Talk:Abortion and mental health/Archive 7

Article is poor
Wikipedia is a free, online encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not a list of studies and quotations from studies. This article should be an encyclopedia article, not a list of journal articles. Because of the continuing issues with these sources, back in early January the article was revamped, with the idea of starting from the ground up and writing an encyclopedia entry, as opposed to listing and quoting various primary sources. So what progress has been made towards that end? Almost no progress. We now have another bloated section that extensively lists and quotes journal articles. The prose is very poor, the overall article flow does not exist, there is no sense of organization (not even chronological), etc. The idea of wikipedia is not to open up pubmed, and then write a summary of a study and add some quotes. That simply does not make an encyclopedia article. We need to use more prose, less quotes, we need more contexualization, we need a much better structuring. Perhaps the studies section could be used as sourcing to write such a section, but as it stands, it has no place in a wikipedia entry (if we are going by our MoS and what makes FAs). Seriously, who honestly thinks we have gone in the right direction since January 10th? What can we do to make this article on the path to being good? It seems like there has been too much infighting over what sources to mention and what to exclude that no one has given any thought to actual article structure and flow. -Andrew c [talk] 12:59, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Interesting thoughts. I wasn't here back then so I didn't even think of it except, as I said above, that it doesn't appear to be in any kind of order. I had some other nitpicking thoughts about the overall structure that I was going to bring up later but you seem to be suggesting a thorough gutting and rebuilding. I was thinking "inside the box" even though it is often good to think "outside the box". Sbowers3 (talk) 13:38, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * How can we write an article when we can't even agree on what belongs in the article? I thought we were still on the phase where we decide what belongs in it. Kuronue | Talk 20:50, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree entirely with Andrew c's comments about the current direction and status of the article, but I'm despairing of being able to address them in the current atmosphere. I do welcome the involvement of more editors, like Andrew, Sbowers, and Kuronue, since part of the problem has been a somewhat obsessive focus on certain unproductive aspects of the article-building process. One approach from here might be to compile a list of reliable, independent secondary sources upon which the article could be based. These would include major media coverage, summaries of the issue by major professional organizations, and perhaps major literature review articles. As a supplement, we could compile a handful of prominent partisan secondary sources - for example, Planned Parenthood, Guttmacher, or the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice on the pro-choice side and comparably prominent organizations on the pro-life side - to discuss how these participants in the abortion debate frame the issue. Primary sources - and by that I mean specific journal articles and studies - would fill in the blanks and provide supporting detail in the context of these secondary sources, rather than forming the basis of the article as they do now. This is my understanding of how Wikipedia articles are meant to be constructed. MastCell Talk 21:44, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


 * As Andrew c suggests let's think about article structure and flow. Can we first agree that we should not lead the reader to a conclusion that the relationship between abortion and mental health is negative, neutral, or positive? Whatever opinion each of us may have, there are reliable sources with contrary opinions. As a beginning reader in this area I'm not even sure that there is a majority view; there may be three significant minority views (neutral, negative, and inconclusive).
 * I've come up with only two ways to structure the article. I like having more options so maybe other editors can suggest alternatives. One way, which I do not like, is to have a section on each of the views. That will lead to controversy about the order of the views and the weight to assign to each one. It's also hard to cleanly separate the views because some sources can be both neutral and inconclusive, or even (conceivably) negative for some women and positive for other women. And it is probably appropriate to say something about the reaction from other scientists to a particular paper. So the "negative" section would end up with "anti-negative" comments, and so on.
 * The structure that I think can work is a chronological history of scientific thought about the subject. That structure lends itself to a narrative in prose rather than a list of unrelated papers. And it naturally introduces some context in the flow of paper, reaction, next paper. Well, that's the best I've come up with. I'll be interested to hear the reactions of other editors. Sbowers3 (talk) 00:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to reiterate, I think we need to be very careful about relying on primary sources/original papers. There is a strong drive to present the primary literature and then "summarize" its meaning for the reader. The entire structure of the article at present violates WP:SYN, and to make matters worse, the "summaries" are being produced by editors with a deep-seated investment in a specific POV. We have reliable secondary-source summaries of scientific thought on the matter, from Koop (in the 1980's), the APA, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the RCP among others. The APA and RCP are in the process of updating their reviews, which will make these sources even stronger. Please - the only way this article will ever progress out of its current state of POV-laden disaster zone is if we base it on reliable secondary sources rather than editorial summaries and spinning of the primary literature. MastCell Talk 06:29, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I see Koop, APA, and RCP in the article. I don't see the ACOG. Can you provide a reference? Sbowers3 (talk) 20:51, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Part of the reason for including so many opinions is because there are so many opinions from experts who reflect these opinion in the context of peer reviewed studies in which they BOTH reflect on previously published research and analyze new data. Plus, the new research and data is tending AWAY from what for many months were considered the "majority" view defined by key sources: the 1990 views profferd by the APA panel and Stotland's 1992 commentary.


 * For several months this article went through an upheaval that eliminated material which did not concord with those two, very dated, "key sources." I became involved after these edits had so seriously tilted this article toward the unsustainable view point that there is a clear consenus that there are no significant problems associated with abortion. I therefore tried to present a number of the dozens of authoratative sources indicating that the 1990 and 1992 views no longer define the "majority" opinion.


 * In fact, this is not a settled area of science or politics, therefore it clealy defies easy reduction to a 200 or even 2000 word summary. Therefore, I have previously proposed and continue to think that this article should be about BOTH the science and controversy and that it would be beneficial to organize the bulk of the material in a semi-structured history of the controversy, starting before Koop, with Rue's proposal for PAS, Koop's letter, the APA letter, Fogel, Stotland, Wilmoth, Russo's NLSY study, Reardon's studies, Brenda Major, Fergusson, etc.  This would show the ebb and flow of the controversy and also the major figures involved in the research and debate.  I'd suggest not being strictly time sequential, however, but would summarize each person's or organizations contributions under one listing for that person or organization.  In covering the controversy, I'd suggest less of the detailed point/counterpoint in each section and suggest that we simply allow each parties views to be put forward with minimal point counterpoint and trust that their views will be balanced by the whole ebb and flow of the various key party's views.


 * In my view, "encyclopedic" does not necessarily mean brief. As you know, some entries of Encyclopedia Brittanica can be verrry long.  There is no compelling reason not be thorough in reporting significant views and research on both sides of this issue.Strider12 (talk) 18:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * We ought to keep in mind that there is no deadline. The article is better if it sticks to what sources have said rather than trying to get ahead of the curve by "updating" the old APA opinion with a bunch of new literature. The APA is coming out with a new statement soon, as is the RCP. These will account for new literature, including Fergusson et al. and Reardon, which will help us clarify who thinks what and where the weight of expert opinion lies. It is certainly not a settled area of science or politics, but that doesn't mean the article has to be a mess. We can briefly and accurately summarize the positions of various key players - experts in the field, as well as advocacy organizations - with very little fuss if we decide to focus on that rather than playing up whichever primary studies coincide with our viewpoints. MastCell Talk 19:20, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Facts are facts. Experts whose expertise is established by peer review and published in verifiable reliable sources offer us valuable material that qualifies for inclusion.  Including new material from reliable sources is always justified.  There is no Wikipedia policy that suggests we should wait on certain groups such as the APA and use only the sources and opinions reflected by that group.


 * What you continue to confuse is primary sources (lab notes, for example) versus primary studies (meaning important peer reviewed studies) which are reliable secondary sources because these PUBLISHED, PEER REVIEWED studies are no longer just primary sources (raw data and lab notes) they are offer peer reviewed analyses and interpretations.--Strider12 (talk) 18:59, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I have explained, ad nauseum, why I consider that your use of primary journal studies to advance your position and undermine that of reliable secondary sources violates WP:SYN et al. Since you continue reinserting the same edits every few days with no attempt to address these concerns (beyond capitalizing the words PEER REVIEW) or to seek dispute resolution, I have nothing to add at present. MastCell Talk 20:58, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Just because your explain your views ad nauseum does not make them universally accepted. Your explanations are not supported by Wikipedia policy nor have I seen other editors embracing your rules for excluding peer reviewed studies that you don't like.  Please show GF in respecting the well sourced contributions of other editors.  Also, please don't delete material across multiple sections of the article in one fell swoop where your explanation refrences just a single section as this tends to conceal the full extent of your deletions.--Strider12 (talk) 21:08, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Um... in response to a request for comment, a bunch of uninvolved editors showed up and basically unanimously thought that you were being disruptive, pushing a POV in violation of policy, and so forth. The fact that you've succeeded in wearing down or driving off these editors should not be taken as positive reinforcement. MastCell Talk 21:11, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
 * That is not an accurate representation. Several editors agreed that my edits were in good faith and were being reverted without proper cause.--Strider12 (talk) 23:05, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Orderly edits
1. Please do not delete a series of several edits in one fell swoop. Doing so deprives multiple editors the chance to review, improve on and comment on the edits.

2. Please respect that it is disruptive to delete reliable, verifiable information that is presented in an NPOV fashion. If you believe it is unnecessary material, please discuss and develop a CONSENSUS for removal of the material. The presumption should favor inclusion rather than exclusion. It is not necessary to gain permission of all editors to include reliable material. GF editing however suggests that we should leave material in until we have developed a well reasoned consensus for removing it. Presumptively deleting well source material is not only disruptive and shows lack of GF toward the contributing editor, it also deprives other editors the chance to review and to build on the contributed material.--Strider12 (talk) 21:05, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * You have yet again reinserted edits which are clearly disputed, making zero attempt to actually address the dispute but simply reinserting them again and again every few days, as if the dispute will magically vanish. That is disruptive. Now you've mixed a few potentially useful edits in with those and accused me for reverting them all. If you want to make progress, then don't try to slip your disputed edits in among a flurry of others. Right now you appear to be trying to game the system by doing so; additionally, you again offer zero constructive arguments or attempts to address the underlying content issue, instead relying on an old wikilawyering of an ArbCom decision. I again decline to be lectured on "good-faith editing" by an account with your history, though I would point out that the burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. If you want to talk about good faith, try addressing my concerns instead of hoping I'll miss your edits or get tired after you reinsert them for the 9th time. MastCell Talk 21:10, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Please see WP:BRD. It is great to make bold edits. However, if an editor in good faith reverts your edit, it is NEVER appropriate to re-insert the controversial material. If you wait a week between adding it, it is still not ok. You have been slow edit warring for a long time, and there hasn't been nearly enough talk page discussion. If there are concerns about your edits, you need to come to talk and discuss them. Here is an idea: instead of trying to re-add the material, make a proposal about what you want to include, and go into detail on why you think we should include it. This should start a discussion. If there is consensus (or silent consensus) for your proposal, then you can add the content to the article. Regardless how you interpret policy, it is never ok to edit war to try to force controversial new material into an article (which you have been doing on a slow scale in the past, and which you have done multiple times today).-Andrew c [talk] 21:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * (ec) Some disturbing tendencies are on display here. As a matter of Wikipedia policy, Strider12 must recognize that he does not WP:OWN the article and cannot insist that editors follow a specific protocol such as making their changes piecemeal. Insistence on doing so could be seen as disruptive. Also, he has misstated the burden of proof: policy is crystal clear that the person who wishes to add or reinsert material must be prepared to justify its neutrality and verifiability (see e.g., here. Raymond Arritt (talk) 21:33, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Here's the pattern. I add reliable and properly cited material.  MastCell deletes it with an unconvincing argument, generally expressing some attack on my character and edits and his/her lack of GF in my sources.  I respond explaining and documenting why the source is reliable. I wait for other editors to comment.  No one does.  As I believe MastCell's arguments are unconvincing and the material is clearly well cited to a reliable source, I put it back in.  Then another deltion happens.  Perhaps it would be helpful if other editors would participate in the discussion of what consitutes reliable sources.


 * I continue to believe that if I provide a citation to a reliable source, I have met my burden of showing that the material is reliable. If other editors want to delete it for any reason, they should SHOW a consensus of opinion to that effect from several editors, preferably from editors on both sides of the issue, instead of deleting the material ten minutes after it is posted.  That would be both courteous and productive.--Strider12 (talk) 03:02, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The problem with this approach is that many thousands of articles are published in the literature each year, and it's easy to mine them for the few that support the perspective that one seeks to reinforce. In this way one can write an article that is based on reliable sources and yet gives undue weight to minority positions. Thus, the use of reliable sources is a necessary but not self-sufficient criterion for writing a credible and neutral article. Raymond Arritt (talk) 03:21, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * There are not thousands of articles each year, or even each twenty years. At most there are four to six articles per year.  I'd guess that there are only twenty or so that are of particular significance in effecting the views of experts in the field.  And none of them support the 1992 claim by Stotland that there is "no evidence" of negative mental health effects.--Strider12 (talk) 23:13, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The plea that "it would be helpful if other editors would participate in the discussion" is a bit much. Aside from Strider12's canvassing, a string of uninvolved editors have come through, have reached the conclusion that Strider12 is editing disruptively in service of a POV, and have largely been driven away by the noxious atmosphere engendered on these articles. The fact that I'm one of the last people standing after this 6-month-long stretch of unrelenting tendentiousness does not mean that I'm the only one who disagrees with Strider12's edits; I hope that's clear from recent comments and edits. As Raymond says, WP:V cannot be interpreted in a vacuum without reference to WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. MastCell Talk 05:06, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I have not been canvassing. The involvement of other editors began after your RfC.--Strider12 (talk) 23:13, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * It's also difficult to comment when one is a poor college student who doesn't have access to most of these articles in question. Whatever happened to using secondary sources like major newspapers - at least then everyone can READ the dang things, instead of just the privileged few who then dictate what they say for us common folk. Also, I'm sick to death of all this you-reverted-me-OMG!! you-readded-things-OMG!! bullshit. I don't care who did what, I just want this to stop so we can focus on the future. Kuronue | Talk 10:18, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Like you I don't have access to the full text of articles. That's one reason I think we should stick to what is in abstracts, which usually are available online. And there is a lot we "common folks" can do to improve this article. Thinking about how to restructure it is one good thing to do. Sbowers3 (talk) 12:45, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Reliable sources should not be excluded simply because they are not free on the internet. If you question a source, the proper thing to do is to add an inline ((citecheck)) or the like indicating that you would like more information on the talk page or to encourage other editors with access to double check the source.  In fact, there is little if any dispute about the factual accuracy of the content I have added.  MastCell generally has access to the articles.  The complaint is not that I am not factually accurate but that the facts do not support the slant that MastCell believes is required by the WEIGHT she places on the APA 1990 and Stotland 1992 articles, and the Baezlon and Mooney magazine articles.--Strider12 (talk) 23:13, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Reordered
I reordered the sections chronologically one step at a time so looking through the history it is easy to see each separate change. I encourage future editors to take similar small steps so that a diff will make it easy to see what changed. I temporarily reinserted then removed the Fogel section so that editors could read a history version to see what it looks like with that section in place.

Afterward, I did a diff of Strider12's version and the current version. Suddenly it was easy to see that the changes weren't all that big; they looked bigger than they were because several moves and some small changes were combined. Much of what she changed was noncontroversial. The rest was three small changes/additions and the reinsertion of Fogel. We might discuss each of these separately after things have cooled down a bit. Sbowers3 (talk) 13:04, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * As I mentioned above, if Fogel is included, then a link should be provided so people can go see the context. A link is here.Ferrylodge (talk) 18:02, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd support that, but the link should point out that it is to just an excerpt of the full article.--Strider12 (talk) 23:14, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, that link also allows purchase of the full article for $3.95.Ferrylodge (talk) 23:18, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Opening paragraph
Why is it that the opening paragraph only supports one point of view. --WikiCats (talk) 13:10, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Without agreeing or disagreeing with your comment, could you please elaborate. What is the POV that you see? Is it just the opening paragraph or the entire opening section? Could you sketch out what you think it should say? I'm very interested in making this a good, NPOV article but I am still at the information-gathering stage. Sbowers3 (talk) 15:06, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I did a quick search of Google Books for "post-abortion." The search results are here.  Many of these search results have what's called a “Limited Preview” where you can go directly and read pages of the books.  Might I suggest that someone try to summarize what is said by the first ten or twenty books that provide these limited previews?  That would seem to offer a neutral way to approach this whole issue.Ferrylodge (talk) 17:05, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * "Post-abortion syndrome" is a non-medical term whose use is limited to the pro-life movement. Summarizing books which use this phrase will skew the article (a brief glance at the Google books shows that the first page, at least, is largely made up of partisan literature). There are numerous independent, reliable secondary-source summaries on the topic of abortion and mental health; these should form the basis for both the lead and the article. MastCell Talk 20:24, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The search term was "post-abortion." The first “Limited Preview” at Google Books for the search term “post-abortion” is from “Feminist Perspectives on Social Work and Human Sexuality” (obviously not a pro-life source).  The second “Limited Preview” is from “Post-abortion Aftermath: A Comprehensive Consideration.”  The third "limited Preview" is from “The Abortion Question” by Hyman Rodman et al. (all authors “are in favor of maintaining the legality of abortion”).  So, clearly the search term is not biased.  However, please feel free to suggest a different search term.  The main point is that there will never be any consensus about what should be included in this article as long as people insist on referring exclusively to particular studies.  Some kind of overview is also needed, and I have tried to suggest a way to obtain such an overview.Ferrylodge (talk) 21:38, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that referring exclusively or primarily to specific studies is a road to nowhere. There are actually already plenty of solid independent, reliable secondary sources to write an overview - position statements from the APA, RCP, and ACOG, review articles, mainstream media coverage - as well as good sources for more partisan viewpoints should we choose to include them. MastCell Talk 02:24, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * WikiCats, the intro currently presents information on both sides (I say this as a reader, not a writer, of the introduction). Like Sbowers3, I'm wondering if you can elaborate on what you see as the problem? Antelan talk  17:51, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

I see already that the first sentence has been changed to something more neutral.

The problems:
 * The article has been tagged totally disputed since January.
 * All the references in the first section except possibly #3 support the "no connection between abortion and mental health" POV. (The link to ref #3 does not work)
 * In the second sentence the correlation between abortion and negative psychological effects is immediately qualified with a disclaimer and three references. --WikiCats (talk) 11:40, 30 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Do you think that this version (current as of now) is closer to NPOV? (Ref #3 works in that version.) If you think it is closer do you think it is still somewhat tilted? Sbowers3 (talk) 12:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Lead sentence
Instead of edit warring, could we please discuss here? Instead of tweaking the opening sentence how about something like this:
 * The relationship between abortion and mental health is inconclusive - some studies indicate no correlation, while others show a range of harmful effects.

I had intended to leave the lead section 'til later because I think it should be a summary of the rest of the article - and the rest of the article needs a major reorg, but with a mini - edit war in progress, let's discuss it now. Sbowers3 (talk) 12:48, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm OK with that. It's neutral prose. --121.208.130.219 (talk) 14:32, 30 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The first sentence of the article currently says, "The relationship between abortion and mental health is an area of political and scientific controversy." I support leaving it that way.  It's clearly an accurate statement, and Mastcell has agreed.  Other editors have agreed too.  I don't see why we should spend any time discussing it further, unless OrangeMarlin raises objections here at the talk page, which he rarely does.  A press release from the highest psychiatric body in the UK said earlier this month, "studies identify a range of mental disorders following abortion."  This amply supports the first sentence of this article, IMHO.Ferrylodge (talk) 18:52, 30 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I like the current one better, really - it's more concrete and definitive. Instead of "well, it's sort of like this, but we're not entirely sure", it says, "people are fighting over this!", you know? It says something about the topic instead of being wishy-washy. Kuronue | Talk 01:46, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I prefer opening with something about the existence of political and scientific controversy - it's common ground, and really the most salient aspect of the issue at present is the degree of controversy surrounding it. This also sets the stage for a statement about conflicting research etc. MastCell Talk 02:27, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Then the opening could be:

The relationship between induced abortion and mental health is an area of political and scientific controversy. Some studies indicate no correlation, while others show a range of harmful effects. --WikiCats (talk) 14:33, 31 March 2008 (UTC)--


 * As has been pointed out, we shouldn't bold "abortion and mental health". See MoS: If the topic of an article has no name and the title is merely descriptive—such as Electrical characteristics of a dynamic loudspeaker—the title does not need to appear verbatim in the main text; if it does, it is not in boldface. We are arguing that "abortion and mental health" isn't a title, but instead a description or a topic. "abortion and mental health" presumably is short of something like "the debate concerning the effect of abortion on mental health", instead of being an inseparable title phrase. This is shown in that the phrase can be reversed to "mental health and abortion" and still make sense. We could also phrase the title differently. There is not one specific title for this topic, and therefore our choice of wording is merely a description of the topic. That said, I'd be glad to hear arguments to the contrary if you still think we need to bold the phrase. -Andrew c [talk] 15:47, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

You've lost the point Andrew. This is not a debate about bolding. It is about the lead sentence.

My proposal is that the opening could be:

The relationship between induced abortion and mental health is an area of political and scientific controversy. Some studies indicate no correlation, while others show a range of harmful effects. --WikiCats (talk) 23:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)


 * {edit conflict}In a brief amount of time, there were four different edits made by four different users concerning the bolding. Since there was 3 reverts made, I'd go as far to say that there was some minor edit warring going on. Since your proposed text included the bolding, I thought, if there were still any outstanding issues concerning the bolding, we should air them here on talk to avoid furthering the edit war. I see you have removed the bolding from your proposal, so I'll take that to mean you no longer want to include the bolding that you once added to the live article. I apologize if I strayed from the topic, but I hope you can see how I prefer discussion over looming edit wars. If there are not any more concerns regarding the bolding, we can consider the matter settled and move on! -Andrew c [talk] 00:08, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * WikiCats, is your proposal a replacement for the entire opening paragraph? for part of the paragraph? for the entire lead section? Sbowers3 (talk) 00:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Edit break
I'd suggest the following which draws on Wilmoth, Coleman, and the APA 1990 statement.
 * The relationship between abortion and mental health has been a subject of significant political and scientific controversy. While emotional distress following an abortion is common, psychological illness is less common.  Most experts agree that some minority of women do have significant negative emotional reactions related to abortion, but the incidence rate, severity, and causes are not fully understood.

All sources agree "some" women have severe reactions, though it is unclear if the reactions are aggravated prior problems or new ones. That abortion is a "marker" for higher rates of emotional problems is no longer in dispute.--Strider12 (talk) 04:24, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Is emotional distress "common"? What does "common" mean in this context? What is "emotional distress"? This is both vague and misrepresentative; after all, the APA panel wrote in Science that "After first-trimester abortion, women most frequently report feeling relief and happiness... 2 weeks after first-trimester abortions, 76% of women reported feeling relief, while the most common negative emotion, guilt, was reported by only 17%. Negative emotions reflecting internal concerns, such as loss, or social concerns, such as social disapproval, typically are not experienced as strongly as positive emotions after abortion." We don't say in the lead that "While relief and happiness after abortion are common..." (nor should we, but you see where I'm going). The proposed text does not accurately represent its source, at least insofar as the APA report in Science is concerned. MastCell Talk 05:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, emotion distress is common. See for exaample Söderberg, H., Janzon, L., & Sjöberg, N-O. (1998). Emotional distress following induced abortion: A study of its incidence and determinants among abortees in Malmo, Sweden. European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, 79:173-178.  Soderberg studied 854 women at the time of their abortions and one year after and found that approximately 60 percent of the women had experienced some level of emotional distress from their abortions and in 30% of the cases the reactions were classified as "severe."  As you know, this study has been repeatedly cut from the article because her findings and conclusions don't comport with the "tone" of the article favored by a number of editors.  In fact, however, over 50% distress rates are reported frequently in the literature and even acknowledged by Russo, Major and Stotland with the distinction that, to paraphrase, "occassional sadness is not the same as clinical depression" which is of course true.


 * It is by no means a controversial statement that to say that distress is common. Indeed, it is a compassionate statement, and one needed in this article, to reassure women who are feeling distress who look this article up that they are not "crazy" for feeling distress, while also reminding them that just because they feel some distress, grief, or even depression, that such feelings are normal and do not necessarily mean they are pscychologically ill.


 * Part of the problem is an over reliance on trying to make the article fit an 18 year old report and even in that trying to overslant the article to deny the validity of concerns about abortion and mental health in ways that even exceed the carefully read statements of the APA and Stotland. Even Stotland's commentary cites Lask and Belsey incicating that there are at least 11% of women who have significant negative reactions...but as you know that information continues to get cut in preference for other statements of Stotland's which are really directed toward a denial that there is a unique mental health problem associated with abortion...not a denial that there ANY mental health problems associated with abortion.


 * While I don't think there is adequate evidence to assert that "happiness" is common after an abortion, there is certainly evidence that "relief" is common and have no objection to that being stated provided it is not overstated as if "relief" is the only measure that counts. In fact, the evidence indicates that feelings of relief are common, especially in the short term (first hours and few weeks) but also that feelings of relief decline in time and that negative feelings increase over time. But I don't expect these latter points to be spelled out in an introduction.--Strider12


 * I think the issue, again, is selective citation of specific studies. Soderberg's is one study, and it should be mentioned in the article, but citing it in the lead as proof that "emotional distress is common" after abortion is incomplete, at best. It leaves out a great deal of contradictory or contextual evidence. For example, Ashok et al. wrote: "Reactions to abortion, such as guilt, sense of loss, sadness, grief, regret, and reduced self-esteem, are usually mild and self-limiting. Furthermore, the majority of women do not regret their decision and do not consider abortion as a negative experience." Interestingly, they found that 47.5% of women in their cohort had significant anxiety and/or depression prior to abortion, and that rates of both declined significantly afterward. They noted that "Overall, 10% of patients have a negative response following termination, whereas a positive reaction and feeling of relief has been found to be the predominant emotional reaction." These findings do not support the claim that "emotional distress is common after abortion." If I were to cite this study in isolation, I could just as easily write in the lead that "Emotional distress is common in women seeking abortion, and improves following the procedure."
 * I'm not proposing we do this sort of cherry-picking, anymore than I support cherry-picking Soderberg's study in the lead. I think this is all covered under the rubric of "conflicting evidence", "unsettled", "controversy", etc, as supported by the major secondary sources. Let's not try to get the wording of our favorite study enshrined in the lead while ignoring evidence to the contrary. MastCell Talk 17:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Please stop accusing me of cherry-picking. ALL experts agree negative feelings are common. Stotland's JAMA commentary (page 2078, paragraph 5) states "Abortion, whether spontaneous or induced, entails loss.  Both regret and loss result in sadness. The word 'depression,' which is both a common term for a feeling of sadness and a technical term for a psychiatric disorder can be especially confusing. A symptom or a feeling is not equivalent to a disease."  Note, Stotland's admission that all abortions involve loss and all loss is associated with feelings regret and sadness is not that far from Fogel's conclusion that all abortion involve the loss of a "life force" that has some impact on a woman's conscience and emotions.  Their emphasis is different, but fundamentally both agree that abortion is not an emotional non-event.
 * Acknowledging that negative feelings are common is not "cherry picking." It is simply true and universally acknowledged by all experts in the field. In regard to your points, I have agreed that acknowledging that many women experience relief is also true.  The simple fact is that many women will simultaneously feel both relief and sadness, or depression, or guilt or other negative reactions. (See Brenda Major's 2000 study and that or Rue.)  Acknowledging the complexity of reactions (which Stotland does in her case study, which you repeatedly have deleted) is appropriate and supported by all the literature.--Strider12 (talk) 18:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Hold on, Strider12. MastCell did NOT accuse you of cherry-picking. She gave an example of how she could cherry-pick an article to support a particular POV and then said she did not propose to do that kind of thing. Sbowers3 (talk) 20:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
 * This is emblematic of the problem we're facing here. "Emotional distress after abortion is common" has one meaning. "Overall, 10% of patients have a negative response following termination, whereas a positive reaction and feeling of relief has been found to be the predominant emotional reaction" has another meaning. These are both quotes from individual peer-reviewed studies. Someone reading either sentence in isolation would get a one-sided perspective. Yet there is an insistence on citing only one side of the conflicting evidence, then leveling all sorts of accusations ("purging", "disruption", "blanking", etc) against anyone who would address it. If editors simply sought to "acknowledge the complexity of reactions", I doubt there would be any serious objection, but that is not what's going on here at all. MastCell Talk 21:03, 1 April 2008 (UTC) On second thought, it's probably better for me not to respond here to avoid yet another round of interpersonal dispute.

Too many studies
As some editors may have already noticed, I took my mind off this article for some time. It was sad to see that the article made little progress. The lead section seems to have slightly improved. However, as User: Andrew c has already noted, the article is becoming bloated with lists of studies once again. I suggest integrating the studies into "Neutral and positive psychological effects of abortion" or "Negative feelings experienced after abortion" depending on the finding of the study. Many of the studies look pretty similar; inconclusive regarding causation, some negative effects observed after abortion (such as Gissler's finding about elevated likelihood of suicide) etc мirаgeinred سَراب ٭  (talk) 20:08, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * No study will ever be conclusive regarding causal effects because most effects have multiple causes. The claim that studies are "inconclusive" simply means there is more to be studied.  I do not consider the inclusion of relevant material to be "bloating."  The inclusion of multiple studies and multiple conclusions from experts in the field is approrpriate and necessary to show the breadth of opinions and on going change in opinions in light of new research.  Once we put the material in, it may be possible to condense it, but the solution is not deleting relevent material in its entirity--Strider12 (talk) 03:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * That's ridiculous. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate list of studies. I didn't say they had to be deleted. I just said that they needed to be integrated to relevant sections. мirаgeinred سَراب ٭  (talk) 14:35, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Fogel -Washington Post
Request for comments...

I previously added the following between material on Koop and the APA:


 * For a 1989 article regarding the Koop letter, Washington Post columnist Colman McCarthy interviewed 75-year-old Dr. Julius Fogel, a Washington based physician who is both a psychiatrist and an obstetrician who had performed over 20,000 abortions. Fogel told Coleman:

There is no question about the emotional grief and mourning following an abortion. It shows up in various forms. I've had patients who had abortion a year or two ago--women who did the best thing at the time for themselves--but it still bothers them. Many come in--some are just mute, some hostile. Some burst out crying... There is no question in my mind that we are disturbing a life process.
 * McCarthy reported that Fogel had made similar statements in an 1971 interview at a time when he was doing "therapeutic abortions" before Roe v Wade
 * McCarthy reported that Fogel had made similar statements in an 1971 interview at a time when he was doing "therapeutic abortions" before Roe v Wade

At least excerpts from the Coleman article are available at Washington Post here.

MastCell has deleted the material with objections found above. No one else has commented on it.

Before discussing IF the Fogel quote belongs in the article, or whether the above is presented in sufficiently NPOV fashion, I'd request feedback from other editors on wheter they agree, or disagree with the following:
 * 1) Is the Washinton Post a reliable source?
 * 2) Is this source and quote relevent to an article on abortion and mental health?

I'm going to wait a couple days for comments. If there is consensus that it is a relible source and pertinent, then I'll move on and request comments and discussion of why or why it shouldn't be included.Strider12 (talk) 00:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I can't see why it's not in the article. --WikiCats (talk) 10:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, WaPo is a reliable source, and yes the source and quote are relevant to the article. As you indicate, that does not resolve whether the Fogel quote belongs in the article, or whether it would be presented in an NPOV fashion.Ferrylodge (talk) 14:34, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Who is Julius Fogel? Why does his opinion matter? Is his opinion notable (with regards to NPOV and weight issues)? Is a 1989 column from the Style section on the top of the list of reliable sources? From the manner in which you present the information, it seems as if some random doctor is presenting some anecdotal evidence in a non-medical forum. Anyway, to answer your questions: #1 is a yes and #2 depends on the answers to my questions. I'm not sure we should go about this article as reporting every opinion as quoted in the media. I don't believe your proposed text is acceptable, but depending on the answers to my questions, I could see the citation fitting into the article somehow. -Andrew c [talk] 23:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * As well could I ask "Who is Nada Stotland and why does her opinion matter?"
 * Fogel is a psychiatrist AND obstetrician AND abortion provider. He's an expert in the field and was interviewed by Coleman precisely because of his expertise. He's pro-choice expert who says abortion is "not as harmless and casual an event as many in the proabortion crowd insist." This dissent from political rhetoric is notable.
 * Fogel's opinion is deserves equal consideration to that of Stotland whose much quoted (and often misrepresented views) are in a 1992 JAMA commentary. Fogel's contemporary statement from 1989 (on the heels of Koop's letter) adds balance regarding the range of perspectives even among pro-choice experts.  Some editors have been hanging their hat on Stotland's view as defining THE majority view and WEIGHT of opinion.  Fogel demonstrates that not even all pro-choice experts agree with Stotland's assessment.  He also demonstrates that the claims of some editors that "only pro-lifers" believe abortion can have mental health consequences is not supported by the facts.  Many otehr pro-choice experts, including Fergusson, DePuy, Wilmoth, Gissler, Lask, and many others reported in verifiable, reliable sources I have introduced in the past side more with Fogel than Stotland...but as in this case, material from these dissenting pro-choice experts have been frequently deleted in the past because they don't support Stotland's "majority" view. --Strider12 (talk) 14:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)


 * According to what we state in the article, Nada Stotland is the "current vice president of the American Psychiatric Association", not just someone who went to medical school and got a job. Also, the commentary section of JAMA and the Style section of the Washington Post are also not on the same level either. I thereby argue that on the basis of these two considerations, that the weight does NOT "deserve equal consideration". I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that Fogel is pro-choice. Do we have any verifiable sources that state "Julius Fogel self-identifies as pro-choice" or even anything that comes close to that? If the reason we are to include Fogel is based solely on the notion that he is notable dissent among pro-choice, then that line of reasoning is fallacious until we establish he IS pro-choice. If we leave politics out of it, Fogels view may still be notable, but I'm not following the arguments in the last post.-Andrew c [talk] 16:00, 4 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Nada Stotland was not VP of APA back in 1992, nor does being VP doesn't endow one with greater knowledge or expertise in their field, so it is really an irrelevent point. By contrast, there are very few experts like Fogel who are psychiatrists who are also obstetricians who do abortions. Most physicians who do abortions (20,000 in Fogel's case) do not object to being characterized as pro-choice.  I don't call him pro-choice in the article, just in discussion on talk page.  For the sake of argument, let's assume he is a conflicted pro-life abortionist.  He is still an OB, a psychiatrist, and an abortionist who has worked with many women who regret their abortions in his practice and has been notably interviewed on that subject in response to Koop's letter in a syndicated Washington Post column that happened to be placed in the STYLES section (if that last part is true), which makes it notable.  Just because MastCell resists all edits that conflict with Stotland's views does not justify excluding Fogel's views.--Strider12 (talk) 04:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I just noticed, this same basic topic was covered around March 22, and Mastcell similarly said to me that equating Stotland to Fogel was not appropriate in terms of NPOV weight. In the future, please do not start new topics on subjects that have recently been discussed on this talk page. It's better to keep the older topics alive, and the conversation in one place. -Andrew c [talk] 18:09, 4 April 2008 (UTC)


 * MastCell was the only one who commented then, after reverting my edit. We discussed, I found her arguments unconvincing and to be in conflict of policy regarding inclusion of many verifiable viewpoints. Reinserted. She deleted again.  I started a new discussion for input from more editors.--Strider12 (talk) 04:35, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It has been covered before. Brief summary of misleading claims:
 * Stotland's views are just from a 1992 commentary. No; a better, more recent, and more scientific source would actually be the review article she wrote in the Journal of Psychiatric Practice in 2003.
 * Agreed. Then cut Stotland's 1992 commentary as I'm sure she finds the "no evidence" claim somewhat embarrassing now that she is complaining, in the NOW interview, that there is now a "stack" of evidence that Coleman and Reardon have produced.--Strider12 (talk) 04:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Stotland and Fogel are equivalently noteworthy here. No; Stotland has published on the psychiatric aspects of women's reproductive health since 1982 and is President-Elect of the American Psychiatric Association . Fogel has published zero papers on anything relating to this topic, if PubMed is to be believed - the source is an anecdotal quote he gave for the Style section of the Post in 1989 which is available at present only on pro-life websites.


 * The argument for inclusion seems to be that Fogel is notable because he reinforces a point Strider12 would like to make. That is not a convincing argument. I'm not categorically against using this newspaper piece as a source, but the proposed text, as well as the claim that Fogel "equals" or "balances" Stotland, are deeply flawed. MastCell Talk 18:45, 4 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The argument of inclusion is that the WEIGHT of this article does not reflect all opinions, including those of like Fogel, who is uniquely experienced and is quoted in a reliable publication. The argument for inclusion is that Fogel presents a viewpoint sorely lacking in this article, namely that psychiatrists who actually work with women who have had abortions know they DO have significant psychological problems associated with their abortions. Something Stotland did not do until 1998 (see case study she published in Abortion: Social Context, Psychodynamic Implications" Am J Psychiatry, 1998 155(7):964-967...(but MastCell doesn't like that source either and has repeatedly deleted it because in it Stotland no longer insists there is no evidence of negative reactions to abortion but instead discusses how significant unresolved issues with abortion can come forward unexpectedly)  The argument for inclusion is that WEIGHT should be shown by inclusion of facts and opinions from many experts.


 * And by the way, Stotland has published ZERO statistically validated studies on abortion, and zero comprehensive reviews of the literature. She is a board member of a pro-choice activist group for physicians and her publications on abortion fall into the category of opinion pieces, reflections, commentary, and advocacy. If you are going to do a publication count for Fogel and Stotland, we should also do one for Stotland and Reardon regarding their studies related to abortion and mental health.  Who has more peer reviewed studies in that comparison, MastCell?  Odd that Reardon is being excluded from this article, isn't it?  And if you are going to accuse me of being "misleading" it would be helpful if you be more specific in documenting this charge.  Are you claiming I have misrepresented Fogel's opinions?--Strider12 (talk) 04:29, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Re: your first paragraph: Fogel represents the anecdotal account of one psychiatrist quoted in the popular press. You're attempting to generalize his claims to speak for "psychiatrists who actually work with women who have abortions", which is invalid. The rest of your post (misrepresenting Stotland's "epiphany", "whose PubMed listing is bigger", etc etc) has been dealt with ad nauseum and I refer you to the preceding 6 months of dialog. As to misleading, my experience has been that you consistently spin, appropriate, or selectively quote sources to advance your POV, so based on past experience I prefer to verify the sources you cite where possible. MastCell Talk 17:38, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Supreme Court - Abortion "fraught with emotional consequence"
While not a medical body, the opinion of the Supreme Court is surely significant and in it's review of evidence surrounding the recent partial birth abortion case the majority of the supreme court described abortion as "fraught with emotional consequence" -- a point picked up by the press. The Supreme Court has also stated and reiterated that the “medical, emotional, and psychological consequences of an abortion are serious and can be lasting. . .” (Matheson, 450 U.S. 397, at 411, 413; Danforth, 428 U.S. at 67; Casey, 505 U.S. at 833.) As the views (finding of fact?) of the Supreme Court are significant, they should be worked into the article someplace. Perhaps in one of the introductory sections.--Strider12 (talk) 16:24, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Contextomy ahoy. The full sentence reads: "In a decision so fraught with emotional consequence, some doctors may prefer not to disclose precise details of the abortion procedure to be used." It also deals specifically with intact dilation and extraction, aka partial-birth abortion, which many believe to be significantly more fraught with emotional consequences than the 98+% of abortions that are performed by other means because of the viability of the fetus and the technical aspects of the procedure. The quote is from a 5-4 majority opinion endorsed by Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy, Republican appointees all, while Ginsburg, Souter, Breyer, and Stevens (mostly Democratic and one Republican appointees) dissented - this is probably notable. I don't think that scavenging this partial-birth abortion decision for a sentence fragment dealing with emotional consequences is going to make the article better. Where the Supreme Court has expressed a clear opinion on the psychological aspects of abortion, it may be notable as to the political aspects of this question. Could you provide a link to the other decisions you quoted, so I can verify the context for myself? MastCell Talk 17:29, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Not scavenging the primary source. Picking up on news reports, primarily in Christian press but also secular, regarding Kennedy's remarks on abortion and mental health, including a statement regarding depression and self esteem, which I did not bother pointing out. I don't have links handy to the other decisions, but they are easy to find on the web.--Strider12 (talk) 18:54, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I recommend the following. which addresses both the majority and minority opinion, be added in a section regarding the importance of the issue to the political controversy.
 * The controversy over abortion and mental health is fueled by the potential effects this issue may have on the political and judicial debate over abortion. In it's most recent ruling on abortion, Gonzales v Carhart the majority opinion indicated that abortion was "fraught with emotional consequences" which may include "[s]evere depression and loss of self-esteem."  The minority opinion, however, while acknowledging that "for most women, abortion is a painfully difficult decision" concludes that there is "no reliable evidence" for the view that "[w]omen who have abortions come to regret their choices, and consequently suffer from '[s]evere depression and loss of esteem.'”


 * The issue of Gonzales v. Carhart is probably a bit too complex to sum up in that manner. Let's leave aside for a moment the fact that the case focused on intact dilation and extraction ("partial-birth abortion"), a controversial procedure which accounts for 0.17% of all abortions in the US and is quite different from the other 99.83%. You portray the decision as 5 majority justices "indicating" that abortion results in depression and low self-esteem, while the 4 minority Justices "acknowledged" that abortion was a painfully difficult decision. (BTW, Kennedy's full quote was: "While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained. Severe depression and loss of esteem can follow." The "no reliable data" part is often omitted in pro-life transciptions.) The context was a bit more detailed. Justice Kennedy's opinion (that abortion could lead to depression and low self-esteem) was based on an amicus brief filed by the Justice Foundation, a pro-life group which provided anecdotal evidence from its "post-abortion counseling". The 4 dissenting Justices were quite harsh about Kennedy using the case to give so much credence to this sort of data from an obviously partisan and non-scientific source; Justice Ginsburg wrote: "The court invokes an anti-abortion shibboleth for which it concededly has no reliable evidence." Source: New York Times. If you want to talk about the political elements of the debate in the article, which I think is a reasonable suggestion, then let's dig a bit deeper than selecting quotes from a single Supreme Court opinion. Let's use secondary sources. MastCell Talk 21:42, 10 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The secondary sources are all calling out the same phrases, which is I where I started from. I'm hardly suggesting that the Justices are actually experts in the science, only that the issue is peculating in the Court and is a bone of contention and concern as shown in this good MSM article on it. I add links to the primary source, even though the quotes are also in the secondary source, because I consider it a courtesy to readers to give links to primary sources.


 * Also, you are right, it was about partial birth, but many believe Kennedy was using the occassion to signal to anti-abortion forces that he was open to legislation that focused on protecting women's health, including their mental health. The context also indicates that Kennedy's use of the phrase "no reliable data" should probably be interpreted differently than Ginsberg's use of the same phrase. Kennedy, like Koop, is likely to be saying that since there are no studies that are above criticism he's not going to give the press or Ginsberg fodder by citing any of them. Instead he cites the testimonies of women as examples of general, undeniable truth that SOME women are deeply troubled by their abortions. That is sufficient, in his view, for the Court recognize a potential problem. The law must often recognize the exceptions.  Therefore, abortion law does not hinge on how many women may suffer, but it may and arguably should take note of the importance of even a few suffering.  Ginsberg, obviously, focuses her dissent regarding this idea on the view that post-abortion emotional problems are probably exaggerated. But even Ginsburg's dissent falls short of denying that problems ever occur and actually tries to be sensitive in acknowledging that women do have negative feelings.


 * But we aren't here to analyze any of that. All I was suggesting is that such citations to the court, as in the article I cited, demonstrates the growing interest in this issue has been in part sparked by this Supreme Court tiff and by the prospect that it may influence future decisions.--Strider12 (talk) 19:42, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Coleman Bio
IronAngelAlice creatd a bio for Priscilla Coleman. As the section on Coleman's review in this article had an overly long biographical information about Coleman (with an emphasis on implications that she has a pro-life bias and can't be trusted because she's published with Reardon which seemed a bit out of place in and disproportionate to other experts), I removed these biographical paragraphs and added the link to Priscilla Coleman where readers can discover these allegations in the context of a biography. I'm sure IAA would appreciate help with that biography. I left a few notes on the talk page but did not venture into editing the article in light of the long history of edit warring with IAA aka 131.216.41.16 over misapplied citations and unsupported inferences in regard to the Reardon bio.Strider12 (talk) 19:04, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Reorg
Many (most?) of us think that this article is badly organized and should be structured but most of the discussion is about tweaks to the current (bad) article. I'd like to have more discussion about the replacement article. So I hope that this post will help lead our discussion. There are subsections for different aspects of the reorg; each has as list of possible components and then a discussion section. I don't know how this will work but let's give it a try. Sbowers3 (talk) 01:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Discussion
I have taken the liberty of starting with a few sources in the consensus list because I think everyone will agree that these sources will be included. In the "others" list I have included all those in the current article, as well as all those I have read someone suggest. As for moving between "others" and "consensus" let's discuss here and try to reach consensus before actually moving them. Sbowers3 (talk) 01:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Strider12's Reorg & Rework Suggestions

 * There is consensus, as all sources agree, that "some" women have "significant" post-abortion emotional reactions. The problem is that the definitions of "some" and "significant" vary and lead you very quicly away from any broadly supported consensus.  (There is also, however, a consensus in all sources that certain groups of women are more likely to have negative reactions, such as those with pre-existing depression, those who are pushed into an unwanted abortion, conservative morals, etc., but that is often viewed as secondary to the "big" issue of prevelance of the problems)  That's why I think Wilmoth's statement is the most conservative and unimpeachable consensus statement.  Some women have problems, and all sides agree that there is disagreement on how to define A,B,C & D.


 * Move beyond Wilmoth, and I become doubtful that you can find any meaningful consensus statement regarding the majority opinion in a field where no polls of the experts has been published. In part this is because this area is so very fluid, controversial, and impactful on politics and medical practice. Even if, for example, Fergusson's study convinced the RCP that there is a significant problem, they would naturally tone down their consensus statement to minimize the political and practical effects of a significant shift in their scientific opinion. Consensus, afterall, is a political process, not a scientific process. Consensus statements don't reveal truth, just what people can agree on...and often what people think others want or need to hear.


 * I'm more concerned about facts. All the viewpoints that can be represented are looking at the same facts. I favor just putting forward all the evidence in a NPOV fashion so people can draw their own conclusions.  To give context, certainly viewpoints and consensus statements reflecting on the evidence are necessary.  Whose viewpoints should be included? As a starting place, there are some easily identified experts, most of whom you've listed, who have published multiple times or have published key studies (like Fergussons) whose viewpoints should clearly be iuncluded. As MastCell has noted, the APA is expected to issue a new summary opinion just as the RCP has, but a new opinion will not change the available facts on which it will be based.


 * What I want to see discussed, and agreed upon, is that the policy on WP:WEIGHT is not about empirical facts, it is about maintaining a balance of viewpoints. It says nothing about selecting facts or studies in such a manner that they proportionately fit what are claimed to be the majority or minority opinions. (And how do you know if a minority opinion is 10% or 49%?) I think we can reach a consensus on including a variety of experts opinions which are representative of the ways different parties view the same set of facts.  My main argument is that empirical findings (statistically validated results) of peer reviewed studies are FACTS, not opinions, and should therefore not be included or excluded based on arguments of WEIGHT, which applies only to opinions.


 * Whether the statistically validated facts from peer reviewed studies are presented individually, or in paragraph form (like in Coleman's summary listing multiple studies), is not that important to me. But I do believe it is important that AT LEAST the citations to all relevent peer reviewed studies brought forward by editors should be retained in the article. This not only shows respect for the contribution of the editor bringing forth the reliable source, it also creates an expanded bibliography so that readers (and future editors) have the ability to dig down to as the reliable secondary sources as they may be interested in.


 * That said, while some studies certainly deserve detailed discussion, I have no problem with a condensed list like Coleman's. I've even tried inserting such (a single sentence with multiple citations regarding each symptom identified, for example), but they have generally been deleted.


 * The problem in the past has been that some editors object to including even the citations to symptoms and studies demonstrating a link between abortion and depression, for example, because such a listing undermines the "tone" of the article which they felt should be centered on Stotland's 1992 conclusion that there "is no evidence" of a problem. Afterall, if Stotland represents the majority view, and it is true, than all the studies presenting evidence of a problem must be false and untrustworthy. That has been the central bone of contention in this article for many months.  How much evidence FOR a link between abortion and mental health problems should be allowed since Stotland 1992 and APA 1990 say there is no problem (and Koop refused to draw any conclusions)? --Strider12 (talk) 19:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Structure
intro, PAS section, chronological studies, summary
 * chronological

intro, PAS, neutral studies, negative studies, summary
 * POV sections


 * other orderings

Discussion
After the intro, I think we should continue to have an explanation of PAS - I don't know whether editors think the current section is neutral or not - then the scientific studies arranged either chronological or by POV (neutral or negative), then possibly a summary, but a summary might be hard to write without violating SYNTH or repeating the intro.

I originally favored the chronological ordering because I thought it lent itself to prose, but have changed my mind. I'm afraid that it would like a disorganized list and I can't think of any natural way to divide the studies except by name of author. Arranging it by POV looks a little more organized and that seems to be the only natural division of the studies. Sbowers3 (talk) 01:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I was just over to abortion-breast cancer hypothesis. It may provide some model for this article.  It gives a pretty extensive review of studies.--Strider12 (talk) 04:00, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

This article is a fraud.
There is no evidence there is more stress associated with undergoing an abortion than there is giving birth. This is right-to-life hogwash and doesn't belong on Wikipedia.--28 August 2008 Susan Nunes —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.228.60.115 (talk) 16:37, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Reorg'd
I have reorganized the article without changing any of the wording. Many of us have said that it was badly organized but nobody did anything about or even talked about it much so I went ahead and did it. The main change is to have separate sections for inconclusive, neutral, and negative instead of a studies section. I think it now reads as being organized.

My longer goal is to expand the prose in the Psychological effects section while trimming each of the subsections of expert studies. I think there is some agreement that a good article should be more prose and less "listy".

It's a start and I hope people will try it out for a while before reverting. Sbowers3 (talk) 01:29, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Columbia Journal
I've reverted this again, and would like to see some discussion of it. The paragraph presents two claims on abortion and mental health, which lack mainstream support and are clearly fringe/minoritarian, without any context in violation of WP:WEIGHT. They are sourced to a journal called Columbia. Before reinserting, can we have more detail about this journal here on the talk page? Can you provide its website? Who publishes it? What is its subject area? Is it indexed in PubMed or Web of Science? If possible, can we have links to the actual article text for verification? These are issues that go to sourcing and reliability. MastCell Talk 16:50, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Columbia isn't a journal, it's a magazine. I was trying to use wikicite, but they don't have an option for magazine, just book, web and journal.  I figured a magazine was closest to journal and so that is what I selected.  I'm not able to find a website with the text of the article, and while I agree that would be helpful, I don't believe it is required.  --Kailani (talk) 17:12, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you have a general website for the magazine? It would at least be useful to get a sense of its level of editorial oversight, its publishers and scope, and its reputation for accuracy and objectivity, per the verifiability policy. MastCell Talk 17:23, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Columbia is published by the Knights of Columbus, and searching around on their website I found this. The Knights have over 1.8 million members, and this is sent to all them.  I'll restore the text now. --Kailani (talk)  —Preceding comment was added at 18:41, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, thank you. As a fairly doctrinaire Catholic organization and the "strong right arm of the Church", the Knights of Columbus are clearly a partisan source when it comes to issues of abortion. Views published in their periodical may be reasonably quoted here as examples of a pro-life perspective, but their journal is absolutely, absolutely not a suitable source for flat proclamation of scientific "fact", which is how you're using them. Let's figure out, here, on the talk page, how to include this information in a manner that respects context and WP:WEIGHT. MastCell Talk 21:53, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I just wanted to pop in and say I share MastCell's weight concern. We cannot present the opinion of the Knights of Columbs magazine in the same manner/weight as national health organizations like American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association, or prestigious medical journals like JAMA. I found this and this. Maybe we could have a sentence mentioning that the Knights promote the view that men can also experience PAS? Does Rue or Coyle have anything published in actual journals about this topic?-Andrew c [talk] 22:10, 10 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I can see what you are saying. I went and started searching for academic journals to see if I could corroborate what was said in Columbia.  I found a lot but I trimmed it down.  It seemed like it would have doubled the size of the section, so I made a new subsection just for men to avoid WP:Weight isues. Kailani (talk) 16:54, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

← I don't think that these edits are a step in the right direction. They raise a number of issues: Your edits as a whole seem to advance a specific belief. It's probably worth remembering that Wikipedia is not a venue for advocacy. For our purposes it's best to look for the highest-quality available sources first and then go where they lead, rather than to start with an agenda and then try to find any and all sources that can be used to support it. Please make an effort to be more exacting in your representation of the content of sources. A brief PubMed search for "abortion psychological father" turned up, a study of 75 men whose partners had elective abortions, as well as and. These might be more useful starting points for a section on the psychological effect of abortion on men, though there is little quality research (and a lot of pro-life advocacy) in this area, so WP:WEIGHT and WP:V remain an issue. MastCell Talk 17:28, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Misrepresentation of sources. You cite as evidence that abortion leads men to feel listless, depressed, unhappy with their marriage, and more prone to divorce. The problem is that a simple reading of the source makes clear that it studied only abortion for fetal abnormality. In other words, these were all abortions performed during desired pregnancies because the fetus had an abnormality. That is a clearly, obviously very different situation from the majority of abortions, which are elective terminations of unwanted pregnancies. Yet your edit blithely conflates these two very different scenarios without acknowledging the basic facts in the cited source.
 * You cite an article by Myburgh et al. from Health SA Gesondheid. This journal is not indexed on PubMed as best I can tell; certainly it is not substantial enough of a source for the lengthy exposition you inserted. I'm also a bit reluctant, based on the previous bullet point, to accept your gloss at face value without reading and verifying the article myself, but that's a secondary issue.
 * You cite, which is a case report of a single man dealing with his partner's abortion, to advance this point, and then attribute the article's conclusions as "according to the American Journal of Psychotherapy". A single case report should be identified as such, not used to support generalities, and the conclusions should be attributed to the author, not the journal.


 * I don't do much editing on Wikipedia so I dont know all the ins and outs, but I dont think having you just come in and always delete my work is a step in the right direction either. How about working with me and editing the text so that it meets your high standards?  That would be a lot better use of time than just deleting everything.  Im not a prolife advocate.  I read something in a magazine at the library that I found interesting so I came on here and added it.  You didnt like the source, so I went out and found others that I thought would 1) back up my original contribution and 2) meet your standard for sources.  Then, instead putting "This only applies to fetal abnormailities" you deleted the whole thing, including the other parts.  I just dont feel like that is very constructive.


 * I will work on correcting the language on that. As to your second point, I worked hard to find a source from another country so that I couldnt be accused of having a bias.  It was tough and I had to use favors, but I did find one from south africa that covered this topic.  Ive never used or heard of "PubMed" before, so I dont know why or why not something would be included on their, but Health SA Gesondheid is "an accredited interdisciplinary research journal that publishes only selected articles of the highest scientific standard" and "publishes independently refereed articles."  I don't know why that just since you dont have access to it (neither do I, but a friend does) that it cant be included.  Do you have to have access to all info before it can appear on wikipedia?  Im going to work on your concerns and hope it is acceptable to you then.  If it isnt then I would ask that you work on it yourself instead of just deleting it.  I dont think you would like it if I went around deleting all your contributions just because I found some errors in them or I didnt have a copy of the same book you cited.Kailani (talk) 17:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * OK. Why don't we work on the proposed text here, on the talk page, until we reach some sort of consensus about it, and then work it into the article? That's probably going to more effective than putting it in, removing it, putting it back in with minor tweaks, and so forth. I apologize for not explaining myself more patiently and in more detail. I realize you're new and I didn't mean to be harsh, but I also noticed that this is not your only Wikipedia account, so I wasn't sure how much experience you had. It might be useful reading to take a look at the policies on verifiability and neutral point of view, particular the section on undue weight, as well as the guidelines on reliable sources and proposed guidelines for reliable sources for medical articles. PubMed is a publicly available tool for searching the medical literature. It searches MEDLINE, which is a massive database compiled by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Virtually all medical journals of any significance are indexed on PubMed; if a journal is not indexed there, then its papers are unlikely to be found and cited by other researchers. Medical journals that are not indexed by PubMed have much less impact and relevance, and it's worth starting on PubMed for any search of medical literature. PubMed is free to use, and at least the abstracts (summaries) of papers are usually freely available through it. I think it's reasonable to have coverage of the psychological effect of abortion on partners. However, I think that coverage should be based on the best available sources. I listed a couple that I came up with in a brief search of PubMed. I'm going to move your text from the article to the talk page, below, and suggest that we work on it here. I'll propose what I see the section looking like, and we can work towards a consensus version which can be inserted into the article. MastCell Talk 19:12, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Moved from article for discussion
This disputed text has been moved from the article for discussion here on the talk page: While abortion has usually been classified as a woman's issue, the fathers of the children who are aborted are also affected by the decision, according to the American Journal of Psychotherapy. Dr. Marcelle Christian Holmes believes "Abortion must no longer be considered exclusively a woman's issue; we must reconsider how we respond to men pre and postabortion and learn to provide better outreach and clinical services to the men struggling with this issue."

Adult biological fathers are "deeply affected" by their partners' abortions and they experience "feelings of sadness and loss that included feelings of anger and guilt." Major and minor themes that men experience include :

Feelings of powerlessness Powerlessness related to having little control over the decision being made. Feelings of being excluded and isolated from the decision-making. 

Experiencing emotional turmoil Sadness related to the loss of a child. Feelings of guilt related to being an accomplice in the destruction of the child. Anger at their own helplessness and not being able to share the burden of the child. Concern that they were responsible for putting their partner through this experience. 

Psychological defense mechanisms as way of dealing with the stressful effects Rationalization to make the abortion acceptable. Avoiding feelings of being ashamed by being silent and secretive about the abortion. 

A study of married couples in Prenatal Diagnosis where women underwent abortions in the second trimester for fetal abnormalities found that the husbands reported increased listlessness, loss of concentration, and irritability for up to 12 months after their wife's abortion. There is also increased marital discord during the first two years after these abortions, and possibly longer, with an increased risk of separation and divorce. Some reported physical symptoms such as palpitations and panic attacks and some took antidepressants, received counseling, or underwent in-patient treatment.

An article in the American Journal of Psychotherapy examined a man whose girlfriend secretly underwent an abortion six months prior. He experienced loneliness, restless sleep, various somatic complaints, and feelings of worthlessness and emasculation as a result of the abortion. His job performance also declined and he found it difficult not to ruminate about their lost child.

I think we agree that the psychological effects of abortion on men (or partners) falls reasonably under this article topic; the question is how to present the limited reliably-sourced material which exists on the subject. Additionally, the length and detail we give should reflect the quality and quantity of reliable sources available on the topic. Based on a look through PubMed and elsewhere, I'd propose something like this:


 * The psychological response of male partners to abortion has been the subject of limited research. A relatively large study of 75 men in Sweden found that most participating men agreed with their partner's decision to have an abortion, and that many experienced a complex mix of emotions including anxiety, responsibility, guilt, relief and grief.undefined Other small studies have suggested that abortion can be a point of conflict when partners disagree about it,undefined and have underscored that like women, many male partners experience an ambivalent mix of emotions in response to their partner's abortion, and that this ambivalence is a reaction to the complexity of the abortion issue.undefined

I don't think this says anything earth-shattering - men, like women, tend to be deeply ambivalent about the experience of abortion - but it's pretty much all we can say with the available sources. I think these sources are more relevant, and they avoid conflating the experience of aborting a desired pregnancy due to fetal abnormalities with the experience of an elective termination of an undesired pregnancy, as these are signficiantly different from a psychological perpsective. MastCell Talk 21:05, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * That's a good start, but I don't think we should just wholesale toss all the research I did. How is this:


 * While abortion has usually been classified as a woman's issue, the fathers of the children who are aborted are also affected by the decision. Dr. Marcelle Christian Holmes believes "Abortion must no longer be considered exclusively a woman's issue; we must reconsider how we respond to men pre and postabortion and learn to provide better outreach and clinical services to the men struggling with this issue."


 * The psychological response of male partners to abortion has been the subject of limited research. A relatively large study of 75 men in Sweden found that most participating men agreed with their partner's decision to have an abortion, and that many experienced a complex mix of emotions including anxiety, responsibility, guilt, relief and grief.undefined Other small studies have suggested that abortion can be a point of conflict when partners disagree about it,undefined and have underscored that like women, many male partners experience an ambivalent mix of emotions in response to their partner's abortion, and that this ambivalence is a reaction to the complexity of the abortion issue.undefined


 * Another South African study found three major themes from men whose partners underwent abortions: feelings of powerlessness, emotional turmoil, and employing psychological defense mechanisms to deal with the stress. Particularly the men felt to have little control over the decision to abort, sadness and guilt about being part of the destruction and loss of the child, and avoided feelings of being ashamed by being silent and secretive about the abortion.


 * I've included your studies and the essence of mine. What do you think?Kailani (talk) 00:01, 15 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The first paragraph bothers me: "usually classified as a woman's issue" sets up a strawman to knock down. "According to Marcelle Christian Holmes..." - who is she, and why is her opinion the one quoted here as opposed to that of people who actually conducted large studies on the topic? Finally, again with the South African study, I am not clear on how much weight, if any, to assign it as it appears in a non-MEDLINE-indexed journal. My problem with the section as a whole is that it doesn't really say anything. The article is about abortion and mental health. Having a complex of self-limited positive and negative feelings in response to a major life event is the normal, expected response - this says absolutely nothing about "mental health", and so it seems particularly out of context to highlight it here. MastCell Talk 04:26, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I took the first sentence about the usual clasification directly from the article. I don't know that it creates a strawman, but I can attribute it if you like.  I also took out the quote from Homes since you dont like it.  In its place I put in a quote that confirms what I have found from my research - there isnt much out there.  I also added a line at the end that I think does discuss more mental health issues, though I think what is already there does discuss it as well.


 * While abortion has usually been classified as a woman's issue, the fathers of the children who are aborted are also affected by the decision and may struggle with it. Despite this, "Postabortion men have been virtually ignored in the scientific literature."


 * The psychological response of male partners to abortion has been the subject of limited research. A relatively large study of 75 men in Sweden found that most participating men agreed with their partner's decision to have an abortion, and that many experienced a complex mix of emotions including anxiety, responsibility, guilt, relief and grief.undefined Other small studies have suggested that abortion can be a point of conflict when partners disagree about it,undefined and have underscored that like women, many male partners experience an ambivalent mix of emotions in response to their partner's abortion, and that this ambivalence is a reaction to the complexity of the abortion issue.undefined


 * Another South African study found three major themes from men whose partners underwent abortions: feelings of powerlessness, emotional turmoil, and employing psychological defense mechanisms to deal with the stress. Particularly, the men involved with the study felt to have little control over the decision to abort.  They also felt sadness and guilt about being part of the destruction and loss of the child, and avoided feelings of being ashamed by being silent and secretive about the abortion.  For those men who have been hurt by abortion, structured psychological interventions have been found to to promote forgiveness and emotional healing.


 * Any further thoughts? Kailani (talk) 02:38, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

There are many problems with the wording. The term "child" is used instead of the technical term "fetus." Also the abstract for the reference given in the first paragraph simply says:

This article reviews published methods for promoting forgiveness for a broad range of clinical issues. The review revealed a consensus among applied researchers regarding several broad types of interventions to promote forgiveness, namely, (a) defining forgiveness, (b) helping clients remember the hurt, (c) building empathy in clients for the perpetrator, (d) helping clients acknowledge their own past offenses, and (e) encouraging commitment to forgive the offender. Roughly half of the studies also prescribed interventions to help clients overcome unforgiveness (e.g., bitterness, vengefulness) without explicitly promoting forgiveness. Speculations about how to use forgiveness interventions in sensitive and client-supportive ways are advanced on the basis of the findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved)

Can you give us the section of the article that specifically deals with men and abortion?

I would also like to see more information about the Swedish study. The reference is not complete.

It is also clear that the South African "study" is actually just preliminary interviews. The sample size was 9 adult males. This does not meet the definition of "study" for North American and European journals. --IronAngelAlice (talk) 05:38, 18 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what you are talking about - both studies in the first paragraph are specifically about men. Just look at the titles: "Reconsidering a "Woman's Issue:" Psychotherapy and One Man's Postabortion Experiences" and "Forgiveness Intervention With Postabortion Men."  I also didn't know that only Norht American or European journals are allowed.  That seems pretty biased geographically speaking to me. Kailani (talk) 14:58, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think IronAngelAlice is saying that only American research is acceptable. She's saying that source is not of the same caliber as many of the others available, and I agree with that. I've removed some of your paragraph, because it gives way too much weight to borderline sources like the Internet Journal of Mental Health (?). WP:WEIGHT mandates that we present topics and opinions proportionately, and we're giving way too much space to these borderline sources. A brief summary of what's available in the reasonably reputable medical literature is appropriate, and there's really not much. We don't need to go looking for partisan sources or those of uncertain pedigree and reliability - that road will make the article both less informative and more contentious. MastCell Talk 18:02, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm a little upset with what you did. You completly ripped out all of my contributions, and put in exactly what you originally wrote.  What was all that work I did for, and why did you take it to the talk page if you were just going to ignore everything I did anyway?  Why not just say up front that unless you approve you won't allow it in?  Well I dont know a lot about Wikipedia, but I do know that you can't wp:own the articles, so I'm going to restore what I wrote.  It's not fair for you to ignore it here on the talk page (twice!) and then when I put it in the actual article you go and delete it.  Also, the American Journal of Psychotherapy and Journal of consulting and clinical psychology are both listed with PubMed, so they both meet your arbitrary standard their anyway.  I tried to do this in good faith but you seem to be saying that unless you agree then nothing can be included.  Its not fair.  I read something in an article, and i put it in.  You delete it and say its not a scientific journal.  I find scientific journals that discuss this topic (of which there are very few!) and you don't like any of them either.  You can't keep moving the goal posts. Kailani (talk) 19:33, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not ignoring your contributions. I addressed them in detail, repeatedly, here on the talk page and explained where I find them problematic, with reference to this site's content policies. Please don't take this personally. Here, briefly, are my objections once again:
 * You again cite a case report - of a single person - to support a very general statement.
 * You write monlithically: "Men do not perceive abortion as a benign experience." The source is the "Internet Journal of Mental Health", to an article by Catherine Coyle. This journal is not particularly weighty in the field and is not indexed on MEDLINE; to highlight its findings to support such a broad generalization violates the policy on undue weight.
 * You again cite Catherine Coyle (twice more), giving her quite a bit of weight. She has 2 PubMed-indexed publications on abortion over the course of >10 years, and this is probably an undue amount of weight to give her viewpoint. Additionally, Coyle works with a group of pro-life advocates who promote "post-abortion syndrome", and her involvement in research stems from her commitment to pro-life advocacy, as she states in here (which, incidentally, should be cited in our article). A Google search on "Catherine Coyle abortion" indicates that her work is heavily cited by pro-life advocacy groups but not by the wider scientific community. That does not invalidate her views, but on a topic like this we need to be careful to distinguish advocacy from research. I believe that your edits give too much weight to what is essentially an advocacy agenda, and would prefer to focus on the more independent research which exists.
 * I continue to be uncomfortable with the South African study, a series of 9 preliminary interviews which is not published in a MEDLINE-indexed journal, being given so much weight (a paragraph of its own).
 * To summarize, I think that your edits focus a bit too heavily on sources which are not particularly weighty, or are openly advocacy-driven, at the expense of balanced coverage of knowledge in the area. I note that similar concerns were expressed by at least one, if not two, other editors here, though you chose to personalize this as me being mean. I will ask for input from Wikiproject Abortion, or a 3rd opinion if you like; you are also welcome to peruse the dispute resolution pathway to move past a back-and-forth revert war. MastCell Talk 22:56, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Additionally, please don't pretend that you're new, or you "don't know a lot about Wikipedia", or that you don't understand about edit-warring and consensus-building. You've been using an alternate account pretty heavily to edit-war on a tangentially related topic, you've been warned numerous times for edit-warring and nearly blocked for it with this alternate account, and your alternate account single-mindedly advances the same agenda that you're advancing here. Interestingly, your alternate account has also been criticized for relying on poor-quality, agenda-driven sources at the expense of more reliable, independent, scientific sources. I won't go further into it at this point, but let's move past the pretense and get down to brass tacks. MastCell Talk 23:17, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I didn't write that, a psychologist and dean wrote that men may struggle with it. The studies you cite show men may experience some negative emotions, so I guess I don't see what the problem with including it is.  It is properly cited, and I can't imagine anyone denying that some men, just like women, may struggle with it.  The article from the IJMH was a review of all the other literature, which is very limited.  As you yourself have discovered, there is little out there that deals with men and abortion, much less abortion and men's mental health.  If the same researcher gets cite twice then I don't think it is giving her any undue weight, bu recognizing that she is one of the few to tackle this subject.  The South African journal is peer reviewed.  It has been a long time since I've been in school, but that was usually the standard we needed to meet if we wanted to include something in a paper.  I went to a pretty good school so I dont think wikipedias standards should be higher, unless someone is looking for a reason to discount information.  The IJMH is peer reviewed as well, by the way.  Just because it doesn't make the US government's list of favored journals doesn't mean it isn't credible.  I think it shows geographical bias to discount it.  I responded to all these concerns before, and then no one responded to me, so how I was I to know that I hadn't won anybody over?  I can't read your minds.  Also, just because two people use the same computer doesnt mean they are the same person.  This account was set up by someone else but he never used it, so when I wanted to come on wikipedia he gave me the password.Kailani (talk)  —Preceding undated comment was added at 13:48, 22 July 2008 (UTC)   PS I apologize for my earlier tone.  I was just upset that everything I did had been deleted.


 * I don't have a problem with the sources per se so much as I have a problem with using them to substantiate sweeping generalizations and a lengthy section. OK, we agree that there is little research on the topic. Where we disagree, I think, is on where to go from there. I feel that if there is little or no solid research, then the solution is not to expand at great length on the small amount of poor-quality research which exists. The solution is to briefly summarize the currently available research in a manner proportionate to its quality and visibility among experts in the field. I believe this reflects Wikipedia's policy as codified here. The topic has been largely ignored and there's little or no good research? Then we should note the lack of research, but we should not step into the gap to draw large generalizations from individual case reports here on Wikipedia. That's not our role; our role is to accurately and proportionately represent the research that exists. MastCell Talk 18:12, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

APA Task Force Confirms Abortion is not a Threat to Mental Health
The Task Force report came out yesterday, August 12.

The .pdf of the report can be found here:
 * http://www.apa.org/releases/abortion-report.html

Media coverage: --IronAngelAlice (talk) 21:58, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
 * http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/health/research/13brfs-ABORTIONDOES_BRF.html
 * http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2008/08/13/apa_abortion_report/index.html

Article Biased by Incredibly Selective Use of Sources & Misrepresentation
This article is very biased. It overstates views, of the APA recent report for example, to make it sound more positive about abortion than it really was. And it appears that most of the studies finding negative effects have been deleted...as is evident from a perusal of the talk pages.

The article states: "The APA task force issued an updated summary of medical evidence in August 2008, again concluding that abortion carried no more mental health risk than carrying a pregnancy to term."

This is very misleading as it makes a generalization about all abortions. The task force actually concluded was very narrow, as seen on page 71:


 * "Based on our comprehensive review and evaluation of the empirical literature published in peer-reviewed journals since 1989, this Task Force on Mental Health and Abortion concludes that the most methodologically sound research indicates that among women who have a single, legal, first-trimester abortion of an unplanned pregnancy for nontherapeutic reasons, the relative risks of mental health problems are no greater than the risks among women who deliver an unplanned pregnancy." (page 71)

Reading through the nuances,this statement means that sound research does indicate that there are greater emotional risks associated with (1) multiple abortions, (2) illegal abortions, (3) abortions after the first trimester, (4) abortions of planned or wanted pregnancies to which the woman has an emotional attachment (see the body of the report), (5) abortions for therapeutic reasons. Elsewhere it makes clear this conclusion is also limited to adults, not minors.

The official APA news release summarizes this as "There is no credible evidence that a single elective abortion of an unwanted pregnancy in and of itself causes mental health problems for adult women."

The APA release also reports:
 * "The best scientific evidence published indicates that among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy, the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective first-trimester abortion or deliver that pregnancy," said Brenda Major, PhD, chair of the task force. "The evidence regarding the relative mental health risks associated with multiple abortions is more uncertain."

In an analysis of the report Med India notes these caveats:


 * "Certain factors were found to increase the risk of lingering mental health effects ranging from higher stress levels to anxious feelings to full-blown depression:
 * • Being pressured into having an abortion when the pregnancy was wanted
 * • Not having adequate emotional support after the abortion
 * • Feeling the need to keep the abortion a secret from loved ones because of the stigma associated with it

There are any number of other exaggerations and misrepresentations in this article, but the inability to get even the APA's recent report right indicates a serious lack of concern for accuracy and balance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balloonmaker (talk • contribs) 20:46, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I think the APA statement should probably be clarified to include the caveats about a single, legal, elective first-trimester abortion. In some cases this does mean that alternatives may be riskier - for example, illegal abortions do seem to be associated with higher stress and possibly poorer mental health - but in other cases, the caveats are simply due to a lack of useable data. They should not be interpreted across the board to mean that multiple or second-trimester abortions are harmful - that would be a fairly obvious logical fallacy - only that the APA did not find sufficient evidence there to make a firm statement. MastCell Talk 20:53, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

MedPage Today reports that:
 * The review identified several factors predictive of more negative psychological responses following first-trimester abortion:
 * Included perceptions of stigma
 * Need for secrecy
 * Low or anticipated social support for the abortion decision
 * Prior history of mental health problems
 * Personality factors such as low self-esteem and use of avoidance and denial coping strategies
 * Characteristics of the particular pregnancy, including the extent to which the woman wanted :and felt committed to it
 * Prior mental health which was the strongest predictor of postabortion mental health

The Catholic News Service also reports that the task force has been accused of political bias in producing a report that ignores a number of important studies, and moreover that the lead author  of the report, Brenda Major, "faces allegations that she has violated the APA ethics rules by not sharing her data on abortion and mental health effects for other researchers to analyze."

It should also include mention of the Wall Street Journal articles noting that task force conclusions do not apply to abortions for minors (17% of total) or multiple abortions (around 50% of total), and to the political controversy and charges of bias regarding the report and to the weaknesses of the Gilchrist study, which is the only study used for the APA's conclusions after the authors dismissed the reliability of dozens of other studies.--Balloonmaker (talk) 21:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)--Balloonmaker (talk) 21:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The Catholic News Service is an obviously partisan source in this debate. Just as we don't cite Planned Parenthood's take prominently, we don't cite theirs. More independent and unbiased sources are preferable. As to your Wall Street Journal citations, they render the thread heading a bit ironic, since you've selectively mined a few tidbits which support your argument while ignoring the overall content and context of the articles, which anyone can read for themselves. Briefly, the Journal explicitly notes that the report's finding of no mental health risk applies to "the majority of abortions." It does not cover "charges of bias" in any appreciable fashion. The Journal does not point out the "weaknesses of the Gilchrist study"; it appraises quite a few of the primary papers on the subject, listing the strengths and weaknesses of each (in their opinion), and does not single out the Gilchrist paper as particularly "strong" or "weak" in comparison to the other evidence. One could just as easily (and inaccurately) claim that the Journal pointed out the strength of the Gilchrist study. I realize your account is brand-new, but you seem familiar - have we met before? MastCell Talk 18:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

New study from Johns Hopkins University
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28050494/from/ET/ is worth an inclusion I think. 69.249.19.253 (talk) 03:37, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Mother v. Pregnant Woman, the saga continues
If you have time, please take a look at this discussion regarding the debate on the talk page for Wikiproject Abortion. - Schrandit (talk) 14:37, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

For future reference
These should probably be incorporated into the article, if they aren't already. MastCell Talk 04:06, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

This article is untrue.
This article biased to the point of being false and potentially harmful to society. It off-handedly invalidates the experiences of women who have had abortions and feel depressed or anxious as a result. At a basic, intuitive level, it makes sense that abortion is traumatic experience for some, if not most, women. The procedure is very painful, for one thing. For another, it's scary as hell. For another, the cultural stigma attached to abortion is deep-seated and guilt-inducing. If those aren't basic, trauma-inducing conditions--pain, fear, guilt--then at the very least, this article needs to acknowledge that the wide array of post-abortion care hotlines and support groups exists for a reason.

This article needs be rewritten completely or removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.233.121.152 (talk) 04:24, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

"Abortion and mental health disorders: evidence from a 30-year longitudinal study"
Here is a quick summary of the article: "In general, the results lead to a middle-of-the-road position that, for some women, abortion is likely to be a stressful and traumatic life event which places those exposed to it at modestly increased risk of a range of common mental health problems...Finally, the findings of this study have some important implications for the legal status of abortion in societies such as New Zealand and the UK, where over 90% of abortions are authorised on the grounds that proceeding with the pregnancy would pose a serious threat to the woman’s mental health."

Not sure if it was discussed in prior archives (quick scan indicates not). Interesting that it appears to contradict many of the other subjects on the matter. This is likely because of convenience sample bias (discussion section). But still, worth mentioning? NW ( Talk ) 13:56, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. We do have a section devoted to Fergusson, but I think most of the action on this article pre-dated their 2008 publication. The NZ group has argued, both in the 2008 paper and the 2006 article we cite, that abortion has some element of mental-health risk. That position contradicts most expert-body syntheses of the literature, and as you note, methodological issues have been put forward to explain the discrepancy. I think the whole article is ripe for a rewrite - the current approach of devoting entire sections to individual primary studies seems inappropriate, and the article could be better organized, more readable, and still cite primary sources such as Fergusson et al. to demonstrate various viewpoints on the issue. MastCell Talk 16:59, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

This article needs to assume that professionals DISAGREE on this major issue. It currently basically assumes only one side.
This article is an example of why many teachers, profs distrust Wikipedia. The viewpoint is (mostly) that "professionals see little or no abortion-related mental health issues". However, one can find various professionals who disagree. (See some of the commentary in the discussion!!!).

Short conclusion: Wikipedia (in this and some other articles on HOT topics) is held CAPTIVE to whatever ideology the editors wish to promote.

How to cover this still-evolving controversial issue? Invite quality professional representatives for both major viewpoints to submit their findings.Lindisfarnelibrary (talk) 20:35, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * What specifically do you dislike? That we state that the American Psychological Association concluded that termination of a first, unplanned pregnancy did not lead to an increased risk of mental health problems, but we don't mention other professional organizations who disagree? (do any exist)? Or that we state the existence of "post-abortion syndrome" is not recognized by any medical or psychological organization when that is not the case? I don't believe this article is one sided, but I do believe the article does not "teach the controversy" or provide both sides equally. This is due to WP:WEIGHT where we are supposed to give due weight to prominent views, and avoid undue weight to minority views. I think it's clear that major psychological organizations and review studies agree that abortion itself does not cause mental illness, while there are correlations demonstrated among other factors. All that said, I'd be interested in hearing what you think is inaccurate or too one-sided in this article specifically. And what you think should be changed. -Andrew c [talk] 22:42, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem is that absolutely no weight is given to minority views, and hence this article violates WP:NPOV. Geremia (talk) 06:32, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I wonder what kind of "professionals" Lindisfarnelibrary is referring to. I doubt they are medical ones. This user also seems unaware of how Wikipedia works in terms of how information is included. (If only qualified professionals volunteered to do all the work!) Sounds like someone disgruntled that their personal belief is not prioritized here over near-100% medical consensus (and most physicians who question all the supporting data tend to have religious agendas).--  TyrS  chatties  05:45, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It could just as easily be said that those denying it have pro-choice agendas. So what? Geremia (talk) 06:40, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Potential sources
For future reference:
















 * (1990) As compared to other stressful life events


 * Finland


 * New Zealand
 * Criticism:
 * NZ has different requirements for abortion than the US does: ;
 * Followup letter:
 * Followup letter:
 * Followup letter:


 * Positive effects
 * No positive correlation after controlling for childbearing and resource variables
 * No positive correlation after controlling for childbearing and resource variables


 * Prior mental health issues


 * Reardon et al.
 * Criticized by for failure to follow correlation v. causation:
 * Criticized by for failure to follow correlation v. causation:


 * Suicide


 * Teenagers


 * What causes stress

<b style="color:navy;">NW</b> ( Talk ) 02:51, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

This article needs to assume that professionals DISAGREE on this major issue. It currently basically assumes only one side.
This article is an example of why many teachers, profs distrust Wikipedia. The viewpoint is (mostly) that "professionals see little or no abortion-related mental health issues". However, one can find various professionals who disagree. (See some of the commentary in the discussion!!!).

Short conclusion: Wikipedia (in this and some other articles on HOT topics) is held CAPTIVE to whatever ideology the editors wish to promote.

How to cover this still-evolving controversial issue? Invite quality professional representatives for both major viewpoints to submit their findings.Lindisfarnelibrary (talk) 20:35, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * What specifically do you dislike? That we state that the American Psychological Association concluded that termination of a first, unplanned pregnancy did not lead to an increased risk of mental health problems, but we don't mention other professional organizations who disagree? (do any exist)? Or that we state the existence of "post-abortion syndrome" is not recognized by any medical or psychological organization when that is not the case? I don't believe this article is one sided, but I do believe the article does not "teach the controversy" or provide both sides equally. This is due to WP:WEIGHT where we are supposed to give due weight to prominent views, and avoid undue weight to minority views. I think it's clear that major psychological organizations and review studies agree that abortion itself does not cause mental illness, while there are correlations demonstrated among other factors. All that said, I'd be interested in hearing what you think is inaccurate or too one-sided in this article specifically. And what you think should be changed. -Andrew c [talk] 22:42, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The problem is that absolutely no weight is given to minority views, and hence this article violates WP:NPOV. Geremia (talk) 06:32, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I wonder what kind of "professionals" Lindisfarnelibrary is referring to. I doubt they are medical ones. This user also seems unaware of how Wikipedia works in terms of how information is included. (If only qualified professionals volunteered to do all the work!) Sounds like someone disgruntled that their personal belief is not prioritized here over near-100% medical consensus (and most physicians who question all the supporting data tend to have religious agendas).--  TyrS  chatties  05:45, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It could just as easily be said that those denying it have pro-choice agendas. So what? Geremia (talk) 06:40, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Potential sources
For future reference:
















 * (1990) As compared to other stressful life events


 * Finland


 * New Zealand
 * Criticism:
 * NZ has different requirements for abortion than the US does: ;
 * Followup letter:
 * Followup letter:
 * Followup letter:


 * Positive effects
 * No positive correlation after controlling for childbearing and resource variables
 * No positive correlation after controlling for childbearing and resource variables


 * Prior mental health issues


 * Reardon et al.
 * Criticized by for failure to follow correlation v. causation:
 * Criticized by for failure to follow correlation v. causation:


 * Suicide


 * Teenagers


 * What causes stress

<b style="color:navy;">NW</b> ( Talk ) 02:51, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Coleman's new meta-analysis
is attempting to add, rather prominently, a meta-analysis by Priscilla K. Coleman. Firstly, I would appreciate it if he or anyone else could email me the full text of the article. Secondly, considering her history, I don't believe we should be inserting any study of Coleman's as if it were fact. The article just came out; surely we can wait a month or two before responses come in from the BMJ, NEJM, etc? If you really want to go ahead and add it now, please suggest how we can incorporate into the appropriate article section. <b style="color:navy;">NW</b> ( Talk ) 14:59, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
 * It is available here.
 * Hello User:NuclearWarfare, I would request that you kindly revert your edit. I did present the information neutrally as evidenced by my edit. The meta-analysis was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry and is a peer-reviewed reliable source. As such, the position should be presented, along with the current information in the article. I hope this helps. With regards, AnupamTalk 15:45, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
 * According to our article about the Br. J. Psych., it is open access after a 12 month embargo. Per wp:NOTNEWS, we can wait to see what it contains, and what the peers have to say.LeadSongDog come howl!  16:53, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
 * WP:REDFLAG indicates waiting would be prudent. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. - ArtifexMayhem (talk) 18:58, 1 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Which we're very unlikely to get from Coleman, since a) her studies have been criticized by the APA for their faulty methodology, b) in at least one case, researchers using Coleman's dataset were unable to obtain her results c) the supposed meta-analysis is largely of Coleman's own studies, so it's pretty worthless anyway. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 06:01, 2 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you have any sources for your claims, Roscelese? Thanks Geremia (talk) 01:24, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Which ones? Look at the studies in the paper you yourself linked - of 22 studies, 10 are by Coleman herself and another few are by her close colleagues. The other "claims" are already mentioned and cited in Wikipedia's article on Coleman, which you're obviously aware of since you edited it. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 01:41, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * There are currently some of the reasons for including Coleman in this article:
 * Coleman's study is the largest meta-analysis to date.
 * There is absolutely no mention of studies, old or new, that claim to show a correlation between abortion and mental health problems
 * Geremia (talk) 01:33, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Why should there be? No reputable body supports the claim, and many of the individual studies have been discredited. Please see WP:FRINGE: we are not required to give equal weight to fringe theories. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 01:41, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * To quote directly from that page: "The neutral point of view policy requires that all majority and significant-minority positions be included in an article." Currently, this article includes no "significant-minority positions," and Coleman, being the biggest meta-analysis, certainly is a "significant-minority position." If it is not, then what is? Whatever is should be included or else it would remain a violation of NPOV. Thanks Geremia (talk) 01:56, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The article already does mention studies which found a correlation. What more do you want to add? –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 01:59, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Where? Geremia (talk) 02:20, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * "While some studies have reported a statistical correlation between abortion and clinical depression, anxiety, suicidal behaviors, or adverse effects on women's sexual functions for a small number of women, these studies are typically methodologically flawed and fail to account for confounding factors. Higher-quality studies have consistently found no causal relationship between abortion and mental-health problems." I think that's the best you can ask for, since it mirrors expert scholarly opinion on the topic. Every reputable expert body that's examined the literature has concluded that there's no evidence that abortion causes mental-health problems. It's inappropriate to highlight individual studies to try to "debunk" or rebut expert opinion (see WP:MEDRS). If Coleman's paper is as substantial as you believe it to be, then expert bodies will revise their opinions. MastCell Talk 02:27, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The claims in this section you quote are completely uncited. Who said the studies are "are typically methodologically flawed and fail to account for confounding factors" and that "Higher-quality studies have consistently found no causal relationship between abortion and mental-health problems"? And the citation given to support these claims is a research paper. We could just as easily make a non sequitur citation of Coleman to prove the opposite of these claims. This isn't the only occurrence of a "non sequitur" citation. See, e.g., citation #5; what does Reagan's politics have to do with whether there is scientific evidence or not? We have not come to a consensus on this, which is why "cleanup-rewrite" tags are needed in order to alert others to help and contribute to this discussion and make this article comply with NPOV. Geremia (talk) 06:28, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The claims are not "completely uncited". Can we start by acknowledging the reality that there is a citation supporting these claims? There's a footnote immediately following them, linking to . Maybe we can move on from there. MastCell Talk 19:26, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * As I said on 06:28, 5 September 2011 (UTC): how could one not cite a study like Coleman's to support the opposite claim? Viz., I could say, citing Coleman, that studies she used are not "typically methodologically flawed" nor do they "fail to account for confounding factors" and that "Higher-quality studies have consistently found" a "causal relationship between abortion and mental-health problems." No? Thanks Geremia (talk) 16:18, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not quite following you. Coleman's paper has, at present, no demonstrable impact on the viewpoints of expert medical and psychological bodies. It is inappropriate for us, as Wikipedia editors, to highlight her paper to "rebut" those expert bodies. If her paper is, in fact, taken seriously by the relevant expert communities, then they will revise their viewpoints. And we will revise this article accordingly. MastCell Talk 17:14, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * One such community is the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists (AAPLOG), a special interest group of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Geremia (talk) 19:30, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell, AAPLOG is a partisan organization accorded essentially zero weight by independent, reputable scientific or lay sources. I think that giving AAPLOG's opinion equal weight with position statements from the APA et al. is sort of the canonical violation of WP:WEIGHT. MastCell Talk 20:32, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Does Coleman's study fall under the Post-Abortion Syndrome section? She certainly does not use that terminology in her paper. This was my justification for moving it to the Current and historical reviews section, but some users here think otherwise. Thanks Geremia (talk) 19:30, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * This article still doesn't cite any scientific papers that show a correlation. I ask again: Isn't that a blatant violation of WP:NPOV? Geremia (talk) 03:30, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I ask yet again: Doesn't this article blatantly violate WP:NPOV by failing to mention Coleman's study? Geremia (talk) 17:57, 18 April 2012 (UTC)
 * No, it would violate WP:NPOV to give undue weight to Coleman's study, particularly as expert reviews have suggested that the study was methodologically flawed. If experts in the field view her study as flawed and accord it little weight, then we shouldn't be trying to promote it with undue weight. MastCell Talk 19:33, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

The inclusion of cleanup tags
Some have been opposed to the inclusion of cleanup tags in this article because they think the WP:POV, WP:WEIGHT, citations, and Wikipedia quality standards issues have been met in this article, but judging from the numerous unresolved WP:POV discussions in the archive and the pleas to rewrite this article, these issues have not been resolved; therefore, cleanup tags must remain until they are resolved. Geremia (talk) 06:53, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


 * The most reliable and authoriative sources that could be found for the lede first sentence are a New York Times article and NOW on PBS a cancelled newsmagazine program, there must surely be something outside of the American News Media that could be used. The BCoP is probably more reliable than news media but surely there are also other scholarly sources that could go with it?DMSBel (talk) 18:07, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Just to be clear, NOW (in this instance) is a reputable news program on PBS, and not the National Organization of Women. And since the first sentence describes political controversy surrounding the issue, surely high-quality mainstream news sources like the New York Times and PBS are reasonable to support it? On the other hand, if you've identified similarly high-quality sources outside the American news media, I think people would be receptive to including them. MastCell Talk 18:07, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * News media is the last place I would begin for reliable non-partisan sources on a controversial political issue. But if I find anything more scholarly I'll suggest it here.DMSBel (talk) 18:18, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * By the way, I don't understand how anyone would have mixed up NOW on PBS when I linked to it, with the National Organisation of Women?DMSBel (talk) 18:22, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, you altered your original post to add that link here. I was responding to your initial post (which suggested possible confusion about NOW), and didn't expect you to alter it ten minutes later. The talk-page guidelines discourage you from doing that sort of thing; it makes it hard for people to respond to you when you go back and change your comments and then wonder how anyone could have been confused by them. But OK. Reputable mainstream media sources are fairly useful for covering political controversies; I think you'll find them in widespread use around Wikipedia, in some of our best articles. If you prefer non-American scholarly sources, there's, a recent review from a European medical journal. The political controversy (for example, over laws requiring physicians to provide dubious "information" about the mental-health risks of abortion) has been covered in the New England Journal of Medicine, among other scholarly sources . Do you think those would be useful? MastCell Talk 18:39, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * But you clearly come down on one side of the political debate in your both your article selections, and pick articles that are partisan to the discussion. Yet that is what you are harping on about others doing all the time. Why should I listen to you? DMSBel (talk) 19:01, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Perhaps these items were suggested not because of their content, but because of their coming from high quality sources outside the American news media, as was requested. What other sources of similar quality (published in peer reviewed academic literature, etc. - wp:MEDRS) would you suggest?  Zodon (talk) 20:36, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, I must have misunderstood. Did you just call the New England Journal of Medicine and The European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Health Care "partisan to the discussion"? <b style="color:navy;">NW</b> ( Talk ) 20:40, 7 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, you misunderstood, I clearly refered only to the articles not the journals.DMSBel (talk) 02:10, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Again, I feel that I am misunderstanding. You are referring to articles in NEJM and Eur J Contracept Reprod Health Care as being biased and partisan? <b style="color:navy;">NW</b> ( Talk ) 02:13, 8 September 2011 (UTC)


 * In my experience articles that I have seen in reproductive health journals do tend to come down on one side of the political debate acknowledged in the first sentence of this article, in other words where it is said that abortion is a reproductive health choice marks a particular political position taken. Journals such as the BJPysch publish from respected researchers on both sides, including reputable studies that might go against a current scientific consensus. The "logic" I see at work in some editors is that reputable = in agreeance with current scientific consensus. Not in agreeance = not reputable. That "logic" can seem scientific but absolute adherence to it is scientific dogmatism. At least thats how I look at it. DMSBel (talk) 05:31, 8 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I understand your personal viewpoint, but I'm not clear on how you're suggesting we put it into practice. Are we to downplay articles from "reproductive health journals" because you consider them biased? And prioritize studies from the British Journal of Psychiatry because you consider it praiseworthy? MastCell Talk 05:42, 8 September 2011 (UTC)


 * A particular political position is reflected in the two articles suggested as alternatives. The NEJM also highlights a particular localised issue, that won't be of much interest to readers outside the US. For that reason they would not be suitable to reference the lede. So I suggest we leave the refs under discussion (such as they are) as they are for now.DMSBel (talk) 18:26, 8 September 2011 (UTC)


 * I appreciate the more constructive tone of this comment, but I disagree with your view of these sources. does not reflect a "political position". It is a review article from the medical literature, and it clearly summarizes the scientific and scholarly viewpoint on abortion and its risks. It also describes the prevalence of inaccurate and misleading claims about the safety of abortion - a trend which, I would hope, Wikipedia does not contribute to. Your disagreement with the article's content does not make it "political". The NEJM piece is commentary, and is clearly labeled as such, but we need to be a bit more scrupulous about calling sources "political" simply because they don't agree with our personal viewpoints. That said, I'm fine with the existing sources as well. I provided these additional sources in an effort to meet your request for scholarly sources outside the U.S. lay media. Given that you've now also attached a requirement that the sources reach, or avoid, specific conclusions, I think I'm done for now. MastCell Talk 18:34, 8 September 2011 (UTC)
 * How are we defining "political" here? Science isn't immune from politics. This article itself proves that point. Because Sam Rowlands's name and papers seem to appear more in pro-choice news articles and conferences with other pro-choice (e.g., NARAL) speakers than pro-life ones, wouldn't that mean his science more reflects the pro-choice stance? Similarly, just because Priscilla Coleman's paper was virtually ignored by the pro-choice press and scientists and hyped by the pro-life press, wouldn't that make her science reflect more the pro-life stance? This article needs to do a better job disentangling the science from the politics. This is one of the main reasons why I still maintain it violates WP:NPOV (Conservapedia concurs.); it lacks the science that reflects the pro-life stance, of which post abortion syndrome is only a subset. If all mention of pro-life or pro-choice were deleted, then the article would certainly conform to WP:NPOV. Geremia (talk) 03:18, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * We disentangle scientific opinion from political opinion by looking at how reputable expert scientific bodies have assessed the evidence. Citing Conservapedia isn't really a great way to support your argument. As anyone who's read Conservapedia will recognize, their standards and policies are quite different from Wikipedia's. Your idea that the article needs more "pro-life" science to balance "pro-choice" science is an attitude that's completely at odds with this site's policy. In fact, it's that attitude that causes the confusion you mentioned between political and scientific findings. MastCell Talk 04:06, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * So Wikipedia is pro-choice? Geremia (talk) 01:46, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Certainly Conservapedia is different, but it does offer another viewpoint on this article that most people here seem blind to, and this is the WP:NPOV issue everyone's been ignoring. Geremia (talk) 01:55, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, qui bene distinguit, bene docet ("he who distinguishes well, teaches well"). I'm not sure if that is a Wikipedia policy, but it is something this article could do better. It could distinguish between all these things better, instead of making it seem the scientific community and pro-choicers are 100% agreed on this matter and everything else is pseudoscience and pro-life politics. That is what I understand this article saying. Geremia (talk) 01:55, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

← Your first two posts are probably better ignored. Regarding your third point, I think you're looking for a degree of scientific support for the "pro-life" position that doesn't actually exist. I get the sense that you're trying to frame scientific opinion as more divided on the topic than it actually is, and failing that, to discredit scientific opinion as somehow "pro-choice" and thus partisan. Why don't we start with an overview of the actual facts on the ground, so we can decide how to communicate them? I would summarize them thus: Do those statements seem like accurate representations of reality to you? MastCell Talk 20:46, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Some scientific papers have found statistical associations between abortion and mental-health problems, while others have not.
 * When independent expert groups have reviewed this literature, they have concluded that the studies reporting an association contain methodologic flaws, often quite severe ones. As a result, independent expert bodies have synthesized the existing literature to conclude that there is no evidence that abortion is a threat to women's mental health.
 * Some elements of the pro-life lobby do not accept that scientific opinion, and have continued to claim that abortion causes mental-health problems.
 * Why are my "first two posts are probably better ignored"? Are you saying you just ignore my WP:NPOV concerns? Isn't that negligence itself a violation of WP:NPOV? I comment on your summary in red :
 * Some scientific papers have found statistical associations between abortion and mental-health problems, while others have not. [Okay]
 * When independent expert groups [Who exactly? Just the ones mentioned in the article as it currently stands?] have reviewed this literature, they have concluded that the studies reporting an association contain methodologic flaws [And these groups do not align with the pro-life position, right?], often quite severe ones. As a result, independent expert bodies have synthesized the existing literature to conclude that there is no evidence that abortion is a threat to women's mental health.
 * Some elements of the pro-life lobby [So, by implication, a "pro-life lobby" cannot be an "independent expert group"?] do not accept that scientific opinion, and have continued to claim that abortion causes mental-health problems.
 * Thanks Geremia (talk) 06:42, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
 * One last question regarding MastCell: Is a person or group pro-life or pro-choice just because they claim they are or because they don't explicitly claim they are but their science, ideology, etc., aligns with either pro-life or pro-choice? Thanks Geremia (talk) 06:51, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it is actually quite easy to identify reputable expert bodies. The American Psychological Association, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists all qualify as such bodies in their respective fields. It is similarly fairly easy to figure out when an body is low-profile, dedicated to a single partisan purpose, or lacking in scientific credibility. Furthermore, I don't share your concept of science being either "pro-life" or "pro-choice". Science is silent on the question of whether abortion should be legal or illegal, whether it should be subject to various restrictions, or whether it is morally justifiable. What science tells us is that abortions do not cause breast cancer or mental-health problems. That does not necessarily imply that abortion should be legal - after all, if one believes that life begins at conception, then presumably one believes that abortion should be illegal regardless of its health risks to the woman. MastCell Talk 19:42, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

If AAPLOG is too small to mention, what about ACOG?
Is the ACOG also "a barely notable or non-notable partisan group"? Their silence "on the mental health impact of abortion in its official publications" should not be mentioned? —Geremia (talk) 20:40, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * There is a clear difference between ACOG - the major professional and scholarly organization of obstetricians and gynecologists in the U.S. - and AAPLOG. If there is serious doubt that ACOG is a reputable expert body, then I despair for our ability to ever produce reasonably serious encyclopedic, high-quality coverage of the medical aspects of this topic. Presenting AAPLOG's opinion in the lead, as equal to (and even as a rebuttal to) that of ACOG, is sort of a canonical violation of WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT. MastCell Talk 21:21, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * So AAPLOG is not a "major professional and scholarly organization of obstetricians and gynecologists in the U.S."? How is it not "a reputable expert body"? Is it because it openly aligns itself with the pro-life position? Thanks Geremia (talk) 07:03, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Wait, you're joking, right? AAPLOG is exactly equivalent to ACOG? I haven't heard anything this funny since someone suggested that the Catholic News Agency was just like the New York Times! –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 05:33, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * On a serious note, whether ACOG's not commenting should be mentioned depends on whether an anti-abortion activist (she's the president of an activist group which was formed specifically because ACOG didn't cater to the founders' political position) writing in an advocacy publication is considered a reliable source, which would be...questionable. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 05:39, 10 September 2011 (UTC)
 * It's also nonsense that ACOG has been silent on the issue, FWIW. For example, in 2008 South Dakota was considering a bill which would impose drastic restrictions on abortion access and compel physicians to "counsel" patients with inaccurate information about the health risks of abortion. The South Dakota chapter of ACOG took a stand on the issue, writing in part:
 * "The ban’s claim that an abortion “subjects the pregnant woman to significant psychological and physical health risks” is not supported by over two decades of published research on mental health and abortion. In fact, a report released in August of this year by the American Psychological Association confirms there is no evidence that an abortion causes significant mental health problems. Extensive reviews have also concluded that there are no documented negative psychological or medical sequlae to abortion among young women, who are not at greater risk of complications in future pregnancies, future medical problems, or future psychological problems."
 * I'd hardly call that "silence". MastCell Talk 00:18, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
 * A chapter of ACOG is not ACOG, though. Geremia (talk) 02:50, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * A chapter of ACOG is a chapter of ACOG. And the statement is hosted on ACOG's website, confirming that it bears the organization's imprimatur. Let's be serious, please. MastCell Talk 03:53, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * How am I not being serious? Please assume good faith; I am certainly trying to make good faith edits to fix this article's WP:NPOV problems. Thanks Geremia (talk) 07:03, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I assume good faith in the absence of evidence to the contrary, just like the guideline says. You've been blocked twice this month for edit-warring on this article and relentlessly tried to evade your block with sockpuppets. Surely it's a bit much to cite WP:AGF at me at this juncture? MastCell Talk 19:35, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

97 publications supporting a correlation between abortion and mental health problems
There are at least 97 publications, including Priscilla Coleman's 2011 meta-analysis, supporting a correlation between abortion and mental health problems. How can people say here that giving these studies any weight outside the seemingly pseudo-scientific and politically-charged section of Post-Abortion Syndrome is a violation of WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT?


 * 1) Allanson, S., & Astbury, J. (2001). Attachment style and broken attachments: Violence, pregnancy, and abortion. Australian Journal of Psychology, 53, 146-151.
 * 2) Amaro H., Zuckerman B, & Cabral H. (1989). Drug use among adolescent mothers: profile of risk. Pediatrics, 84, 144-151.
 * 3) Barnett, W., Freudenberg, N., & Wille, R. (1992). Partnership after induced abortion: A prospective controlled study. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 21(5), 443-455.
 * 4) Bianchi-Demicheli, F et al (2002). Termination of pregnancy and women’s sexuality. Gynecol Obstet Invest, 53, 48-53.
 * 5) Boesen, H.C., Rorbye C., Norgaard, M., Nilas, L. (2004). Sexual behavior during the first eight weeks after legal termination of pregnancy. Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, 83, 1189-1192.
 * 6) Bradley, C.F. (1984) Abortion and subsequent pregnancy. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 29, 494.
 * 7) Bradshaw, Z., & Slade, P. (2003). The effects of induced abortion on emotional experiences and relationships: A critical review of the literature. Clinical Psychology Review, 23, 929-958.
 * 8) Bradshaw, Z., & Slade, P. (2005). The relationship between induced abortion, attitudes toward sexuality, and sexual problems. Sexual and Relationship Therapy, 20, 390- 406. Brockington, I. F. (2005). Post-abortion psychosis, Arch Womens Ment Health 8: 53–54.
 * 9) Broen, A. N., Moum, T., Bodtker, A. S., & Ekeberg, O. (2004). Psychological impact on women of miscarriage versus induced abortion: A 2-year follow-up study. Psychosomatic Medicine, 66(2), 265-271.
 * 10) Broen, A. N., Moum, T., Bodtker, A. S., & Ekeberg, O. (2005a). The course of mental health after miscarriage and induced abortion: A longitudinal, five-year follow-up study. BMC Medicine, 3, 18.
 * 11) Broen, A. N., Moum, T., Bodtker, A. S., & Ekeberg, O. (2005b). Reasons for induced abortion and their relation to women’s emotional distress: A prospective, two-year follow-up study. General Hospital Psychiatry, 27(1), 36-43.
 * 12) Broen, A. N., Moum, T., Bodtker, A. S., & Ekeberg, O. (2006). Predictors of anxiety and depression following pregnancy termination: A longitudinal five-year follow-up study. Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, 85(3), 317-323.
 * 13) Burnell, G. M., & Norfleet, M. A. (1987). Women’s self-reported responses to abortion. The Journal of Psychology, 121, 71–76.
 * 14) Butlet, C. (1996). Late psychological sequelae of abortion: Questions from a primary care physician. Journal of Family Practice, 43, p. 396-401.
 * 15) Campbell, N., Franco, K. & Jurs, S. (1988). Abortion in Adolescence. Adolescence 23, 813-823.
 * 16) Cohan, C. L., Dunkel-Schetter, C., & Lydon, J. (1993). Pregnancy decision making: Predictors of early stress and adjustment. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 17, 223-239.
 * 17) Coleman, P. K. (2006a). Resolution of unwanted pregnancy during adolescence through abortion versus childbirth: Individual and family predictors and psychological consequences. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 35, 903-911.
 * 18) Coleman, P. K., Maxey, C. D., Rue, V. M., & Coyle, C. T. (2005). Associations between voluntary and involuntary forms of perinatal loss and child maltreatment among lowincome mothers. Acta Paediatrica, 94(10), 1476-1483.
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Thanks —Geremia (talk) 21:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Please take a look at Wikipedia's content policies and guidelines, including WP:PSTS and WP:MEDRS. We don't base our presentation on search-engine counts. Where there is extensive published literature on a topic, we look to reputable expert bodies to see how they have synthesized the available data. On this topic, obviously, the studies you cite have failed to sway experts in the field. That's presumably because a) many of these studies have serious and even invalidating methodologic flaws, and b) a similarly large literature, which you've failed to cite, reaches different conclusions. Cherry-picking a list of primary sources that support your viewpoint, dumping them on the talkpage to overwhelm other editors with sheer mass, and using them to editorially "rebut" reputable expert opinion in the field - these are editorial behaviors that are specifically discouraged in Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. MastCell Talk 21:27, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for putting them in a . —Geremia (talk) 21:32, 9 September 2011 (UTC)


 * References

American Psychological Association
The opening paragraph reporting the findings of the APA, used words that were slightly misleading. The Wilkipedia wording implied that in 2008 the APA stated that there is no connection between poor mental health and abortion. In fact, the APA reported that there is such diversity of women's abortion experiences, that there is likewise diversity of reactions, and, as a result global statements on the subject can be misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ste11aeres (talk • contribs) 20:58, 13 February 2013 (UTC)


 * The APA did not report this as part of their findings based on the literature, but rather in the introductory paragraph. The way it reads, it seems to me that it is meant to point out that in an individual case, the conclusion they arrived at (that on a public health level, abortions do not cause mental health problems) should not be held to so steadfastly as to not support a woman who may be experiencing mental health problems due to the particular factors of her experience (they discuss this later when they mention that factors which predispose women to mental health problems are not the abortion, per se, but the same factors that predispose any woman to mental health problems from any life stress). I think it would be misleading to include this as the conclusion that the APA came to, though. It's more of an establishment of the frame of the world the research lives in and not at all a conclusion they made based on data - which is what this section should convey for readability.MondaleFerraro (talk) 11:25, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


 * To be clear, are we talking about the 1990 APA report, or the 2008 update? MastCell Talk 19:38, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Rename this Article? Split article?
I have seen some reference to WP:MEDRS here. Indeed this article mentions the medical aspect, but it also mentions the political aspect at least as much, judging from its first sentence ("The relationship between induced abortion and mental health is an area of political controversy"). Is this article on the politics of abortion and mental health—in which case shouldn't we rename it, e.g., "Politics of abortion and mental health"? Or is it on the medical aspect of abortion and mental health—in which case we shouldn't we split off the politically related parts into "Politics of abortion and mental health"? Thanks Geremia (talk) 02:45, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * This article can, and should, cover both aspects. I am not convinced that we have enough well-sourced material for two articles, nor that we need two. Since the medical and political aspects are closely intertwined, the most informative approach is probably to handle them in one article. Appropriate sources for medical information may differ from appropriate sources for coverage of the political aspects, but I think (or at least I hope) we can handle that with a small dose of common sense. MastCell Talk 03:49, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * How is there not "enough well-sourced material for two articles"? Thanks Geremia (talk) 01:41, 22 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Oppose split. I see no clear rationale, and there would be needless redundancy. KillerChihuahua ?!?Advice 19:05, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Request for Specific Names
The article mentions that "prolife groups" claim in a connection between abortion and poor mental health. Could we give some specific names, rather than the vague appellation "prolife groups"? Howabout names such as The Silent No More Awareness Campaign,with an internal link to the Wilkipedia pageSilent No More which is of interest, being composed of women who have themselves had abortions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ste11aeres (talk • contribs) 20:12, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Chili Study
Dr. Elard Koch, an epidemiologist on the faculty of medicine at the University of Chile compared data from 1957 and 2008 about maternal mortality for abortion. His studies showed that the latter reduced 97.6% in the last 51 years. After the prohibition of abortion in 1989 there was a reduction of 13.62 to 1.25 per 100,000 live births, which means a 87.9% [Copyrighted text from "Safe motherhood owes nothing to legal abortion" and "Friday Fax: Permissive Abortion Laws May Be Hazardous To Mothers"] C-FAM cites other examples from its analysis of the WEF report which prove the point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.247.171.181 (talk • contribs)
 * Do you have a citation for this "Chili study"? And can you think of any reasons besides the prohibition of abortion that maternal mortality might be lower in 2008 than 1957? For example, have there been any significant advances in medical care in the past 51 years? I guess I could keep going - for instance, the idea that the U.S. has "virtually no restrictions on abortion" seems entirely divorced from reality, and this entire argument seems to confuse correlation with causation, and seems about as statistically sound as claiming that Storks Deliver Babies (p=0.008). Moreover, this has nothing to do with abortion and mental health... and what's more... but I'll stop there. MastCell Talk 03:05, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I remember removing this material from Abortion in Chile a while back. Couldn't find it anywhere but in anti-abortion materials. (Also, remind me, do copyvio rules apply to talk pages? The IP didn't write this paragraph.) –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 04:16, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * A PubMed search for Elard Koch suggests he's authored 5 articles (one in Medical Hypotheses, a non-peer-reviewed journal), none of which deal with abortion. And a Google search confirms Roscelese's observation that the claims in question seem limited to partisan anti-abortion websites. So this is a claim that seems to have no scholarly presence, but is instead a partisan political talking point - all of which suggests that it's a poor fit for a serious reference work. MastCell Talk 04:28, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * So only scientific papers aligned with the pro-choice viewpoint fit here? Geremia (talk) 01:44, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Your comment seems both inflammatory and divorced from reality. As far as I can tell, Koch has published no scientific papers at all on abortion, from any viewpoint. If you know of any scientific papers he's published on the subject, please present them and educate me. MastCell Talk 03:26, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Also...how is this relevant to abortion and mental health? –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 04:30, 20 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Because the words "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are used numerous times in the article Geremia (talk) 01:59, 22 September 2011 (UTC)