Talk:Abortion debate

DIscussion of Morgentaler decision in Canada
Hi, I think that the discussion of the Morgentaler decision by the Supreme Court of Canada is not accurate, because it gives an over-broad, inaccurate, description of the decision. I would suggest re-wording the passage as follows:
 * First and most important, there is no majority judgment. The Court split 5-2 to allow the appeal and hold that the provisions were unconstitutional, but there was no majority on reasons.  The majority judges split 2-2-1 on the reason for striking down the abortion provision.  It is therefore not appropriate to attribute reasons to the "the Court" - which in Canada, means a unanimous court.
 * Second, neither of the two quotations in the passage are accurate. The reference to ' the state has an interest in protecting the fetus "at some point" ' is only found in the judgment of Wilson J., and she is summarising the decision in Roe v Wade, not adopting that as a principle in Canadian law (see p. 169 of the Morgentaler decision).  Nor does the phrase "the right to security of the person of a pregnant woman was infringed more than was required to achieve the objective of protecting the fetus, and the means were not reasonable." occur anywhere in the decision.  It may be somebody's summary of the decision, but it is not backed up by a reference, leading to the conclusion that it is a statement by the Court, which is misleading.
 * Third, the Court did not "remove abortion from the Criminal Code". Only Parliament can amend the Code.  The Court found that the provision was unconstitutional and therefore inoperative.
 * With R v. Morgentaler, a 5–2 majority of the Supreme Court of Canada held that the abortion provisions of the Criminal Code were unconsitutional. The majority of the Court held that the abortion provisions infringed the rights of pregnant women, contary to the security of the person clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and could not be justified.
 * Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 02:30, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Reconsidering fetal pain
I suggest the article should include some of the following studies in the discussion on whether fetal pain is possible before the third trimester of pregnancy or not:

- Derbyshire, Stuart WG; Bockmann, John C. (2020-01-01). "Reconsidering fetal pain". Journal of Medical Ethics. 46 (1): 3–6. . . . - Pierucci, Robin (2020-08). «Fetal Pain: The Science Behind Why It Is the Medical Standard of Care». The Linacre Quarterly. 87 (3): 311-316. . . . . - Bellieni, Carlo V. (2021-05). «Analgesia for fetal pain during prenatal surgery: 10 years of progress». Pediatric Research 89 (7): 1612-1618. ..

I will wait for any response.--Potatín5 (talk) 08:07, 4 June 2022 (UTC)


 * The articles are fascinating, but I am not sure if they meet WP:MEDRS. (This is outside my area of expertise). If they don't, we can't include them. I will note that one of the sources is already in Prenatal perception. Scorpions13256 (talk) 17:12, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Saying what people think
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The point of WikiPedia is not to say what people think. LeetToTheBeatMakeItRoar (talk) 13:39, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * No. No such consensus was ever formed. I have no idea how you arrived at your conclusion.
 * Wikipedia summarizes for the reader the significant things found in the literature about a topic. Sometimes the literature includes what people think, especially prominent people. Binksternet (talk) 15:23, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Contradiction
One part of this article says that abortion bans do not reduce abortion rates, but another part says that restricting access to abortion increases the population. 2600:1700:5A80:2BE0:8892:8B90:FFCE:F69 (talk) 14:08, 16 October 2022 (UTC)

Pro life groups claim about fetal pain
Elementary simplicity: The article is titled Abortion Debate, the section is titled Fetal Pain and the addition is from Taylor & Francis publishing along with other pro life websites claiming that the fetal pain equates to torture. It's a claim that they use in their debate while there is evidence that supports both sides of the debate. Foorgood (talk) 23:57, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The website sources you attempted to add calling abortion "torture" were WP:PRIMARY advocacy, which are not on their own sufficient for establishing notability or WP:DUE weight. Subsequently, you attempted to source the same claim to a WP:SECONDARY source (yes, published by Taylor & Francis). In the abstract that might be fine, but if one examines the source in question one finds that the mention of "torture" is actually a passing reference to a single billboard campaign in Chile, i.e. not at all sufficient to support the claim you're seeking to add. Generalrelative (talk) 00:20, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Here is another source of a Vatican representative at the UN equating abortion to torture: https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/article2598162.html. What are your requirements, general?Foorgood (talk) 00:37, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * The requirements for inclusion are detailed in WP policy, e.g. WP:RS and WP:NPOV. The Sacramento Bee source may be promising (I couldn't read the article because of a paywall but I'll WP:AGF if you're able to read it). Notability is typically established if multiple reliable independent sources cover a topic, and in the case of an official Vatican position that should be easy to find. If on the other hand this was just an off-the-cuff remark from a Vatican representative, that is hardly encyclopedic. See also WP:10YEARTEST. Generalrelative (talk) 00:53, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Here is another source, there are many: https://c-fam.org/friday_fax/vatican-tells-u-n-abortion-is-a-form-of-torture/Foorgood (talk) 01:41, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Can you locate any other news sources besides the Sacramento Bee? The website of an advocacy organization is not typically considered a great source for reporting. Further, do you really think that this statement passes the WP:10YEARTEST? Generalrelative (talk) 01:51, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Yup here's an Italian news site https://www.lastampa.it/vatican-insider/en/2014/05/06/news/over-3000-paedophile-priests-punished-since-2004-vatican-informs-un-anti-torture-committee-1.35751619 and they are almost 9 years old so they're fine.Foorgood (talk) 02:45, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * We need evidence that foetal pain occurs, not that anti-abortionists CLAIM it does. HiLo48 (talk) 02:53, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * HiLo48: That would be true for the main article on abortion, but this article is about the debate, so mentioning unscientific claims is fine so long as they are regarded as significant enough to be reported on substantively by multiple reliable secondary sources. Generalrelative (talk) 03:02, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Claims are acceptable as long as the claimant is noted in the text. For instance this article has numerous references to the Guttmacher Institute which is an advocacy organisation, that doesn't mean that nothing they say can be included, simply that it must be attributed. JSory (talk) 16:40, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
 * they are almost 9 years old so they're fine. I'm confused as to what you're arguing here. On first glance this just appears to be reporting from almost 9 years ago, which of course doesn't in and of itself speak to WP:10YEARTEST. If we're talking about an event that occurred long ago and hasn't continued to draw comment that's pretty solid evidence that it does not pass the test. I see that the publication did update the article in 2019 but can't see how. Can you give me some more context? Generalrelative (talk) 03:00, 27 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Two sources (Sac Bee and Italian news) which report on the same news event: ONE PERSON (the Vatican representative at UN) calling abortion torture is very WP:UNDUE considering that he is not stating the Vatican's "official" belief, which would otherwise be reported more widely. --- Avatar317 (talk) 00:36, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Cites at the bottom of the article not actually used to cite anything
I've removed these "pseudo-citations", since they were not actually used as reference citations anywhere in the article. Presumably they could be (either for claims made in the article or for new material later): — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:17, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
 * - This is a large textbook with contributions from many other authors; some are cited separately.
 * - This is a large textbook with contributions from many other authors; some are cited separately.
 * - This is a large textbook with contributions from many other authors; some are cited separately.
 * - This is a large textbook with contributions from many other authors; some are cited separately.


 * Even many strong liberals, such as Christopher Hitchens, did not feel that abortion should be legal in all cases. He appeared to be a moderate or agnostic in this area, somewhat in the same manner that he in a manner uncharacteristic of most liberal-leaning or socialist-leaning people, supported the intervention for purposes of regime change in Iraq. 199.242.176.66 (talk) 18:59, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Readding link
I'd like to readd a link again which User:Mr Serjeant Buzfuz removed after it was in that section for years as a comprehensive useful resource next to links that are nearly the same but of lower quality.

He wrote internet survey page really fits. Strikes me as an animated blog which seems like he only took a quick glance at it. This is afaik the largest argument map on the subject and very useful to readers. For example, nearly all arguments made in this debate can be found somewhere in that debate along with their potential respective Pros and Cons and relevant sources, all in unique structured format. This is a helpful resource and more useful than most of the other links in that section which are partly dead and which aren't nearly as comprehensive or useful like the few unscrutinizable/ed Pros and Cons of ProCon.org or the page with just 4 paragraphs on Religion and abortion which is already covered by the article itself. Moreover, https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Should_abortion_be_legal%3F is included in these links which is nearly the same except being fairly unstructured, noninteractive, and far less comprehensive. I'd like to readd and most people don't even look at, let alone click the external links anyway. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:05, 19 July 2024 (UTC)