people are neither purely pro- life nor purely pro- choice. There is a whole range of positions and reasons for those positions, most of which are linked to the biological condition of the embryo or fetus. This is true of the positions that governments take, and it is true of the positions that individuals take. Fighting about which two terms to use for the extreme positions dumbs down and polarizes this article, absent an intelligent description of why many women seek to get abortions earlier rather than later: the desire to do no harm.Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:41, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I'll assume most of you editors agree this is a glaring omission from this article. That being so, I wonder if the admins who are long-time caretakers of this article would be interested in WP:Writing for the opponent. If not, I'll get started on a draft section in a few days.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:45, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
I really have no idea what you are talking about, so I look forward to seeing what you mean. If you give me a couple sources as an example of what you mean, I might be able to come up with something, but "Dependency of attitudes on developmental stage" does not compute to me. Sorry. -Andrew c [talk] 13:14, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
I don't see how my initial comment in this section could be clearer. That it reads like gibberish may have more to do with how it's read than how it's written. What is unclear about the idea that many men and women avoid or discourage later abortions as compared to earlier abortion because of the more life-like characteristics that appear as gestation progresses?Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:16, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
So that's a "No" on giving me a couple example sources....? -Andrew c [talk] 18:54, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
The POV I described is extremely well-known. If you don't realize or acknowledge that it exists or acknowledge that it is comprehensible, then I don't see how providing sources to you would help. Part of WP:Writing for the opponent is finding reliable sources. If I were to give you sources, then I would doubtless become a target for picking a bad set of sources. I'll just draft a section in a few days with lots of sources, and then the usual editors can attack it, I'll go for an RFC, et cetera, et cetera.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:02, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
"No" it is! Thanks for nothing :P -Andrew c [talk] 20:18, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
Another possibility would be, as soon as you find the sources that you are going to work from, cite them in the subsection below and we can all join in a collaborative effort to write some text from them. Establishing consensus beforehand rather than having an edit war is usually a better route. --RexxS (talk) 21:25, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Sounds interesting, I'll wait to see how it turns out. - Schrandit (talk) 06:06, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to point out a shortcoming of this text in the "Abortion Debate" section, which is relevant to this section of the discussions here. "Generally, the anti-abortion position argues that a human fetus is a human being with a right to live making abortion tantamount to murder. The pro-abortion availability position argues that a woman has certain reproductive rights, especially the choice whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term." The second sentence fails to bring up the importance of the word "person". Note that the U.S. Constitution does not use the phrase "human being" anywhere, but it does use the word "person" a great deal. And there is a very significant piece of evidence that the two things, "human being" and "person", are not always the same thing, legally speaking: The U.S. Constitution requires that a Census of all "persons" be conducted every 10 years --the Founding Fathers were directly responsible both for that part of the Constitution and for the specification of what data should be collected in the very first Census of 1790. Unborn human beings have never been counted as persons in any Census!, including the current Census of 2010. It should be very clear, then, that just as one should not count one's chickens before they hatched, the attitudes of the writers of the U.S. Constitution did not include the notion that unborn human beings qualified as persons. Reference: http://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/index_of_questions/ V (talk) 16:57, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

You might want to bring that up at the Roe v. Wade article, since that article deals with U.S. legal issues more than this one does. And you might want to keep in mind that dogs and cats are not persons, and yet that does not mean all laws are unconstitutional that prevent cruelty to animals.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:07, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
Do note that the SPCA kills more non-farm animals than anyone else (not counting environmental destruction). Certainly they do it as humanely as possible, and I'm sure that even an anti-abortionist would agree that if an abortion must be done (such as if a pregnancy is ectopic), then it should be done as humanely as possible. But the main abortion argument is not about how to do an abortion, but whether. --And that's why various other issues are introduced, such as the faulty concept of claiming that unborn human beings automatically always qualify as legal persons, without ever at any developmental stage qualifying as mere animal bodies. V (talk) 17:46, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia is world-centric not specific to the US, it's not a legal forum neither, the fetus has a complete individual human DNA, so it does qualify as human, at least for those who see it that way, so the definition is OK when describing their POV.--Nutriveg (talk) 19:17, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
What? A cell scraped off the inside of my cheek has "a complete individual human DNA"; so do the white cells in a tube of blood; but no one would consider them "human". I don't think you're correctly parsing the pro-life argument, which is that a fetus has not only a human genome, but the capacity to develop into a human given the right gestational environment. MastCell Talk 21:37, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
The "capacity" argument is inherently flawed. You have the capacity to fall down a stairway and break your neck. Does the fact that that capacity exists mean it must become realized? I think you will say "NO!". Just as there are in actual fact no sorts of capacity at all that absolutely/inherently must be realized. There are many types of capacity that human people might want to be realized (capacity to obtain next meal, for example). But none that must, for the Universe to continue to exist. V (talk) 08:01, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
A scraped cell of your cheek doesn't have an individual human DNA, it has the same DNA as yours, it's part of you, if you want to cut your arm instead of scrap your cheek that's your problem, that's not the case of a fetus that carries the individuality of a human not of "any animal" as pointed above. I won't further discuss when life starts or how other governments around the world define it starts at conception, since this is not a place to debate. I just pointed to someone which wanted to disqualify fetuses as mere animals, where I pointed to the individual complete human DNA and the definition used by those involved in the phrase.--Nutriveg (talk) 22:22, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
It is quite factual that human bodies are animal bodies, similar in many ways to a large variety of other animals in the world, and almost all of which are each as biologically unique in its own way as each human is biologically unique in its own way. The thing that makes humans more than only animals is the magnitude of their minds' abilities. Have you ever contemplated what human society would be like if every human being had an animal-level IQ? In what way would such a human species qualify as more than just another variety of animals??? The fossil record plainly shows us ancestral hominids that were indeed more animal than otherwise; they didn't start to control fire until less than 2 million years ago. How much brainpower does it take to dare to control fire? Brain sizes of large gorillas peak at about 700 cubic cm; the first hominids to use fire had an average adult brain size of at least 800cc. http://www.stanford.edu/~harryg/protected/chp22.htm Meanwhile, a modern human baby typically starts out with less than 400cc of brainpower (and therefore every fetal stage has even less, including zero at conception). http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/ViktoriyaShchupak.shtml There is no way a human fetus qualifies as more than a mere animal, in terms of both body and mind, with respect to every moment of its existence as a fetus. V (talk) 08:01, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
Several animals have bigger brains than humans have. Anyway: (1) size is not determinative, (2) a laptop computer is a lot smaller than a 1960s era mainframe computer but can do much more, (3) when people are sleeping the performance of their brains is unimpressive (we can have nightmares!) but that doesn't mean it's fine to kill sleeping people, and (4) most important of all Wikipedia is not a forum.Anythingyouwant (talk) 14:53, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
Agreed, Wikipedia is not a forum. Neither it is a place for people to make remarks that are nonsense, such as "having human DNA automatically means an animal is more than just an animal". Bad Joke: Man-eating tigers have human DNA inside them...(temporarily, of course). At least I was size-comparing only-primate brains; it is not sensibly reasonable to directly size-compare them to other animal families, which you appear to be trying to do. And your remark about sleeping people has a basis in nonsense, too. Do you say that a professional piano player is not any such thing when not seated at a piano? The sleeping person has actual more-than-animal mental abilities that simply aren't being used while asleep. A human fetus has no actual mental abilities that are more than merely animal abilities. And the Courts have indicated that a brain-dead adult human on life-support can be disconnected because of having utterly lost all actual abilities to be more than merely animal (indeed, because of being on life support, such a human has less mental abilities than an ordinary animal).
Asking a question (even if perhaps rhetorical) is probably not a very intelligent way of ending a conversation.  :-). Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:54, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
Ah, ok. By "individual", you meant "unique". Got it. MastCell Talk 22:39, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
Unique would be ideal, but it seems several editors do consider a fetus a full individual, hence the entire "abortion is safe for whom /everyone?" meme in the first place. I repeat it is incorrect to find a fetus to be an individual as it is not separate entity. DNA, brain, heart beating, soul(s) / life force are all moot by this prima facia reality. What footprint that leaves upon NPOV assessment of abortion safety is a little tricky. - RoyBoy 02:30, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Sources for "Dependency of attitudes on developmental stage"

  • Crock, Rosemary (2007). "Abortion decision-making attitudes of adolescents attending Roman Catholic schools" (PDF). PhD Thesis. Manhattan, Kansas: Kansas State University. pp. 93–97. – This study doesn't really address the effect of stage of pregnancy on making a decision about abortion, but does contain a sizeable list of references that may contain some information immediately relevant to the issue. --RexxS (talk) 23:55, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
    • Funny. I actually came across that study when I was doing my search, and didn't give it a second glance because I don't think it is what Anything is getting at... but that doesn't mean it may not be useful for this article! -Andrew c [talk] 02:57, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
      • Yes, I nearly discarded it until I spotted the references which may give some leads. While reading it, what then struck me was the analysis on page 86 "There will be no interaction effects on the four scenario dimensions predicting students’ attitudes about abortion. - Rejected". It shows that each of the factors affecting the abortion-decision were inter-related. That implies we are very likely going to find difficulty in extracting data concerning just the "stage of development" from any study which discusses it. --RexxS (talk) 14:29, 5 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Abortion in the United States#By trimester of pregnancy has three references that give some raw data on public opinion, but only for the USA.
  • Societal attitudes towards abortion has a number of references with data on attitudes to abortion, with the Urugayan survey specifically referencing the right to abortion in any circumstances in the first trimester. --RexxS (talk) 00:27, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Aspects of prenatal development relevant to abortion decision

Okay, as mentioned earlier at this talk page, I think this Wikipedia article is unduly weighted to the pro-choice and pro-life extremes, whereas most people are in the middle, and those people link their opinions to particular aspects of fetal development (presence of heartbeat, presence of electrical activity in the brain, presence of human form, fetal movement, et cetera). This article mentions none of those biological aspects, except for fetal pain, which seems like undue weight for fetal pain. And I don't think it's adequate to merely link to the embryo and fetus articles, which do not distinguish between fetal characteristics that are relevant or not relevant to the abortion decision. Anyway, I did some web-surfing today, and can give you the following partial draft. Again, I would prefer to have some of our more enthusiastic pro-choice editors and admins do some work on this, in the spirit of WP:Writing for the opponent (I'm not pro-life myself, but am not pro-choice either)....

Most people favor increasing legal protection for an embryo or fetus as it becomes increasingly developed, so that abortions will be performed sooner rather than later.[1][2] Additionally, women often prefer to abort “a formation of cells, rather than this fetus that was so developed.”[3][4] According to this type of viewpoint, which is neither strictly pro-choice nor strictly pro-life, some aspects of fetal development are more relevant to the abortion decision than other aspects. The relevant ones are suggested by informed consent laws, which may also encompass additional information such as risks to the woman.

Some informed consent laws have been criticized as using “loaded language in an apparently deliberate attempt to ‘personify’ the fetus,”[5] but their information mostly “comports with recent scientific findings.”[6] That information about fetal development goes beyond the possibility of fetal pain, and may include the following:

Blah, blah, blah (heartbeat, brainwaves, movement, shape).

[1](ref)Gallup, George. The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 2003, page 20 (2003).(/ref)

[2](ref)Wardle, Lynn. The abortion privacy doctrine: a compendium and critique of federal court abortion cases, page 110 (1980): “the more developed the fetus is, the greater the percentage of interviewed subjects who would not permit an abortion for non-therapeutic reasons.”(/ref)

[3](ref)Kushner, Eve. Experiencing abortion: a weaving of women's words, page 164 (1997).(/ref)

[4](ref)See also Shrage, Laurie. Abortion and social responsibility: depolarizing the debate, page 57 (2003): “A woman who aborts later than she could have imposes death on a creature that is more developed and sentient.”(/ref)

[5] (ref)Gold, Rachel and Nash, Elizabeth. State Abortion Counseling Policies and the Fundamental Principles of Informed Consent, Guttmacher Policy Review, Fall 2007, Volume 10, Number 4.(/ref)

[6] (ref)Richardson, Chinue and Nash, Elizabeth. “Misinformed Consent: The Medical Accuracy of State-Developed Abortion Counseling Materials”, Guttmacher Policy Review

Fall 2006, Volume 9, Number 4.(/ref)

Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:29, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Good research. I've only had time so far to study the first two references and I would advise that since the Wardle book relies for its conclusion on the 1979 Gallup Poll data, you might as well just use 2003 Gallup Poll. Although the book has the advantage of being a secondary source, it's very out of date (1980) to use to support a statement about public opinion. The 2003 Gallop Poll will need some care, as it's a primary source. It's interesting that it shows how the question distorts the answers, since 24% thought abortion should be legal in any circumstances, but only 10% thought it should be legal in the third trimester! It seems that at least 14% changed their minds when asked to focus on a particular factor. But that's the danger of us trying to analyse a primary source. We should note, of course, that the poll only measured opinion in the USA. For the first sentence, how about:
  • When asked if abortion should be legal in the first trimester, two-thirds of Americans were in favor. However, in the case of the second trimester, only a quarter agreed. Approval dropped below one fifth for the third trimester.[1]
I don't know whether readers would have a preference for approximate fractions or raw percentages, as polls with sample size of about 1,000 have confidence limits around ±2%. I'll take another look tomorrow. --RexxS (talk) 00:27, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
The advantage of Wardle is that it is not a primary source, and it extracts a sensible conclusion from poll data. I would prefer not to descend into minutae about trimesters and such. The point is: the earlier the better, according to the respondents, and there's no indication from their responses that they support the trimester framework or think in terms of trimesters. It should not be difficult to find further secondary sources that address the point that Wardle addressed.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:36, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
This thread shows promise IMO. I've read the Norwegian Wikipedia article(s) on abortion. They use quite a bit of space on the results of opinion polls internationally and in Norway including trends from the 1960s to today. It's interesting reading; most of the references are to newspapers.
(Norway: abortion legal from 1964 by application to a committee. From 1978, abortions have been freely available through the end of the 12th week, and that is when "97-98%" of them happen. After that there still is a committee which since 1978 has been allowed to use social indications. Between 20 and 25% of women have at least one abortion in their lives. An unreferenced claim: Chile, Nicaragua, Oman og Malta are the only countries in the world where abortion is not allowed under any circumstances.)
Perhaps, too, there might be information about why the low percentage of late-term abortions, happen at all. They are extraordinary, and availability can't be the only reason for them. This seems to be "covered" in Abortion in the United States, but not more generally. --Hordaland (talk) 04:16, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The disadvantage of Wardle is that it's analysing 30 year old data on public opinion. Also it's worth remembering that Gallop phrases the questions as "in the first/second/third three months of pregnancy", so the data that Wardle looks at is compartmentalised by trimester. Nevertheless, if you want to avoid the primary source, I'd suggest:

  • In 1979 a large majority of Americans considered the stage of fetal development to be a significant factor affecting the decision to abort. As the fetus develops, support for allowing abortion decreased.[ref Wardle, referencing 1979 Gallop Poll ISBN:9780842021708]

I think there's a problem with your quote from Kushner. It's a huge leap from a source narrating one woman's (Annika) experience to the generalisation "women often prefer ..." - I hope you'll agree. I'm also unhappy that picking one woman's story does not accurately characterise the source. What about Melba, a doctor, who said "women who believe a seven-week old fetus is the equivalent of a baby have been fed a line of bull about the level of development of the child"? --RexxS (talk) 15:55, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. The several sources that I listed barely scratch the surface of the sources that support the draft text I wrote. So, I'm not just looking for the best way to summarize those few sources I listed. I'll list more as I have time. I'm most curious about whether other editors agree (based on their own experience and any further sources they'd like to add) with the main point I was making, regarding undue weight. Also, I don't think that the viewpoint of "Melba" that you mention is really pertinent, because it doesn't contradict (or even address) that women generally want to obtain or allow abortions before a lot of prenatal development occurs ("Annika" didn't say that a lot of development occurs by 7 weeks).Anythingyouwant (talk) 16:13, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Here's a source that addresses your concern about use of the Gallup poll data:
(ref)Saad, Lydia. Abortion Views Reviewed as Alito Vote Nears (2006-01-20): "When Gallup asked the public about the legality of abortion according to the stage of the development of the fetus rather than the specific circumstances involved, nearly two-thirds say abortion should be legal in the first three months of pregnancy. Two-thirds or more say it should be illegal in the second and third trimesters."(/ref)
Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:17, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
  • This seems to be coming at the question by asking why women choose not to have an abortion, and it seems to focus largely on public opinion in the US (perhaps making it more appropriate for abortion in the United States). I'm a bit wary of starting with a thesis (the developmental stage of the fetus is a key factor in decision-making) and then looking for sources to support it, although I recognize that good material can emerge that way.

    If we want to follow where the sources lead, and address the factors that influence a woman's decision to have (or not have) an abortion on a less US-centric basis, then we could start with something like PMID 19517213 (a 2009 review of the published literature on the topic). Also see PMID 18637178 (which is freely available thanks to your tax dollars at work); this review does mention that experiences "are related to gestational age, for example, in one study a medical termination before any symptoms of pregnancy were perceived was described as involving a 'loss' whereas a surgical termination was described as a 'death'." Although it hardly emphasizes the point among many other factors, which makes me wonder a bit about undue weight. MastCell Talk 16:49, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional sources. Those are valid points you make, but there are countervailing considerations. This article recognizes two extreme POVs (pro-life and pro-choice) while not recognizing a third and more common POV that is linked to prenatal development; this is a distinct issue from what factors are relevant to women who get abortions. And regarding the latter, this article mentions a bunch of factors but omits prenatal development. Since prenatal development is relevant here in multiple ways, and since it is a subject of informed consent laws, and since aspects of prenatal development that are relevant to abortion are not described in any WIkipedia article, there may be a problem that we can solve. Anyway, it will be interesting to see what more editors think. In the mean time, I'll continue to investigate as time permits.Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:26, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses, AYW. You say above that Melba's view isn't pertinent because it doesn't address that women generally want to obtain or allow abortions before a lot of prenatal development occurs. Can you see the problem there? You're starting with a thesis and looking for support for it. When you read that section of Kushner, it doesn't say precisely at what stage Annika's abortion occurred (5 weeks after the test); it reports her feelings and those of Toni (12th week termination), but balances them by saying "some women have looked at the same pictures and felt the opposite way", going on to relate Melba's views which imply no discomfort with the concept of abortion in the early stages. In other words, the source is presenting differing views on first trimester abortions. The source presents two opposite views, and we mustn't present just one of them.
The Saad reference is just what I was looking for, thank you. Wouldn't that support almost exactly what I had proposed from a reading of the 2003 primary source? --RexxS (talk) 18:20, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
The Saad reference also seems to support the draft language that I provided (and note that your version didn't mention "development of the fetus" which is the concept that I was writing about and that the 1980 source emphasized). Anyway, regarding Kushner, perhaps we can get rid of that in favor of MastCell's source(s).Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:26, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

As has already been mentioned more than once, this is the global Abortion article. Most of this section is about the USA alone. Please move this issue to the article on that nation, or just stop wasting time and space here. HiLo48 (talk) 21:17, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

If you read the draft I provided above, there is nt one word that is US-specific. Do you know of any sources indicating that it's only applicable to the US? Some of the sources discussed so far involve studies and surveys conducted in the US, and I'll see about getting some more non-US sources too.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:46, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I wouldn't agree that time and space spent here looking at sources is wasted, but I agree that much of what we've found so far would be more germane to Abortion in the United States. That's ok - it's easy to copy & paste or provide a link on that talk page for interested editors. In any case, there seem to be fewer quality sources with a global outlook than US-specific ones, probably because of the high profile the abortion debate has in the US. Of Mastcell's two suggested sources (likely to be the most up-to-date and comprehensive), the narrative review by Lie et al admits difficulty in finding any more than 18 suitable studies world-wide, and the US is strongly represented; while the review of the literature by Kirkman et al was confined to English language publications. However, IMHO, they are likely to be the best starting points for the issue this section addresses in both this article and the US-specific one.
@AYW: I understand better now what you are looking for. I suspect that Saad has made the translation from 'stages of pregnancy' (the Gallop Poll primary source that is being analysed) to 'development of the fetus'. I don't see a problem in that - it's a slight shift in emphasis, but the secondary source is making that correlation, so we can use it. I didn't, of course, for the obvious reason that I was reporting the Gallop source as verbatim as I could without plagiarism, and that was the terminology used in the Analysis section of Gallop. --RexxS (talk) 21:52, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
It seems worth pointing out that, worldwide AFAIK, no government that has legalized abortion has done so thru all 9 months, which suggests that they have tied it to fetal development, except in countries like the US where fetal development has been deemed legally irrelevant once viability is determined. So, given that fetal development has been deemed relevant worldwide in at least these abortion decisions of governments, it seems like somewhere on Wilipedia there ought to be a description of which aspects of fetal development have been deemed most relevant in the abortion decisions of individuals and nations.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:01, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
If it's any help, in the UK abortions in the third trimester are legal if "there is grave risk to the life of the woman; evidence of severe foetal abnormality; or risk of grave physical and mental injury to the woman". It is possible that Canada may be the only country where there is no criminal regulation of abortion. There's a survey at http://pewforum.org/Abortion/Abortion-Laws-Around-the-World.aspx --RexxS (talk) 22:36, 7 June 2010 (UTC) Oops - probably China as well. --RexxS (talk) 22:37, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
It's pretty much the same as the UK in Australia HiLo48 (talk) 02:32, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I cannot agree that the shift from stages of pregnancy to development of the fetus is slight. Both the woman and the fetus go through a lot of changes. If the woman is going to have an abortion, it is to her advantage both physically and psychologically to have it done before all the hormone changes, "showing", swelling breasts etc. are underway, as much as possible. --Hordaland (talk) 22:54, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not. The shift was made by Lynda Saad (senior editor at the Gallup Organization and recognised as expert in interpretation of opinion polls) in an analysis of the Gallop Poll data, reported in a reliable secondary source - and apparently without reliable commentary criticising that transformation. The review clearly states "When Gallup asked the public about the legality of abortion according to the stage of the development of the fetus ...", although the data shows that the questions asked were based on trimester (i.e. stage of pregnancy). If the source makes that connection, all we can do is present another equally reliable source that contradicts that. Much as I'd like to agree with you, we mustn't start cherry-picking sources simply because we don't agree with their conclusions. --RexxS (talk) 23:19, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Edit warring

I have place this notice on the talk page of Nutriveg (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log):

Please do not edit war. If your change is reverted, do not revert back, but engage in discussion on the talk page. I checked the talk page for discussion of the three sources you removed: Bartlett 2004; Trupin 2010; Westfall 1998. No reason has been stated on talk why they should not be in the article. Removal of reliable sources is disruptive editing, particularly when you revert instead of discuss in the BRD sequence. --RexxS (talk) 02:21, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Please get yourself aware of what is happening in the article talk page and in the article history before assuming bad faith and making attacks to resolve content issues. I just reverted a major change that was simple redone by MastCell despite the many problems pointed about that edit.--Nutriveg (talk) 02:29, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I see no valid reason to revert all the work of MastCell. There may be one or two ongoing disputes, but a blanket revert was not necessary. Try improving the content, or commenting out the disputed pregnancy comparison. There is no consensus for your version either. I tried, but failed, to restore the longstanding health risks section from a couple weeks ago, but of course you had to revert back to YOUR version. Watch out for ownership issues. I'd be glad to revert back to the longstanding version again, while we work out our differences even more. MastCell, IMO, was acting in good faith, based on the discussions above, to improve the section. Going back to your version over and over is problematic in my eyes. Try contributing, building, working together, and compromising! -Andrew c [talk] 02:46, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
MastCell made a major change, he didn't change one or two phrases as I have been doing from that older version, in a single edit he deleted a lot of content and added a lot of the same text reported as problematic ignoring those issues. It's completely natural to revert as I did when such large changes are made in a single edit. As before I've been [3] adding his suggestions incrementally despite his desire for large changes --Nutriveg (talk) 03:01, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I find the version by mastcell puts the issue of risk into better context. Stating the risk of abortion without referring to the risk of no abortion for a pregnant woman does not give the proper context needed to interpret the risk of abortion.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:45, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I think thats what the rest of the article is for. An section on the risks of owning firearms would not need to also have a paragraph on the risks of not having firearms, etc. - Schrandit (talk) 08:43, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Schrandit on that. Also, it doesn't seem NPOV to dscuss the risks of childbirth here in this article without discussing, for example, the risks of using contaceptives. And are we also going to have to insert onto the pregnancy article a comparison to the risks of abortion?Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:01, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

This article seems to have a history of ownership and edit warring. I am not prepared to play those games. Nutriveg has now removed reliable sources three time and Scrandit once against the advice of three other editors. The sources are:

I therefore request that a link be provided to where these 3 sources were discussed; or failing that, a justification from Nutriveg and Schrandit why they removed reliable sources. --RexxS (talk) 10:49, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Despite what you're appearing to look my edit was not an edit that removed sources, it was an edit that reverted a large change made by mastcell, that himself removed referenced text and added problematic text, I incrementaly addressed his changes where they were relevant, this issues are discussed in a specific section of this talk page and on edit summaries.
Answering your question detailed statistics specific to the United states were added to that Abortion in the United States#Maternal death, (Westfall,1998) is old and primary
Doc James, those statistics are US based where the number of risky (late) abortion is low and pregnant women have lower access to public health than other developed countries, I also pointed how that direct comparison without using appropriate statistics is problematic, some of those detailed statistics were added to a specific article you also need to be aware, when reverting content, that MastCell single edit was a large change that deleted a lot of text and had many issues instead of one.--Nutriveg (talk) 12:59, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Despite what you either believe or are trying to convince others of, this edit removed the sources listed above, just as RexxS has stated. It would be best if you were to self-revert and restore the reliably sourced material which you were edit warring to remove, otherwise you may be blocked from editing. Note that I'm posting this here for all involved editors to see, rather than on your talk page, because you seem to believe that this is an issue of content, rather than user conduct. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 13:10, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I need to remember you that MastCell edit also removed a lot of sources, and a lot of text, so simple redoing that large change clearly isn't the way to restore the article content:
  • Botha, Rosanne L.; Bednarek, Paula H.; Kaunitz, Andrew M. (2010). "Complications of Medical and Surgical Abortion". In Guy I Benrubi (ed.). Handbook of Obstetric and Gynecologic Emergencies (4 ed.). Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. p. 258. ISBN 978-1605476667. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Studd, John; Seang, Lin Tan; Chervenak, Frank A. (2007). Progress in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Vol. 17. p. 206. ISBN 978-0443103131.
I've already referenced yesterday those mentioned sources [1][2] and others included by MastCell, while still rewriting text to better address his recurrent changes, so you're assuming bad faith here despite of those edits, but I readded that (Westfall,1998) old primary study since that's so important to you.--Nutriveg (talk) 13:24, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I have not presumed bad faith on your part. In turn, I ask that you not make assumptions about me. What is "important" to me is that this page is used for civil discussion on how to improve the article, and that editing the article takes place without disruptive activity such as vandalism or edit warring. SHEFFIELDSTEELTALK 14:17, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Well if you asked to readd it that sounded like you thought that recently added primary source was necessary despite of the tertiary source already present in the article. Since you made your point clear that will be taken into account when deciding if that primary source should really be kept or if that issue was just noise in the background.--Nutriveg (talk) 14:25, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

(undent) As I said previously I think the comparison to the risk of normal pregancy is important. Presenting numbers without a control group does not give any context in which to interpret it. WRT to other precdures or medicines rates are ideally given as greater than or less a control group. The rates of side effects with placebos may be up to 10% and benefits from placebo are as great as 50%. Life is not risk free as many assume. Thus the risk of a precedure should be compared against the risk of not having the procedure.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:58, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

WRT Firearms I think information on the risk of not having firearms would be exceedingly useful. You occasionally hear conservatives in the US claim that the risk of not having firearms is less than having them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:05, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
We don't have worldwide reliable statistics to use here as I said before health care access for pregnant women in the United States, where those "statistics" came from, is worse than many developed countries and the number of late abortions is low, maybe due to easy access to test methods, high education level and right awareness of the young. And as someone pointed above by that argument we should also compare the risk of death for using condoms or other preconception methods, which is as well negligible due to the rare (if any) incidence, so irrelevant.--Nutriveg (talk) 17:09, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
We do not have reliable statistics for what? Mortality from abortions or mortality from pregancy? Late term abortions are rare everywhere as very few patients or physicians are interested in having them or doing them. Discussion of the effects of condom use on population mortality would be interested so I am not sure how this is irrelevant.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:53, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Worldwide reliable data of statistically supported comparisons (like age, income, risky pregnancies, matched). The United States number only show the disparities of how those health issues are handled differently in that country, with easy access to abortion but not to Prenatal care#Prenatal Care and Race and other pregnancy health services.--Nutriveg (talk) 18:01, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
  • This seems to have gone off the rails a bit. The reason we compare abortion risk to childbirth risk is because that is the comparison made by reliable sources. It doesn't matter whether I, or Nutriveg, or Schrandit, or Anythingyouwant believe these are the optimal comparisons. Our goal is not to accurately reflect the beliefs and prejudices of a handful of anonymous Wikipedians, but to reflect the content of expert, reliable sources. So let's focus on that.

    The distinction between abortion risk in "safe" and "unsafe" environments is an important one, and one that I made in my proposed text. We do, of course, have reasonable statistics available from reliable sources. Nutriveg's personal doubts about the conclusions of those sources is not sufficient reason to drop them.

    I'm pretty disheartened by the quickness to revert and the accusations. Obviously, I believed that I had addressed the objections brought forth by Nutriveg when I made my edit. I recognize that my edit can certainly be improved upon, but I think it's a clear improvement, stylistically, in WP:MOS terms, in readability, and in informative content, over what preceded it. That's why I made the edit. I am willing to address reasonable concerns, but I'm pretty deeply convinced that some of Nutriveg's objections are based on misunderstandings or selective and inappropriately doctrinaire interpretations of snippets of policy. More fundamentally, I'm concerned that people are arguing about whether they personally agree with a given comparison, rather than simply representing the context and comparisons made by expert reliable sources. How should we fix this? MastCell Talk 19:22, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

We do have sources but they are US centric that's why I moved that comparison to the Abortion in the United States article, while adding a link to that article. Despite of your good intentions the problems your major change caused were basically the same as the previous one.--Nutriveg (talk) 19:46, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
And which problems are those for us new to the debate?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:59, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I believe they were reported in this same section (which also links to Talk:Abortion#Health risks rewrite and edit summaries).--Nutriveg (talk) 20:11, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
The data is from more places than the USA. This ref refers to a rate of 0.7 per 100,000 in developed countries.[4] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:59, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

(undent) Uptodate also makes the comparison to completed pregnancy. [5]

Legal pregnancy termination 0.567 per 100,000 terminations

Miscarriage 1.19 per 100,000 miscarriages

Live birth 7.06 per 100,000 live births

They than go on to say "Moreover, the overall death rate from all legal abortions (0.6 per 100,000 operations in 1997) is far less than the United States maternal mortality rate of 7.5 per 100,000 live births [73-75]. In 2002, a total of nine women died as a result of legal induced abortions in the United States, and none died as a result of illegal induced abortions [76]." Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:19, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree we have maternal death numbers from other countries, like the 0.7 one. The 0.567 one is exactly the same of the US one (already cited in the article), so I wonder where they got it. The problem is that simple comparing those numbers is WP:OR less to say without adjusting for confounding factors, like age, income, access to prenatal care, ... That would be the same as comparing unsafe abortion in the same bag of safe abortion, simple as abortion.--Nutriveg (talk) 20:29, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
No it would not be original research as we could reference Uptodate which makes this exact comparison.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:37, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
The Uptodate numbers you posted to far are US numbers, not worldwide.--Nutriveg (talk) 20:41, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Of course it wouldn't be original research. Not only UpToDate, but numerous other sources (e.g. Grimes) make that comparison. The issue seems to be that Nutriveg personally believes that those sources have not adequately controlled for confounding factors. So if we're talking about original research... have any reliable, independent sources made those criticisms? If not, then Nutriveg is pushing his own beliefs over the content of reliable sources, which does in fact violate WP:OR.

Worldwide numbers are readily available. I think it's reasonable to use US numbers as an example of abortion risk in developed countries, since the US numbers are very close to those from other such countries. MastCell Talk 20:45, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I've already cited the US comparison in that specific article, but this article is not US centric. The problem is we don't have a worldwide comparison to cite here, making one from raw numbers is WP:OR. There are problems with health care access for pregnant women in the United States, like Prenatal, so we can't ignore that factor and apply the same numbers worldwide.--Nutriveg (talk) 21:01, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
We have references that say rates in developed countries are below 1 in 100,000. Thus we can keep first sentence broad. We should than include a comparision such as in the US this compares favorable with normal pregancy which has a mortality of 7.7 see page 150. This is by the way widely taught in medical school. Douglas W. Laube; Barzansky, Barbara M.; Beckmann, Charles R. B.; Herbert, William G. (2009). Obstetrics and Gynecology. Hagerstwon, MD: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. p. 150. ISBN 0-7817-8807-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:48, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
Yeah we can use that first sentece instead of the current. But we shouldn't cite US centric maternal death associated with childbirth numbers since a significant percentage of women in that country have poor access to pregnancy health services.--Nutriveg (talk) 21:01, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Any claimed "global" figures that show miscarriage statistics separately from legal abortions do not include Australia. Such information is not collected. HiLo48 (talk) 21:06, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps these can provide better global perspective?

I'm quite sure anyone reading these will understand how wrong it is to focus on the developed world. For those too busy, I'll quote a bit from the latter:

A total of 99% of all maternal deaths occur in developing countries, where 85% of the population lives. More than half of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa and one third in South Asia. The maternal mortality ratio in developing countries is 450 maternal deaths per 100 000 live births versus 9 in developed countries. Fourteen countries have maternal mortality ratios of at least 1000 per 100 000 live births, of which all but Afghanistan are in sub-Saharan Africa: Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Somalia.(1)
Because women in developing countries have many pregnancies on average, their lifetime risk more accurately reflects the overall burden of these women. A woman’s lifetime risk of maternal death is 1 in 7300 in developed countries versus 1 in 75 in developing countries. But the difference is more striking in Niger, where women’s lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy-related complications is 1 in 7 versus 1 in 48 000 in Ireland.(1)
In addition to the differences between countries, there are also large disparities within countries between people with high and low income and between rural and urban populations.
(1) Maternal mortality in 2005: estimates developed by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA and the World Bank. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2007 (http://www. who.int/reproductive-health/publications/maternal_mortality_2005/index.html, accessed 14 August 2008).

LeadSongDog come howl! 23:03, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
I would be fine with more focus on the developing world. In fact, my initial proposed revision for this section included far greater detail on the burden of unsafe abortion in the developing world. There were objections that the material was redundant to that in our unsafe abortion article, but I'm still open to more coverage here. MastCell Talk 23:19, 8 June 2010 (UTC)
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