User talk:Strider12/Archive1

User page and other things
Sorry for disrupting your version of article again. Please take your time to read User page, which discourages "material that can be construed as attacking other editors, including the recording of perceived flaws" on user pages. There is one exception, however, which is dispute resolution, which is always welcome. Quite frankly, I am not too pleased to be quoted as an example of "editors openly advocating the purging of material from peer reviewed journals simply because abortion proponents have accused the authors of bias" or your referring to editors as "high school students or Planned Parenthood interns."
 * I have not quoted you as an example of anything other than what you wrote, which was to encourage 131.216.41.16 to purge verifable material. If you regret that, why not declare the past efforts to exclude material an error and start supporting the inclusion of all peer reviewed material so we can COLLABORATE in creating an article that is as complete as possible?

Also keep in mind that this is not your place to indefinitely archive your preferred version. I place emphasis on "indefinitely" because you are always welcome to experiment or make changes for future. However, if you keep it there for too long, it may be subject to deletion. миражinred 00:32, 27 December 2007 (UTC)  AKA: Saranghae honey, mirageinred


 * I believe I am free to work with others on this page. As it is a work in progress, it is not an archive. Thanks for stalking me.--Strider12 (talk) 15:03, 27 December 2007 (UTC)


 * You have said earlier "mirageinred and 131.216.41.16 have openly talked on this page about 'purging.'" And it seems like you are using this space to store your "work in progress" or your preferred version. Again, please show some civility. Thanks. миражinred  21:57, 27 December 2007 (UTC)


 * It is customary to keep a "work in progress" like this in a sandbox, rather than on your talk page. I can create one for you, if you don't know the procedure for doing so. -- Orange Mike  |  Talk  18:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


 * As noted below, I'd welcome a subpage. But my current sandbox is being used for another article. Can one have more than one sandbox? --Strider12 (talk) 22:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Within reason, sure; but they can't be used as a sub rosa way of turning Wikipedia into your webserver or storing your own documents on Wikipedia's servers. The main advantage to keeping a draft here, at least briefly, is to double-check your mark-up code. -- Orange Mike  |  Talk  22:22, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:AN/I notice
Hello,. This message is being sent to inform you that there currently is a discussion at regarding. MastCell Talk 20:15, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Here's a more direct link, though I don't know how long it will work if they archive the page frequently.Strider12 (talk) 23:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Purpose of user talk pages
Strider12, the purpose of your user talk page is to serve as a means of communication with other Wikipedia editors. Your draft of the Post Abortion Syndrome article should be moved to a subpage. If you don't know how to do this, I will do it for you. Raymond Arritt (talk) 21:59, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Sure, I'd be happy to learn how to create a subpage. My goal is simply to allow others to collaborate on an article where material will not be deleted simply because it goes against a POV bias.--Strider12 (talk) 22:36, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, you already have a sandbox. It's at User:Strider12/Sandbox. You created it yourself on December 27, around the same time you turned your user talk page into a content fork. MastCell Talk 22:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Strider12, I've moved the material to User:Strider12/Draft. I've also deleted the paragraph where you tell people they need your permission to edit, since that violates Wikipedia policy. Let me know if you need more help. Raymond Arritt (talk) 22:53, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


 * 1. How do you create and access draft pages?
 * 2. I thought Wikipedia policy gave one some more autonomy to control his/her own talk page(s). If people can come in and delete content that I am trying to build with persons who are not POV pushers who delete verifiable material, I'm back to square one where it is impossible to have a collaborative work because people keep deleting verifiable material.
 * 3. I actually want to start advocating for a policy that would support "parallel development" for both sides of controversial issues. While similar to MPOV recommendations, it would be intended as primarily a short term solution to let both sides of an argument develop their "versions" with all the evidence they want and then try to merge after substantive work has been done. That would reduce the very frustrating problem of having verifiable material constantly deleted by POV pushers...at least until each side can put their best face forward.  As it is, I and others with expertise can't make any significant progress in contributing material without facing constant deletions. Reading about other's frustruations along the same lines, the current process tends to wear out experts who have real jobs to the point where they abandon Wikipeida to the high schoolers and POV pushers who edit with lots of zeal but little insight.--Strider12 (talk) 23:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


 * To create a draft page, just type in the title you want to use, with your user name followed by a slash and the title (e.g. User:Strider12/Sandbox2) into the search box. It will come back as a non-existent page; then just click on "Create this page", which should be one of the options. When you save it, it will be up and running. As to "parallel development", this sort of idea has generally been explicitly rejected as circumventing and defeating the consensus-building process (see WP:POVFORK). As to the current process tending to wear out experts with real jobs in favor of people with lots of zeal and little insight, you're preaching to the choir. MastCell Talk 23:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I understand and approve of the goal of consensus building. But that still requires that all involved have an opportunity to lay their cards on the table, in a coherent fashion, so consensus building can be fully informed. By at least allowing temporary "forks" many advantages can be had. First, editors on each side who understand NPOV can better moderate enthusiasts on "their side" and can better appeal to enthusiasts on the "other side" to work on the other fork and leave theirs alone until it is finished. Then, once both sides get well developed articles, the leadership developed by lead editors on each fork will help lay the groundwork for integrating both sets of facts and authoratitive opinions into a single article that respects NPOV standards. In some very controversial cases, perhaps an integrated article can never be satisfactorily achieved. But in most cases I think it could. But the process of allowing parallel development would assist that goal by not only saving saving time, but more importantly by encouraging participation of people with good material to contribute but not the time to babysit it. The end result could be much more authorative and complete articles. As Wikipedia is always a work in progress, even policies may change.--Strider12 (talk) 23:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) Some answers:
 * 1. Several ways. Maybe the easiest is to go to your own user page, User:Strider12. Then, in the title bar for your browser add a slash and the name of the page you want to create so you have a URL something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Strider12/MyNewPage. When you hit return and reach to the nonexistent page, just click the Edit tab and begin editing it. The page will be created automatically.
 * 2. There is some latitude in maintaining your own user space but this latitude doesn't include telling people not to edit. All pages within Wikipedia belong to the community; that's non-negotiable.
 * 3. You're welcome to develop drafts and propose them. As a practical matter, merging two strongly conflicting drafts is theoretically possible and has occasionally been attempted but I've never seen a case where it actually worked. Much better to reach consensus on a single draft. Raymond Arritt (talk) 23:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Let me know if you have any other questions. Raymond Arritt (talk) 23:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I see that Wikinfo does encourage MPOV pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Strider12 (talk • contribs)


 * Yes, Wikinfo was specifically designed as a fork of Wikipedia which would not implement NPOV, but would present each subject in a positive light. MastCell Talk 00:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

January 2008
Previous warnings deleted and not found in User talk:Strider12_Archive: Talk page etiquette, edit warring and WP:3RR (12/05/07), canvasing, block warning (12/09/07), disruptive editing WP:POINT(12/15/07), WP:SPA, WP:COI - from 4 different editors all for Post-Abortion Syndrome, now called Abortion and mental health.

Strider, might we agree not to edit war? I reverted this edit in a good faith revert (per talk page consensus) as part of WP:BRD. Your edit summary "Please discuss and allow other editors to discuss before deleting" seems somewhat disingenuous given that you just basically contradicted your previous agreements to stub the article, and the fact that the changes you've now brought into force twice now go directly against the consensus of User:Kuronue, User:Saranghae honey, User:MastCell, User:Equazcion, User:Andrew c, User:IronAngelAlice, User:KillerChihuahua (tacitly), and myself (that's just about all of us), thereby re-establishing the same patterns of edit-warring that the stub was designed to avoid.

When I reverted your edit, I noted in my edit summary the consensus and discussion on the talk page. You did not address the consensus to achieve consensus before moving forward with the stub before you reverted back to your original edit (which I noticed you just moved from your sandbox - you know the one you've been working on for a while, all by yourself, the one which now focuses exclusively on PAS, with a ton of info on the minority, one might say, fringe view that abortion is traumatic). This was in no way my failure to "allow other editors to discuss before" I reverted. So might you consider how these recent edits foster good faith toward an editor with your track record? Phyesalis (talk) 18:20, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Last week the article was stubbed, and I was in agreement. This Monday I find it renamed to Abortion and Mental Health, greatly expanded with a rambling intro, deletion of all balancing materials.  So, okay, if there is a new consensus to broaden the topic from PAS to abortion and mental health, I added material regarding the history of the abotion and mental health controversy and moved much of the rambling intro (for example, material related to Koop) into the appropriate sections describing the controversy.  I think my recommendation for a section on the history of the controversy provides a real functional basis for organizing material in a coherent NPOV fashion.  Instead of deleting my contribution, why not try to refine it and build on it?--Strider12 (talk) 18:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I think most of the users disagree with you. And it's not a just a consensus to expand the scope, but to shrink the focus on PAS because it's getting way too much WP:WEIGHT. It is not a legitimate diagnosis. Even you admitted that the incremental accretion of material on this topic has lead to edit-warring. There are a number of other issues to discuss and a number of us are getting tired of reading the same lengthy post about "bias" (see Kuronue's post on the talk page) over and over again. You seem to be pushing a particular POV that is inline with your WP:COI and limited WP:SPA activities. I think this is a problem. I don't think I'm alone (judging by all the warnings you've gotten in relation to this issue). Perhaps you would agree to revert back to yesterday's consensus version and join us in the conversation we've been having? It's a lot easier to discuss these things and actually come to a mutually satisfying compromise if neither side feels compelled to reinstate their "more neutral" version. We've suggested using a mock-up. What do you think? --Phyesalis (talk) 20:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I think MastCell and I were close to a one paragraph article on PAS. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abortion_and_mental_health/Archive_3#More_Stubbing_Needed.3F here"  But then people started putting a bunch of unsupported statements in again and broadening the topic.  I'd agree to a one paragraph stub while we work on a mock-up, but the current version is loaded with inaccuracies and weasel words.  And again, people keep trying to blank veriable material that I've added just because they feel it goes against the WEIGHT that they insist must dominate.Strider12 (talk) 22:33, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, you were. And you haven't gotten enough credit for that. Unfortunately,there has been across the board consensus to change the scope. Technically, because PAS isn't a legitimate diagnosis, it's on thin ice to begin with in the medicine project. If you revert it back to the mutually agreed upon version from last night, we all want to move forward a step (or two) at a time. If you want to take it back to an earlier stub, that's your choice, but people are getting really fed up. I know you think we're all wrong, and I know that is frustrating, but you've kind of dug yourself into a hole with your user page there. (Might I repeat Saranghae honey's request that you remove the other editors' comments from your user page?) Compiling user comments from article talk pages and reposting them as the emblem of your cause can be viewed as a personal attack. Prolonged patterns of edit warring, combined with personal statements acknowledging a possible COI and the emblem/cause cast you in a particularly unfavorable light. Everybody is losing their GF. Sometimes, in order to move forward in good faith, editors have to let it go for a short period of time, leaving the article to remain in a less-than-perfect state while a resolution develops.
 * And I know, who the heck am I to "lecture" you? I'd just like to point out that I am one of the last remaining person willing to discuss this with you like two reasonable people. I've also tried to make space for you, see my first comment at User talk:IronAngelAlice. I'm willing to do this because I hope we can all get to the point where we can co-edit peacefully, which means that I credit you with wanting to collaborate. So think it over. I really appreciate you talking this out with me. I think this is productive and I hope you do, too. Thank you. --Phyesalis (talk) 23:21, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Strider12/policy#Proposed_Editing_Policy_Agreement I welcome your comments before posting it at the article pageStrider12 (talk) 23:27, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Regarding "PAS is not a legitimate diagnosis"...that is not the point. It is a fact that it has been proposed as a diagnosis and is the subject of ongoing research.  In that regard, the stub would have been appropriate.Strider12 (talk) 23:27, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, it is the point. If PAS had been accepted, then there'd be all sorts of room to play with. Even if this were a new issue thre'd be room. However, for the past twenty years, scientific consensus says it's not, which is to say, PAS has been rejected. Therefore, it should get little play in an article about Abortion and mental health. I'm sorry that I didn't have time to review your post above - but when you're reposting large sections of texts already on WP, it's considered good form to take pity on the servers and just post a link. --Phyesalis (talk) 19:47, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * It took sixty years for PTSD to get into the DSM, even though it was well described as "shell shock" during WW-1. But for sixty years it was argued that the "shock" was due to prior mental weaknesses.  In the last seven years, there have been at least seven studies showing PTSD caused by abortion in at least some women.  Brenda Major, a pro-choice advocate using very strict criteria, found 1.4% had abortion induced PTSD at two years (following a 50% drop out rate.)  Such findings prove both sides right.  (1) Most women do not experience abortion as a trauma, but (2) some women, even if a small number, do.


 * One reason it is not acknowledged in the DSM is that there is no need for it. As MastCell has pointed out, we don't have "post-rape trauma syndrome."  There never was a need for a new term.  Nonetheless, the concept is being widely accepted and fits into DSM without the formal approval of a "new name."


 * The Wilmouth quote is a very important one. As he indicates, the real controversy is around defining at what point there are "enough" post-abortion psychological reactions that it warrents notice as a public health or political issue.  The pro-lifers argue that any negative reactions justify state intervention to "protect" women.  The pro-choicers argue that a few women "regretting" their abortions is no reason to hamper access to abortion for all other women.  Those are policy questions, not factual questions.  The fact is that there is no doubt that some women have problems.


 * Here's a part of the APA 1990 (Adler, Science) article you don't see quoted as much:
 * "Case studies have established that some women experience severe distress or psychopathology after abortion" but "severe negative reactions are infrequent in the immediate and short-term aftermath, particularly for first-trimester abortions. Women who are terminating pregnancies that are wanted and personally meaningful, who lack support from their partner or parents for the abortion, or who have more conflicting feelings or are less sure of their decision before hand may be a relatively higher risk for negative consequences." Adler NE, David HP, Major BN, Roth SH, Russo NF, Wyatt GE. "Psychological responses after abortion." Science, April 1990, 248: 41-44.


 * See, even one of the major sources used to deny that there is a problem actually concedes there is a problem for some women, particularly women who fall into higher risk categories. In fact, you start investigating these categories and you'll find they include a very large percentage of women having abortions.--Strider12 (talk) 21:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The key word is "infrequent". There is no "large percentage". Besides, what you're talking about isn't PTSD. PTSD involves a perceived ontological threat to the subject's existence. Attempts to frame post-abortion stress (correlative, not causative) as PTSD are sensationalistic, not scientifically sound. --Phyesalis (talk) 01:21, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Abortion and mental health
Just checking in after helping you out with the subpage. It appears things aren't going well. A look at the Abortion and mental health article suggests you may have violated 3RR but I haven't gone into the details. In any event it's clear that you're edit warring on that article and are opposing the consensus of numerous other editors. Please back off a little and attempt to work cooperatively with others. Raymond Arritt (talk) 23:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

You have been blocked from editing for in accordance with Wikipedia's blocking policy for violating the three-revert rule. Please be more careful to discuss controversial changes or seek dispute resolution rather than engaging in an edit war. If you believe this block is unjustified, you may contest the block by adding the text below.

Please see for the report if interested. --B (talk) 00:27, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * A review of the four edits provided by MastCell will demonstrate that I was adding new and DIFFERENT material each time. This is not a violation of 3RR.  Indeed, I notice MastCell did not report Photouploaded who deleted my material in each case.  Also, these edits followed a four day rapid and vast expansion of the article from a previous stub in which I did not participate, see here.  As others were making many radical changes to the article, this invited, if not demanded, the additional material I added...plus some MINOR corrections I made to material others had contributed. As a general rule, I try to avoid deleting material and focus on adding relevant and verifiable information.

conversation with Mast Cell moved below

In general I was trying to avoid undoing anyone elses work and was keeping cited material and reorganizing. I thought 3RR was reverting the same material back and forth. But if the standard is against making three or more changes to someone else's work, I will try to be alert to it and will also start filing 3RR complaints against those who repeatedly delete my contributions. In general, I have tried to tolerate these deletions and to try to find other material that can be added.

Also, as the first accused revert was on the 21st and my last accused revert was Jan 22 at 15:17, why does my 24 hour block last until Midnight the 24th?Strider12 (talk) 15:52, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The usual procedure for 3RR blocks is that the first time a person is blocked, the block lasts for 24 hours from the time the administrator decides on the validity of the report. If you skim through the decided cases you'll see that most of the ones that result in blocks have a 24 hour duration. Granted it's frustrating to be blocked, but I don't see where you're being treated more harshly than the norm. Raymond Arritt (talk) 17:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Tendentious Deletion of Sourced Materials
MastCell likes to accuse me of tendatious editing, which is ironic since she and the POV pushers she defends as part of her "consensus" are the ones who continues to tendatiously delete reliable verifiable materials from peer reviewed journals. Indeed, none of this group has ever denied nor condemned the past openly discussed, and implemented campaign, to "purge" (their words, not mine) over 22 verifiable sources.

MastCell has frequently suggested that I should be requried to get approval from her (and her POV team) for inclusion of any material. This is an example of tendatious editiong as defined on the WP:TEND page which describes such tendatious eidtors as those who "delete the cited additions of others with the complaint that they did not discuss their edits first." But as noted on the page:
 * There is no rule on Wikipedia that someone has to get permission from you before they put cited information in an article. Such a rule would clearly contradict WP:BOLD. There is guidance from ArbCom that removal of statements that are pertinent, sourced reliably, and written in a neutral style constitutes disruption.1 Instead of removing cited work, you should be questioning uncited information.

It is this disruptom of my well documented material which is causing this conflict. The constant refrain that the WEIGHT defined by a 1990 review article, and promoted by partisan pro-choice advocates, justifies exclusion of literally scores of other reliable and verifiable peer reviewed studies published since is simply ludicrous. MastCell and other in the "deniers camp" simply refuse to follow Wikipedia policy that DEFINES peer reviewed articles in academic journals as by definition RELIABLE and VERIFIABLE. The campaign of purging these sources from the abortion and mental health article is nothing less than POV pushing of the worst kind.--Strider12 (talk) 16:16, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry to be pedantic, but the word is tendentious, not "tendatious". MastCell Talk 17:49, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * If you haven't noticed yet, I don't use a spell checker...but should!--Strider12 (talk) 18:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Conversation with MastCell

 * As will be seen here MastCell and throughout the discussion page, MastCell is leading a campaign to delete verifiable material and references to peer reviewed studies which contradict the four or five sources she insists must define the WEIGHT of the article. See the long history of this article and you will see that editors contributing material documenting abortion and mental health research and experts have been viligently cut and bullied.  You will also see that MastCell and others refuse to actually provide evidence beyond a couple sources that the WEIGHT of opinion justifies their brutal censorship tactics.  See here.


 * The fact that there is a hard core of abortion defending editors who insist on censoring material that does not conform with their few sources denying a link between abortion and mental health does not reflect a true "consensus." True collaboration of editors, which I support, would mean finding ways to include all verifiable material rather than slanting the article to what one side insists is the WEIGHT of evidence.  Weight should be shown by facts, not declared on the talk page to justify purging and censorship. (As noted, several editors openly discussed and implemented "viligitent purging" of 22 peer reviewed sources months ago...none of which has been allowed back into the article.)


 * The "consensus" advocated by MastCell reflects nothing more than gang tactics of POV-pushers who refuse to allow presentation of any evidence that conflicts with their POV and and refuse to actually follow wikipedia policy regarding inclusion of reliable verifiable sources (especially peer reviewed material in top medical journals!) For MastCell, the game is to claim WEIGHT is on her side, to ignore all evidence that the weight of both facts and opinion is otherwise, and to start deleting.


 * This 3RR complaint is just another misleading, manufactured complaint intended to harrass me.


 * Is there a good way to get some unbiased editors involved in this article who actually believe in letting the evidence be presented?--Strider12 (talk) 15:01, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Let's see - first, you canvassed sympathetic editors to "jump in and bring some friends" to fight the "abortion-is-benign crowd" (,, , etc etc). When that failed, you did actually get several unbiased and previously uninvolved editors to comment with the request for comment that you filed. Inconveniently, these unbiased outside editors uniformly felt you were editing disruptively and violating policy to advance your POV. I don't think "unbiased" input is what you're looking for. MastCell Talk 17:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * As you well know, the problem is not that I delete other people's material but that there is a campaign involving only pro-choice editors, to dominate this article and purge it of reliable information that conflicts with what YOU insist the weight of the article should be...a pro-choice slant.
 * It is this purging campaign which is disruptive. There is guidance from ArbCom that removal of statements that are pertinent, sourced reliably, and written in a neutral style constitutes disruption.1 Instead of removing cited work, you should be questioning uncited information.


 * Even your 3RR complaint is only about my reinserting reliable, verifiable information that you and others agree should be censored because it conflicts with the bias (which you call WEIGHT) which you, and a gang of other pro-choice advocates--who may well include paid Planned Parenthood interns and the like--are trying to enforce by brute blanking of reliable material.--Strider12 (talk) 17:47, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * In the face of what appears to be a very likely and clear conflict of interest on your part, are you really continuing to make baseless accusations that people disagree with you because they're Planned Parenthood employees? Not only is it a glass-houses issue, but you're using those completely unfounded accusations to deny or rationalize the fact that everyone who's edited with you has found your approach problematic. I know it's easier to go on believing that it's just because we're all Planned Parenthood or NARAL employees, but I can assure you that's not the case. MastCell Talk 18:02, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I believe you are not. But surely since Wikipedia has grown to such prominence you can't deny that there are some groups out there with money and resources to put paid staff on the task of monitoring Wikipedia regarding articles about their companies, products, or fields of interest.  If you were the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company, wouldn't you put someone on the task of zealously "correcting" any "misinformation" on Wikipedia?  Given PP's zealous use of media and the internet, it is hard to imagine they are not monitoring and getting directly involved in abortion articles.  Can you really vouch for all the editors?!  If so, then you're involved in an even closer network of editors than I would imagine.  The fact that I actually have expertise in this field is not a conflict of interest, it is a benefit which should be welcomed.  Do you really want a plumber editing articles on complicated accounting practices.  Experts have their place, and SHOULD be subject to editing and collaboration by others, especially other experts.  But using fake WEIGHT arguments to block scores of reliable, peer reviewed studies because they demonstrate the falsity of the few biased sources you have identified as "GOSPEL" is just a distortion of Wikipedial policy and goals, and you know it, as evidenced by your inability to find any source that actually has polled experts in the field in a manner supporting your claim of consensus.--Strider12 (talk) 18:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, I have no doubt (in fact, I have concrete examples) of people editing Wikipedia specifically to advance an organization's interests, in both paid and unpaid capacities. I can't vouch for anyone except myself, though there are editors I trust more and editors I trust less based on their contribution patterns. For my own part, I can tell you that I've never performed or assisted on abortions in my medical role; I've never been affiliated, in either a paid or unpaid capacity, with any organization which remotely takes any sort of stand on the issue of abortion; and in the interest of full disclosure I have in the past donated money to Planned Parenthood, because they provided a good friend of mine with free birth control and GYN care when she was unemployed and uninsured, and I think that's great. My personal beliefs about the particular issue of abortion and mental health are, I suspect, more moderate that you make them out to be, but that's neither here nor there since the issue is one of sourcing. It is certainly possible that Planned Parenthood has people editing Wikipedia - just as it's entirely possible that, say, the Elliott Institute has similar operations. They generally come to attention when the edits in question clearly violate policy. I think much of your editing violates policy, and I don't think I'm alone in this belief. Experts do often have a tough time on Wikipedia, particularly if they rely on their expertise to a point which precludes the development of consensus. MastCell Talk 18:51, 24 January 2008 (UTC)


 * None of my edits attempt to insert my own opinions. I am content to let FACTS speak for themselves and feel no need to draw connecting lines (OR) as I am confident that the facts do speak for themselves.
 * My expertise helps precisely because I am already aware of what sources are available and have many of these studies at my fingertips. And I also know how to avoid many of the unsupported inferences that some editors make.  And I agree that you are generally much more careful than many others, in that regard.
 * I fully understand and agree with the policy that any contribution to the articles must reflect only the facts of these studies and (if properly presented as such) the published opinions of the experts, and I take pains to follow that policy.
 * Also, like you, I am not paid to do this and have no financial gain in it by any means. If I appear to be defending Reardon and the Elliot Institute it is because their work are credible and peer reviewed, but I have seen editors openly discuss purging every peer reviewed study with which he is associated...even though every study he has done has been in conjunction with other PhDs and MDs. Indeed, one of Reardon's collaborators, Priscilla Coleman is by far the most published researcher in this field.
 * The difference between our editorial approaches is that while I will note the biases of sources like Grimes or Bazelon, I don't object to including these sources in the article. I trust readers can weigh these assertions and conclusions against other evidence...my frustration is that you and others are constantly blocking the addition of other evidence.
 * It appears to me that you are trying to determine THE TRUTH (which you call WEIGHT)and having settled on the claim that the denier's view (typified by Grimes, Bazelon, Stotland et al) is TRUE and free of bias, you and other editors are diligently working to protect Wikipedia readers from the scores of reliable peer reviewed studies, and the stated opinions of other experts (both pro-choice, like Fogel, Wilmouth, Fergusson, DePuy and pro-life, like Reardon) which contradict the denier's thesis. For you, the matter is settled.  But I am much more familiar with the literature and know that the deniers view, especailly as presented by Bazelon and the Wikipedia article, is not commonly accepted and is not even as monolithic as the Wikipedia article suggests.  (See how many times Stotland's qualifying remarks are edited out in favor of making her look as though she denies that ANY women ever have emotional problems after an abortion.)
 * All I want, and insist upon, is the right to have material from peer reviewed sources retained rather than purged. And I would be happy to extend good faith trust to you if you were to actually start reprimanding other editors who are even more biased in blanking material from peer reviewed sources. --Strider12 (talk) 20:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I think that there's general agreement in the sources that abortion is a stressful life event, that most women have normal feelings of confusion, sadness, or guilt mixed with positive feelings of relief, and that in a small number of women (most often those with specific risk factors such as pre-existing psychiatric comorbidities) these normal reactions intensify to the point of being pathological. The article could more clearly reflect this consensus - I agree with you that far. --MastCell Talk 00:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Good, that IS progress, because that is NOT generally reflected in the article, which is a major complaint because it truly makes the article insulting to women who are experiencing grief and other issues. They come looking for information about what they have experienced and to see if others have experienced it too, and instead they see a denial of their experience which tends to reinforce the ideat that "there is something wrong with you" if you don't feel as blessed by abortion as most women do. Check the archives for a couple women who put such complaints into the discussion and were then dismissed with "personal stories have no place here."  As someone who works with women struggling with post-abortion issues (whether "distress" or "illness" or somewhere on the line between those two), I find the article very offensive in this regard and this is why I insist on adding reliable information that does reflect what women report in the peer reviewed journals.

At the same time, though, the same risks exist with any stressful life event: leaving home to go to college, getting married or divorced, or - say - carrying an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy to term. The general consensus is that abortion does not pose any unique psychological risks beyond those associated with any major life event, and that the psychological risks of abortion are at least no greater than those of the alternative of carrying a pregnancy to term.Talk 00:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Your claim that that is the "general consensus" is not supported by any polling data, nor even by the majority of experts. That claim is just asserted by six APA members, STotland, Bazelon, Grimes, and some others who CLAIM that their views are widely accepted.   I can produce two to four sources for everyone you have produced, including from pro-choice leaning researchers, physicians, psychologists, that indicate the oppositie.
 * Divorce is a major stressor which is associated with reduced life span. Comparing abortion to divorce or miscarriage or other stressors does not mean that it should be ignored as "just another life event."  Many people can "lose their minds" after losing a job, why not after being pushed into an unwanted abortion? Women will bring their own unique reactions to it, just as to other events.  If the comparison to other stressful events is intended to suggest that it should be addressed, investigated, and treated, that's fine.  But if, as generally used, the comparision is to suggest that it should be ignored, that is not fine.

The hullabaloo which surrounds the topic, including the creation of "post-abortion syndrome", is pretty obviously a political tack designed to restrict access to abortion. David Reardon's proposed iniative in Missouri is a good example. If you're at all involved in the medical world, you'll recognize the ridiculousness of a law requiring a physician to inform a woman of a risk which all expert bodies recognize as non-existent. Talk 00:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * All expert bodies do not recognize it as "non-existent."  If it is non-existent, what is the harm of screening for risk factors?  Even the APA 1989 paper identified factors that put women at higher risk of negative reactions, including feeling pressured into an unwanted abortion.  Do you honestly think abortion providers shouldn't be held accountable for asking "Is anyone pushing you to have this abortion?"  "Would having this abortion violate your personal moral beliefs?"

By the way, I think you should give Bazelon another chance. You dismiss her as irretrievably biased, but her article is actually remarkably fair. If you read toward the last few pages (admittedly, it's quite long) she takes a number of the pro-choice commentators to task for minimizing the negative feelings that some women have after abortion, or for pretending that abortion makes everyone happier. Talk 00:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The articles at Symposium: Is There a Post-Abortion Syndrome paint a different story regarding her bias. Sure she, like Stotland and Russo, is stuck with the FACT that some women undeniably really do suffer post-abortion problems.  So she tries to half admit that they should be treated sensitively while at the same time dismissing that the grief of these "few" should impact public discussion on abortion.  She certainly does not fairly represent the research or Reardon's work.  She is a mouthpiece for the Russo / Stotland line of reasoning alone.

Again, I think that there is a middle road that we haven't quite reached with the article; it probably should indicate more clearly that everyone recognizes abortion to be a stressful event associated with a variety of highly mixed feelings, including sadness and guilt, as well as relief, in many cases. But it's hard to make progress toward a middle ground when there's a strident (no pun intended) and unrelenting argumentative push to make edits with which nearly all other editors disagree. MastCell Talk 00:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. I've proposed, and had cut, that there should material describing the perspectives on the fact that most women feel distress, but distress is not illness. But moreover, a minority of women do experience distress which does reach the level of illness.  The Wilmoth quote is truly one of the best in laying out the issues.


 * I thnk you would find me far easier to work with if you would support inclusion of material. I have no problem with being "restricted" to using peer reviewed sources.  But I do have a problem with having my contributions cut, not because they are untrue, but because they don't fit the preconceived WEIGHT.  The facts should be allowed to speak for themselves.  I have no problem with people editing my contributions to clarify the facts, or to bring in other parts of an article I cite which you or others feel put it into better balance (for example, if you think I cherry-picked only the facts I like.)  This is the way the article grows. By adding material.


 * I agree with the guidance from ArbCom that removal of statements that are pertinent, sourced reliably, and written in a neutral style constitutes disruption.1 and I believe it is those who continue to delete my well sourced material who are the ones being disruptive.


 * YOU could help end the disruption by helping to support the inclusion of material I add instead of arguing undue WEIGHT. I am quite open to you policing me for accuracy, but not for weight, because while you believe your sense of WEIGHT is accurate, I KNOW it is not and resent having the all the evidence I have to the contrary constantly cut.  It's like having a Bush official cutting all references to studies that support global warming theory because their official position is that the consensus of experts agree it is not a problem.  ALL the evidence should be allowed in and readers should be allowed to draw their own conclusions.  It's that simple.  --Strider12 (talk) 16:21, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

(Moved MastCell's response to a new section...getting to be a looong scroll.)--Strider12 (talk) 22:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

MastCell and I - continued - Stotland
Actually, I think Stotland's 2003 review article is a better source for some of the issues we're discussing, and more recent than Wilmoth's piece. For example, Stotland writes on the one hand: "Women preparing for abortion need to know that they may experience any or all of a wide variety of feelings—sadness, loss, relief, rage—either in succession or simultaneously. They need to understand that the human mind can compass simultaneous contradictory feelings and thoughts, and that these feelings are normal and self-limited... ensuing life experiences, including psychiatric illnesses, can reawaken feelings about past abortions that may or may not have been worked through at the time. There are no epidemiologic data to indicate the incidence of later reactions, but, given the large numbers of abortions performed, they do come up in therapy from time to time. There is no evidence that these reactions rise to the level of psychiatric disorders."


 * Stotland tends toward hyperbole. To say "There is no evidence that these reactions rise to the level of psychiatric disorders" is simply false. It contrdicts her complaint in the NOW interview that there are now a "stack of studies" giving evidence. Regarding a single "symptom," there are many women who have left suicide notes, those who have reported they attempted sucide, and record based epidemological studies who a six fold higher rate of suicide in the year following abortion Gissler, and Morgon found that the rate of suicide attempts was no different before pregnancy but much higher after abortion, see here.  The Reardon studies looking at MediCal data is also an epidemiologic study, and you'll notice that it controls for prior psych admssions and clearly shows HIGHER rates of psych admissions following abortion compared to childbirth.  See here. Most notably, you'll see in table 1 that the Odds Ratio was highest within 90 days and steadily declined over four years.  This time factor strongly conflicts with the theory that women who have abortions are just more likely to have psych problems....it shows they are more likely to have psych problems in a time relationship with their abortions.  (In this case, they excluded all cases where women had a known history of psychiatric treatment.)  Similar results were found for outpatient treatments: Coleman PK, Reardon DC, Rue VM, Cougle JR. "State-funded abortions vs. deliveries: A comparison of outpatient mental health claims over five years." American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 2002, Vol. 72, No. 1, 141–152.


 * According to one major study, 60% of women had emotional distress following abortion and for 16% it was severe enough recommend psychiatric treatment. Söderberg, H., Andersson, C., Janzon, L., & Sjöberg, N-O. (1998). Selection bias in a study on how women experienced induced abortion. European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, 77:67-70.


 * See also Berkeley D, Humphrey PL, Davidson C, Demands made on general practice by women before and after an abortion. JR Coll Gen Pract. 34:310-315, 1984. I could give dozens of studies for substance abuse alone...many of which control for prior substance abuse, and dozens for other symptoms.  But an actual literature review runs counter to Stotland's style.


 * The problem with Stotland is that her whole approach is handwaving. She barely discusses the literature.  She just asserts that she is the expert and makes bold, unsupported statements.  Fortunately, she has moderated some because of her own experience in treating at least one woman who did have very significant latent reaction to an abortion which was triggered by miscarriage.  But it is absurd to just continue to pretend that the range of reactions ALWAYS stops short of mental illness.

In the same article, she adds: It is essential to differentiate feelings or emotions from diseases. This distinction is not widely understood and is frequently overlooked in anti-abortion materials. It is not uncommon for a woman to feel sad or guilty for a time after having an abortion, but it is uncommon for her to have a clinical depression. The underlying incidence of clinical depression among women of childbearing age approaches 10%; the peak incidence of depression in women, in fact, is in the childbearing years.


 * But Brenda Major, on both APA task forces, found that among women who had abortions, clinical depression was 20% and rising after two years! See Major, B., Cozzarelli, C., Cooper M.L., Zubek, J., Richards, C.,  Wilhite, M.,  Gramzow, R.H. (2000). Psychological responses of women after first-trimester abortion. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 57(8):777-84.

The incidence of full-blown postpartum depression in the United States is at least 10%. Most women experience relief after abortion, and most women’s mental states are better post-abortion than immediately pre-abortion... Most studies published in English after 1980 conclude that childbearing poses a psychiatric risk that is at least equivalent to, if not greater than, that of abortion, regardless of the patient’s age.


 * I'd love to see her cites. And would gladly give you twenty cite she ignores....like Fergusson's study.

After abortion, both the incidence of regret and the level of mental health increase. Most psychiatric illness that occurs after abortion was present before the abortion.
 * Again, more assertions which are not supported by the actual data. Show me three studies that shows the "level of mental health" increases after abortion and I'll show you that all three have at least a 50% drop out rate (refusal to talk about their abortions) and other methodological flaws.

I know your feelings about Stotland, but that is actually a pretty fair summary and hits some of the points you've tried to make above, with regards to the fact that feelings of sadness and other negative emotions do occur after abortion - but that such feelings are normal and not evidence of psychiatric illness. At the same time, we need to be clear about the WP:WEIGHT issue. The position of the American Psychological Association cannot be dismissed or ascribed to just 5 or 6 people whose names appear on it; they speak for the entire association. Consensus in science, as you know, is not determined by poll results, and in any case no such poll ever has been undertaken to my knowledge. When the two relevant major professional bodies take a position, supported by major review articles and echoed in the mainstream media, then that position is the mainstream one. Certainly there is a minority opinion which disagrees with it, but we can't pretend that these views are on equal footing in terms of their representation among experts in the field.


 * Stotland is president of the APA (psychiatric) and her position is clear, but I know of no offical APA position on the evidence. Unlike the other APA, they have not commissioned an official task force, to my knowledge.  They have a pro-choice stance, that is true, but you cannot infer what the groups position on the last ten years of research is from that.  The other APA task force report is over 18 years old, so we should not give that undue weight either.


 * AS noted, I can give you two pro-choice experts who disagree with Stotland, Russo and Major for everyone you can add, much less anti-abortion experts like Coleman, Rue, Burke, Reardon and others. The weight of opinion simply isn't supported as you say it is. And yes, there are polls of experts done.   It is simply wrong to keep implying that only Reardon is advancing the idea that abortion often involves mental health problems.


 * Consensus in science is not determined by a pro-choice organization, which the APA officially declares itself to be, declaring what the consensus is. Consensus is not determined by declarations.   At least in regard to the abortion/breast cancer issue, a consensus statement was developed at a special conference called to examine the fact which was attended by a wide number of experts...not just an APA panel.--Strider12 (talk) 22:44, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Obviously, the conclusions that Russo, Stotland, Major, and others have drawn from the data proved more convincing to the APA and the psychiatric community than did Reardon's interpretation. Maybe that will change when the APA's new statement comes out - I don't know. But for now, it's pretty clear from the opinions of those major organizations where the weight of opinion lies. MastCell Talk 19:18, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Where are you coming from?

 * Maybe this would be easier if I understood exactly where you're coming from (I mean, I have my thoughts on the matter, but...) Are you suggesting that women should be screened for depression when presenting for abortion and thereafter? Or that they should be told there's a risk of psychiatric damage as a result of the abortion during the informed consent process? Or what? MastCell Talk 00:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Two different issues. First, screening. As studies indicate that a history of prior depression is a risk factor for more severe reactions after an abortion, pre-abortion screening should include the question, "Have you had a history of depression?" I'm not necessarily recommending an actual psych evaluation, just the question. If she say's yes, then she should be told that she may experience more depression following the abortion and encouraged to seek help if this occurs. I don't think the abortion clinic is obligated to provide screening "thereafter" but it should certainly be prepared to make referals if women come back for help.


 * Second, the informed consent process should include information about those psychological risks which stastically validated studies have found to be significantly associated with abortion. Disclosure should not require proof of a causal connection, as the risk that there MAY BE a causal connection is itself part of the risk.  That is the same standard applies to most medical treatments and experimental treatments.  Statistically verified assocations provide prima facia that there MIGHT be a risk, therefore patients should be told of the risk until advocates of the treatment have proven that the reported link is in fact incidental.  In this case, even Russo, Stotland, Major are explaining that the elevated rates of psych problems are largely (exclusively?) due to prior mental health problems, which isn't even a claim that the effects are completely incidental.  In essense they are suggesting that women with mental health issues are more likely to have abortions, from which it follows (but they avoid saying) that abortion for these emotionally troubled women is "merely" aggravating preexising mental health problems.  If true, that may mean that abortion doesn't strictly speaking CAUSE mental health problems but it does CONTRIBUTE to mental health problems.  That's a fine distinction that I feel is irrelevent to the women suffering from abortion related stresses...indeed it is a bit insulting in that it implies "strong women don't grieve as much as you are doing...you were always flawed and are still just being weak."--Strider12 (talk) 20:30, 27 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with your first point, regarding screening. The prevalence of depression is high enough in the general population that the US Preventive Services Task Force recommends screening all adults for depression provided that the necessary follow-up care is available for people who screen positive (though they are currently "reviewing" this recommendation, so it may change). Since abortion appears to select for women at higher risk of depression, by virtue of pre-existing characteristics, it would make sense to screen women presenting for abortion. Even a two-question screen is reasonably effective and very quick, so it's hard to argue against screening women when they present for abortion, provided that there are available mental-health services to which they could be referred. This screen could be repeated at the follow-up visit after the abortion, or by a primary care physician or OB/Gyn at a subsequent visit. I think that would be a reasonable process.


 * I don't agree about informed consent. Informed consent provides patients with information on all risks known to be caused by the procedure being contemplated. It is unreasonable to inform patients of possible associations with the procedure when the relevant expert bodies hold that there is no causative relationship between the choice to have an abortion and subsequent psychiatric disorders. Correlations can infer evidence of causation (e.g. cigarettes -> lung cancer), but such a jump requires far more robust and consistent data than those available here. As an analogy, take a bone marrow biopsy. When I consent someone for a bone marrow biopsy, I discuss risks of bleeding, infection, and rarely nerve damage etc. I don't discuss the possibility that they may become depressed after the biopsy, even though a significant portion of the people I biopsy end up having a malignancy, and of those a significant proportion experience depression. You could say that the bone marrow biopsy was associated with depression - I think you could even prove it statistically. But while it's obviously vital to be attuned to patients' emotional state, I don't think anyone would argue that I should warn a patient during the informed consent process that they may experience depression associated with the biopsy.


 * Surely you see the ridiculousness of an initiative like David Reardon's, which proposes to essentially mandate that doctors "inform" patients of a risk that many expert bodies find to be non-existent? It's one thing to advocate screening; it's even another to argue that abortion should be illegal. I can respect both of those positions, and agree with one of them. I can't possibly get behind a law that mandates how an informed consent document should appear, particularly when that law pushes a risk that is widely believed to be non-existent. That's an egregious insertion of a political agenda into medical decision-making. If you prove that there's a real causative relationship, then doctors will inform patients of it. They're not evil or out to conceal risks from patients. The problem is that the risk is not proven to exist, in the minds of many experts, and attempting to force the issue by means of a legal initiative is completely the wrong way to go about it if your interest is in doing the right thing medically.


 * Unarguably, the best way to reduce any risk that may exist is not by laws or informed consent, but by reducing the number of women who have abortions. Outlawing abortion does not accomplish this, really, it just makes abortion more dangerous and, according to unarguable evidence, worsens the psychological risk associated with it by adding stigma and the need for concealment. The answer, if one were serious about reducing the numbers of abortions, would be to improve access to and knowledge of contraception (including emergency contraception), to promote abstinence as a choice but not the only possible means of contraception, and to support women at risk for unwanted pregnancy by identifying risk factors and trying to improve the factors that lead to unwanted pregnancy. You see the primary problem as abortion (I'm assuming), whereas I see the primary problem as the collection of factors that lead to unwanted pregnancy and put women in a situation where abortion may seem to be the best option. MastCell Talk 19:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * As I understand it, proof of causal connections is NOT typically required. This is patently clear in the case of experimental treatments when every theoretical risk is disclosed, much less risks for which there are statistically validated associations.  Also, I'm not advocating outlawing of abortion.


 * If depression is associated with a biopsy, I think patients should be told so they are prepared for it. If this disclosure affects a patient's decision to proceed with the biopsy, that is arguably unwise on the part of the patient but is certainly within her right.--Strider12 (talk) 21:04, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You're confusing two different concepts. A consent form for an experimental research protocol or clinical trial will include language describing theoretical risks, since the treatment is experimental and its risks not fully known or described. On the other hand, consent forms for commonly performed procedures (appendectomy, hip replacement, abortion, etc) describe the known risks that may result from the procedure; these consents include only risks for which a plausible causal relationship is understood to exist.
 * Of course patients need to be aware of the potential diagnoses that follow from a biopsy, but it would be ridiculous to expect or legally mandate that risks without a causal relationship be spelled out in the informed-consent document.
 * I'm sorry if I put words in your mouth with regard to outlawing abortion; I had gathered from some of your previous posts that you are pro-life, so I assumed you supported that goal. MastCell Talk 23:47, 28 January 2008 (UTC)


 * One can be pro-life without advocating a total ban. When does a medical procedure stop being experimental?  All procedures continue to be tested and evaluated, and as new concerns are raised, patients are informed. It is hardly a settled matter that abortion is without risks.  Koop rightly noted that the studies available in 1989 lacked sufficient methodological controls to draw any conclusions regarding safety, benefits, or risks. I stand by my statement that when risks are identified as statistically significant, they must be treated as truly a potential risk until there is clear and convincing proof, not just speculation, that the statistical association is spurious.  Read up on "evidence based medicine."  Ironically, even David Grimes agrees and has argued that doctors should stop presuming benefits follow even the most time honored treatments without evidence from carefully conducted case-control studies.  But even he has a blind spot when it comes to abortion. --Strider12 (talk) 02:38, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Deaths, Relief, and Other Purported Benefits of Abortion
The safety of abortion, in terms of physical risks of morbidity and mortality, is well-established. Anywhere that abortion is legal, it is from 7 to 14 times safer than carrying a pregnancy to term and delivering a baby. The shift in focus of the pro-life movement to psychological risk, which has much more wiggle room in its measurement and interpretation, is fairly obvious. A basic principle of evidence-based medicine, or any scientific endeavor, is that assertions must be proven. You don't start with a nebulous, disputed statistical association and then demand that someone disprove it. I'm also familiar enough with evidence-based medicine to know that statistical significance does not equal Platonic Truth; claiming that any risk shown to be statistically associated with a p<0.05 in a single study is clinically meaningful, or exists at all, is a fallacy. MastCell Talk 04:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The 7 to 14 times figure is based on comparing REPORTED abortion associated deaths with REPORTED deaths associated with childbirth. That Gissler studies have shown that method is unreliable. The CDC admits that comparisons of these numbers is not reliable since they are "conceptually different." For example, a suicide five days after an abortion will not show up in death certificates as abortion related.


 * More accurate figures by Gissler have shown that the death rate after abortion goes up and is higher than deaths associated with childbirth. Reardon's Medi-Cal studies found the same thing.  See:
 * Gissler M, Berg C, Bouvier-Colle MH, Buekens P. Pregnancy-associated mortality after birth, spontaneous abortion or induced abortion in Finland, 1987-2000. Am J Ob Gyn 2004; 190:422-427.
 * Abstract: A retrospective cohort study from Finland for a 14-year period, 1987 to 2000. Information on all deaths of women aged 15 to 49 years in Finland (n=15,823) was received from the Cause-of-Death Register and linked to the Medical Birth Register (n=865,988 live births and stillbirths), the Register on Induced Abortions (n=156,789 induced abortions), and the Hospital Discharge Register (n= 118,490 spontaneous abortions) to identify pregnancy-associated deaths (n=419). The age-adjusted mortality rate for women during pregnancy and within 1 year of pregnancy termination was 36.7 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies, which was significantly lower than the mortality rate among nonpregnant women, 57.0 per 100,000 person-years (relative risk [RR] 0.64, 95% CI 0.58-0.71). The mortality was lower after a birth (28.2/100,000) than after a spontaneous (51.9/100,000) or induced abortion (83.1/100,000). We observed a significant increase in the risk of death from cerebrovascular diseases after delivery among women aged 15 to 24 years (RR 4.08, 95% CI 1.58-10.55). Our study supports the healthy pregnant woman effect for all pregnancies, including those not ending in births. (author's)
 * Reardon DC, Ney PG, Scheuren F, Cougle J, Coleman PK, Strahan TW. Deaths associated with pregnancy outcome: a record linkage study of low income women. South Med J 2002 Aug;95(8):834-41.


 * These and similar studies now show indisputable evidence that the death rate after abortion is higher than after childbirth and also higher than for non-pregnant women. But that hasn't deterred PP and Guttmacher from repeating the old propaganda so that people like you will parrot it while in ignorance of the advances made in science.


 * Evidence based medicine does not mean that "assertions must be proven" it means that proposed TREATMENTS must be proven. Abortion is proposed as a treatement which improves women's lives.  So far, while risks have been identified the expected improvements have not been quantified...just asserted. Seriously, if you ignore all the handwaving and look for data regarding purported improvements you will will find a pretty thin list of studies identifying any measurable benefits.  The biggest benefit claimed is "relief" -- but that includes relief from having the stress of the abortion behind one, relief that one's boyfriend is no longer nagging for the abortion, relief from morning sickness, etc.  I think the failure of pro-abortion researchers to even probe more deeply into the benefits of "relief" is telling.  It's thin ice.  As Rue frequently says, abortion is both a stress reliever and a stress inducer.  Short term benefits, including relief, are expected but do not reliably predict long term benefits.--Strider12 (talk) 17:58, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think anyone is arguing that abortion "improves women's lives" dramatically. It's a difficult choice, but one which may be the best of several bad options. That's why I suggested, above, that the most rational approach would be to focus on preventing unwanted pregnancy, but the same people who are against abortion tend to be against contraception (except for abstinence), against sex education, and against emergency contraception - that is, against the only things that might realistically reduce the number of abortions performed. They also tend to be in favor of reducing or eliminating the social safety net, meaning that women forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term because of restrictive laws or the fact that local abortion providers have been intimidated away are left unsupported after the child is born.
 * I'm sorry you see my view as ignorant or an uncritical recitation of Planned Parenthood or Guttmacher's view. I can only reiterate that weak and inconsistent statistical associations are not evidence of casuation. When the researchers who consistently report these associations also happen to be committed pro-life activists sponsoring political initiatives to restrict access to abortion, and whose role as activists predated their role as researchers, then that context is germane. I am strongly in favor of an accurate discussion of the known risks of abortion, informed by the weight of available evidence and expert opinion.
 * The political context is also relevant - in light of the safety of legal abortion, there has been an explicit shift in the tactics of certain elements of the pro-life movement to an attempt to paint abortion as psychologically damaging, and to leverage this into legal restrictions on abortion.
 * Having failed, thus far, to convince the medical community that abortion is psychologically damaging, David Reardon and other researchers are turning to the legal system and attempting to pass a law mandating that these non-existent risks be covered in informed consent. It's obvious that these are not medical people, or they would likely realize what a fundamental breach of medical ethics and interference with rational medical decision-making they are attempting to legislate. I certainly wouldn't appreciate a political activist with no medical experience or training and a Ph.D. from an online correspondence course telling me how to counsel patients, or which risks are real and which are not. MastCell Talk 18:48, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Your comments seem to be referring to Reardon again. He is only one of many researchers and their findings are not "weak and inconsistent statistical associations" as demonstratred by the growing body of literature supporting their findings...see Gissler and Fergusson and many others.  If they statistical assocaitions were weak, they wouldn't be getting their studies published.


 * To me the politics are secondary...even tertiary. The facts discovered by science should be allowed to be presented without checking how they will affect the political landscape.  That Reardon sees and believes the facts should effect the political landscape does not prove that the facts he presents are false, or even suspect.  Are researchers doing work in global warming, or mercury in vaccines, to be immediately suspect if they also believe their issues merit political attention?
 * As you know, it is quite possible for people to where "multiple hats." I don't know if that is the case for Reardon, but it is true for many others, including myself. For example, a reporter can be objective when reporting, but subjective when being an activists.  Similarly, when you read his academic studies versus his books, it seems evident to me that Reardon is quite capable of accurately articulating a nuanced scientific position in the former while promoting a broader agenda in the latter.  He may be helped in the former, in regard to peer reviewed articles, by the fact that peer reviewers like myself, and his co-authors, won't stand for any overreaching of what the actual findings are.  Compare the CMAJ article to Major's CMAJ commentary and you will see that she was given far more latitude to discuss and reinterpret the findings than Reardon and his colleagues were.   Have you ever read any of Reardon's books?  Or are you just going by what NOW, Bazelon and others characterize him to be?
 * In any event, the issue before us as Wikipedia editors is not to judge Reardon's motives, or to dismiss his peer reviewed work as if we know more than his peer reviewers, our job is to accurately record facts....all facts, not just those that support one political agenda or the other. --Strider12 (talk) 20:09, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree regarding Wikipedia; I think our discussion here involves issues that go beyond what would be appropriate for Wikipedia article-space. I would amend your statement, though: our job is provide an accurate picture of human knowledge and understanding of a subject. That is not merely a matter of cataloging every study which has been published - as I'm sure you know, quite a bit of crap is, has been, and will continue to be published in the peer-reviewed literature. It is a matter of accurately reflecting how experts in the field have synthesized those studies. That distinction appears to be where you're running into trouble. MastCell Talk 20:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I clearly have more respect for the peer review process than you do. Also, I don't think it is the place of Wikipedia editors, whether experts, hobbyists, high school zealots, or PP interns, to put themselves up in the place of using a few preferred sources as an excuse to catalog every bit of information that disagrees with their view as "crap."  Similarly, it is not up to Wikipedia editors to exclude Reardon, or other multi-published, peer reviewed researchers, from the field of experts who have contributed to the synthesis of material and studies simply because there are other experts who disagree with him.  He has over a dozen studies which have been peer reviewed and found to be of a quality that contributes to his field...which is also the standard used for granting PhD's.  Moreover, as frequently noted, it is inappropriate to use attacks on Reardon as an excuse for excluding the research of his colleagues, like Coleman and Rue.
 * Instead of taking on the mantle of advocating that Wikipedia editors should police peer reviewed journals to discern and report only the "truth" which editors agree with, I think you should more modestly embrace the idea tha Wikipedia editors should simply provide a platform for all facts and analyses presented in well referenced, verifiable, peer reviewed studies.  In that regard, it is not our job to police the experts, like Reardon, but to police each other to ensure that we accurately report what the experts are finding and concluding, even if, and especially if, the experts are disagreeing and offering a variety of facts and interpretations. --Strider12 (talk) 21:46, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

You've created a strawman argument which you proceed to gleefully bash. I don't in any way advocate that Wikipedia editors should mine and parse the peer-reviewed literature to advance their point. Ironically, I think it is your propensity to do exactly this that leads to most of the problems you've encountered here. I feel strongly that when there are conflicting primary sources, we need to lean on reliable secondary sources to parse and weight them. Numerous such sources exist and have been cited. It would be completely inaccurate to simply present Reardon's research without characterizing its place in the documented view of expert bodies in the field. As to peer review, I've been on both sides for a while now, and I feel reasonably familiar with both its strengths and weaknesses. If you view peer review as some sort of automatic guarantee of quality, relevance, or accuracy, then I question how much experience and insight you have into the process. MastCell Talk 23:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Interesting
миражinred (speak, my child...) 19:56, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Per WP:UP, userspace is not to be used to collect "material that can be construed as attacking other editors, including the recording of perceived flaws. An exception is made for evidence compiled within a reasonable time frame to prepare for a dispute resolution process." I'll assume that we're going to see some sort of dispute-resolution process in a "reasonable time frame"... if not, then this is an inappropriate use of your userspace. MastCell Talk 20:36, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The time frame depends on the time required to collect sufficient evidence of persistent disruption by blanking of reliable material. I believe I read somewhere that wikistalking of an editor's posts is inappropriate. Harrassing an editor for simply keeping a log of disruptive edits is also frowned upon.--Strider12 (talk) 21:31, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Disruptive edits or edits with which you are simply not happy? User contributions are public for a good reason. миражinred  (speak, my child...) 21:58, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * There is guidance from ArbCom that removal of statements that are pertinent, sourced reliably, and written in a neutral style constitutes disruption. The history of 131's self-described "purging" of peer reviewed studies, which you are on record encouraging, was disruption. The process of continued deletion of well referenced materials is also disruption which stunts the organic growth of the article which would occur if people stopped deleting material and instead worked on adding and coordinating material.--Strider12 (talk) 22:37, 29 January 2008 (UTC)


 * You are, quite simply, relying on a misinterpretation of an ArbCom finding to overrule WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. In fact, what is clearly disruptive is endlessly perseverating on the same argument, disdaining outside input and consensus and edit-warring in the process, after your argument has been universally rejected. I have been around ArbCom a few times, and I can pretty much guarantee that bringing a case is not going to have the outcome you want. Labeling good-faith editing and content disagreements as "vandalism" or "disruption" is unlikely to go over well anywhere, to say nothing of your behavior in general. But of course, you're free to do whatever you think best. MastCell Talk 23:22, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

February 2008
This edit constitutes WP:POINT vandalism. This is your second pointy vandalism warning (first was December 2007 as noted above in "January 2008"). Please refrain from taking disputes out on the article. Thank you --Phyesalis (talk) 00:09, 9 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Phyesalis, that edit is neither WP:Point nor any form of WP:vandalism. Either you or I misunderstand WP:point, and I'm pretty sure it's you.  Strider12's edit was mostly excellent, well-sourced, encyclopedic information.  The only thing wrong with it was the "temp" heading (and she used the wrong number of "=" signs to make it a heading), and this introductory sentence:
 * ''For discussion and eventual inclusion in the section on abortion and mental health:
 * That sentence is better placed on the Talk page. If one is going to propose material for addition to an article, one should either be bold and just add it (with appropriate supporting comments on the talk page), or else propose it on the Talk page.  She tried to just propose it for discussion in a "temporary" section of the article, which you and I know is not the right way to do it.


 * But it was an innocent, well-meaning mistake. You should cut her some slack.  Strider12 is new here (just started editing in November), and has already contributed a remarkable amount of excellent, well-sourced information.  She's still learning the ropes, but we definitely need more editors like her on Wikipedia!  Please don't start her out by souring her Wiki-experience with bogus accusations of violations of obscure guidelines that she surely has never seen. NCdave (talk) 13:22, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Revert warning
You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions in a content dispute within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. If necessary, pursue dispute resolution. Stifle (talk) 16:07, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I have been reverting deleting of and "unbalanced" tag. Are tags considered "content." It would seem that editors should not be removing warning tags.--Strider12 (talk) 04:18, 16 February 2008 (UTC)
 * You made at least 5 reverts within about 27 hours. Removing tags is a revert. It would seem you shouldn't be doing that. Realistically, you're fortunate to receive a warning and not a block given your lengthy history, so I'd suggest not wikilawyering it too hard. MastCell Talk 04:21, 16 February 2008 (UTC)


 * She did not remove tags. She inserted an (obviously needed) warning tag.


 * Wikipedia's guidelines are not totally clear about whether that constitutes a WP:revert. Obviously, if inserting a single word in an article that has ever appeared in the article before is a "revert" then there are an awful lot of accidental reverts on Wikipedia.  Common sense says that is not a true revert.  But if that is not a true revert, then how can inserting a single-word warning tag be considered a revert?


 * I am aware of the fact that it is commonly considered a revert, but my points are that that is not obvious to new users, and that IMO that unwritten(?) rule needs to be changed: reinsertion of warning tags should not be considered reverts, IMO.


 * Also, she's relatively new here. She just started contributing to Wikipedia in November, and she's already made many wonderful contributions.  So be a gentleman and cut her some slack!  NCdave (talk) 12:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Formal notification
This is a formal notification. If you continue collecting diffs of other editors' supposed "disruption" at User:Strider12/Disruption in violation of the userpage policy I will submit the page to be deleted. If you intend to use these diffs for dispute resolution, then you've had plenty of time - at least, enough time to make 5 reverts a day and repeat the same tendentious 8-paragraph arguments on the talk pages. MastCell Talk 22:05, 16 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I have never gone to arbitration before I would assume that one needs a good bit of evidence before filing a complaint. I believe I should have the right to accumulate the evidence until I believe I have sufficient basis to succeed in my complaint.  As you have noted, policy does allow one to collect such information for the purpose of dispute resolution.  I don't see why you are so anxious to have me file a complaint except that you don't want me to have a sufficient record.  Instad of harassing me, why don't you try working in a collaborative fashion to work the reliable sources I bring to the articles in instead of just making up reasons to delete them?


 * I don't see the inclusion of additional material to be a "revert". As you will notice, I hardly ever delete anyone's elses contritions.  I always try to keep it and integerate it into a larger article.  The "edit warring" is caused by those who insist on disrutively deleting verifiable material from peer reviewed journals even when it is presented in an NPOV fashion.--Strider12 (talk) 04:57, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Would it be more acceptable to you if I kept the log on this pae instead?


 * No. It would be more acceptable if you either pursued dispute resolution (the first step of which, incidentally, is not Arbitration) or else refrained from violating the userpage policy by cataloging what you perceive as other editors' "disruption". Maybe while you're up on the moral high ground, you can explain how you expect your "disruption log" to facilitate collaborative editing. This is not dispute resolution at all; it's more maneuvering and wikilawyering to get around the fact that there is a consensus opposing your edits and your behavior on abortion and mental health. MastCell Talk 07:07, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * And while we're on the subject, you reverted abortion and mental health 4 times in less than one hour on 16 February. Instead of wikilawyering, you should count yourself fortunate you haven't picked up two 3RR blocks in the past few days. Stop. MastCell Talk 07:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I made four contributions to the article. I did not delete anyone else's contributions. I don't see how your partnership with IAA and MarginRed to take turns deleting verifiable material does not violate the spirit of 3RR.  You misunderstand the idea of consensus. If 400 holocaust deniers have form a "consensus" that inconvenient truths about the Holocaust should be purged because they violate WEIGHT or disagree with the expert opinion of their own experts, that is NOT justification for deleting FACTS. You three are constantly deleitng verifiable facts from peer reviewed sources and even deleting facts from the same sources you cite which put your cherry-picked quotest into context. I find it ironic that you now accuse me of "wikilawyering" when you are the one who has constantly obstructed my sources with your own wikilawyering excuses (such as regarding WEIGHT and secondary sources), and then when I study the policies you cite and demonstrate how you are misapplying them, you accuse ME of wikilawyering!?!  I guess that's easier than coming up with any up to date sources which support you 1990, 1992 and Bazelon "gospels."--Strider12 (talk) 21:08, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I just wanted you to know that it's actually mirageinred.
 * You are indeed very passionately wikilawyering to defend your POV-pushing. As I have already said, bloating the article with your tendentious editing to "neutralize" the Planned Parenthood bias is no better than "deleting verifiable information." миражinred سَراب ٭  (speak, my child...) 22:42, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * It's not a "partnership"; it's a consensus (and you forgot to mention the outside opinions which solicited and which also agreed with us). We're hardly in lockstep; I think the only thing that all of these editors agree completely on is that your editing is destructive, uncollaborative, and unproductive. Comparing us to Holocaust deniers is an excellent way to erode any marginal amount of credibility remaining to you. The consensus view is completely and adequately sourced. And yes, you made 4 reverts in less than 1 hour, as part of your ongoing campaign of edit-warring. You're wikilawyering when you deny the fact that you're continuously and egregiously violating both the spirit and, now, the letter of WP:3RR. MastCell Talk 22:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not comparing you to Holocaust deniers. I gave an example of how just because there is a "consensus" that consensus may abridge or violate the spirit of recording facts.  My complaint is very simple, and is reflected in the ArbCom policy that one of the links YOU sent me pointed to.  It is disruptive to delete verifiable facts from peer reviewed sources.  You continue to insist that you and your gang of abortion-mental health deniers have a right to continue the process of "purging" -- or in your wikilawyering-speak -- WEIGHTING the article to suit your perspective by deleting literally scores of facts and sources which demonstrate there is not a consenus supporting your view and that there is a great deal of statistically validated research, since 1992, which demonstrates that the conclusions you rely on from 1990 and 1992 are no longer reliable.  And you also very conveniently forget all the editors before, and during my time editing this article, who have agreed with me.  Just because they don't have the persistence to wrangle with you doesn't mean that your gang represents an objective consensus of what sources should be allowed to be in this article.--Strider12 (talk) 23:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Soderberg
Show me in the Soderberg study where women say "‘I do not want to talk about it. I just want to forget'" or at concede that you lied. I advise you against wikilawyering too hard because RfC for user conduct is imminent. You can call my comment a threat, but I consider it as another warning. мirаgeinred سَراب ٭ (talk) 23:32, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Dear Saranghae Honey / Maragrinered,


 * Why do you sign with aliases?


 * The full paragraph from Soderberg is:
 * "Some (33.3%) did not want to talk about their experiences and were so listed. For many of the women, the reason for non-participation seemed to be a sense of guilt and remorse that they did not wish to discuss.  An answer very often given was: ‘I do not want to talk about it. I just want to forget'."
 * This is found on page 15 of Soderberg's complete collection of studies from this data set entitled Uban women applying for induced abortion: Studies of epidemiology, attitudes and emotional reactions by Hanna Soderberg, M.D., Departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Community Medicine, Lund Universtiy, University Hospital, Malmo Sweden 1998.  She mailed me a copy many years ago and will probably send you a copy if you contact her.--Strider12 (talk) 17:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Who's cherry picking now Strider? It appears that you still have the audacity to use David Reardon as your source. If you do not want your credibility as an editor to plunge any further, I advise you to stop making excuses (i.e. Did you read the full text?) and stop. мirаgeinred سَراب ٭ (talk) 23:39, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Reardon is a very credible source as demonstrated by the fact that he has multiple peer reviewed articles in top journals demonstratring that the top people in his field recognize his work as credible. Just because you don't like his politics gives you no license to continually purge references to his peer reviewed studies.  Your constant disruptive deletion of material from reliable sources has destroyed any presumption of neutrality on your part.--Strider12 (talk) 17:27, 20 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Just quote James Dobson to verify your claim that gays are God's abominations who will burn in hell one day. Before you slander other editors I suggest not making claims that are more reflective of your tendentious editing and would you please have some decency to refrain from disputed sources. If David Reardon's claims are right, try finding other sources that resonates with his findings. мirаgeinred سَراب ٭  (talk) 20:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)


 * мirаgeinred سَراب ٭, where did Strider12 say that "gays are God's abominations who will burn in hell one day?" Did you just make that up??


 * If she said it, it was at the very least uncivil. But if you made it up then it was worse: an uncivil, dishonest, personal attack.


 * Please also refrain from accusations of criminal activity against your fellow editors, such as your "slander" accusation.


 * Also, I know for a fact that Dobson has never said that "gays are God's abominations who will burn in hell one day." Please refrain from making false accusations even against public figures.  NCdave (talk) 12:31, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Aww, it sucks that that's not really what I meant. See my talk page. I replied to you. мirаgeinred سَراب ٭  (talk) 22:28, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * What is going on here? No, I NEVER said anything of the sort. Please go somewhere else to fling accusations and discuss such nonsense. I really hate being flagged to come visit my talk page only to see this kind of trash.--Strider12 (talk) 22:41, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * "If David Reardon's claims are right, try finding other sources that resonates with his findings." Haven't you noticed that is exactly what I have been doing? See  over a dozen sources here, and experts who concur here .  His findings and views are not isolated; they have been confirmed by many, many others.  You may not like that fact, but it is a fact.--Strider12 (talk) 22:45, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Well Strider12, given that there are hundreds of studies out there why not? Other editors have discussed this issue with you already. As for my oh-so-scandalous attack against you, I think you are entitled to an explanation. I've replied at my talk page because NCdave cross-posted this thread at multiple places. мirаgeinred سَراب ٭  (talk) 22:50, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * So, now that your agree that Reardon's findings and views HAVE been confirmed by other studies and experts, will you now agree to support having these materials included in the article? Clearly, that is what policy requires in that multiple view points from reliable sources should be included.--Strider12 (talk) 23:09, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Strider12, I acknowledge that some comments were made in the heat of the moment, especially for the use of the word "slander." As for the James Dobson analogy thing, I'm trying to shun NCdave, so if you want any more explanation, could you start new, separate sections on my talk page or yours? Thanks. мirаgeinred سَراب ٭ (talk) 04:24, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

RFC/USER discussion concerning you (Strider12)
Hello, Strider12. Please be aware that a request for comments has been filed concerning your conduct on Wikipedia. The RFC entry can be found by your name in this list, and the actual discussion can be found at Requests for comment/Strider12, where you may want to participate. -- MastCell Talk 01:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi
Hi, Strider12. Thanks for your message at my talk page. I wrote a reply there for you.

I also would like to mention that you can contact me by email if you like. In case you weren't aware, you can go to my talk page, and you'll see a hyperlink over at the left-hand-side that says "Email this user". If you prefer, though, we can communicate via these talk pages. Cheers.Ferrylodge (talk) 07:20, 22 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I've replied to your most recent message, at my talk page.Ferrylodge (talk) 20:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Koop and Congress
You are quite simply wrong here:. I know you've signed on to Ferrylodge's argument that his reading of the transcripts is correct, and that of Science, the New York Times, New Scientist, and Washington Monthly are all incorrect. But please see my recent comment on the talk page; Ferrylodge's claims about the transcipt are mistaken. I've found a reliable secondary source which includes the "overwhelming" quote, which is what you all should have been working on as well all of this time instead of trying to carefully parse a primary source to support you and override multiple reliable secondary sources. Let's move on. MastCell Talk 19:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * What source, equal to the transcript, have you found showing that Koop used the "minimal" phrase? I don't doubt that he thought that was probably true, but he did NOT use the phrase, and moreover since he repeatedly emphasized that even the evidence was so bad that nobody could be sure what they were talking about so even that assessment was preliminary or a "probably" view.  But instead, it's being portrayed as a definitive view, which again is a distortion of Koop's views.
 * Secondary sources use secondary sources all the time...which is how misattributions occur all the time. Indeed, many or perhaps most of the sources you cite may not have examined the transcripts.  I can easily imagine that Weiss's office put out a news release stating the Koop agreed that it was "miniscule from the public health perspective" (technically true, but misleading and not his words) and that got morphed into Koop saying it. Clearly, when question arise the best evidence is the TRANSCRIPT, which is why they are kept, and it clearly shows the phrase in someone else's mouth.  We should stop perpetuating a misattribution.--Strider12 (talk) 20:14, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * He's been quoted in numerous fact-checked, highly reliable sources. If you consider this a misquote, I strongly suggest you notify these sources. I am simply not going to take yours and Ferrylodge's word about what an inaccessible transcript says over what has been reported in these multiple high-quality secondary sources, and that would likely be the case even if you were editors in whom I had more personal confidence. MastCell Talk 22:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in uninvited, but....

The transcript is not completely inaccessible. Two pertinent excerpts are here and here.

And I have never taken the position that this transcript is in any way inconsistent with the secondary sources, as I recently explained here. Koop did indeed take the position that psychological problems of abortion are minuscule from a "public health" perspective. That's what the secondary sources say, and that's what the transcript shows.

However, public health is a specific field, its mission being to assure conditions in which people can be healthy. If one woman gets an abortion, that really does not have much consequence for the actions or mental health of any other woman living down the street, so Koop was correct that the public health implications are miniscule no matter which side of the abortion debate you're on. Sure would be nice if the article on Abortion and Mental Health would explain this.Ferrylodge (talk) 23:14, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Public health, in this context, refers to the scale of the problem (which I think you're getting at). About 1.3 million women have abortions in the U.S. every year. If there were a causal connection between abortion and mental health problems, then given the number of exposed women it would be a substantial public health concern. There is no evidence of a proportionate epidemic of psychologically scarred "post-abortive" women, and hence no public-health-level issue. What does exist are individual reports of women who have had severe negative reactions to their abortions. I don't think anyone is denying that such reactions exist (certainly the APA and even Planned Parenthood aren't) - the dispute is over the magnitude of the problem and whether this set of women would have had psychological problems even if they had carried the unwanted pregnancy to term. Koop addressed this with his comment about "anecdotes not making good scientific material." MastCell Talk 23:28, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree, but that distinction is not clearly made in the article. Indeed, this is why I suggested the Wilmoth quote and 4 points of contention.  Wilmoth's position, in my opinion, should be in the opening paragraph of the summary.  ie. There is no dispute that some women have problems, but there is dispute and ongoing investigations of a, b, c, and d. But once again, as with all my sources, Wilmoth get cut....even though he is PRO-CHOICE!--Strider12 (talk) 20:37, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Koop said, "From the personal perspective, from the family perspective, it is overwhelming." He didn't say it is "sometimes" overwhelming or it is "rarely" overwhelming.  He asked Congress for funds to do a study to investigate thoroughly and scientifically whether or not he was correct, because the anecdotes on which he based his opinion were inadequate to write an unimpeachable report.  His preliminary opinion was that the public health impacts on mental health were miniscule, whereas the clinical health impacts on an individual's mental health were overwhelming.  I am very disappointed that our Wikipedia article cannot at least provide the links to Koop's answer, because the Science article only provides an incomplete quote.  (And it's no coincidence that Science attributed the word "overwhelming" to Koop, just like it says at page 241 of the report I linked.)Ferrylodge (talk) 23:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for hanging in there
Your careful, well-sourced contributions to abortion-related articles are a real gift to the Wikipedia community. I am sorry that some here have not appreciated your work. But I do.

Here are a couple of pages that might be of interest to you:

Drop me an email sometime. If you don't get a reply, please try again -- I've been having trouble with my email server lately. NCdave (talk) 13:30, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

"Hiding"
Do we really need more things to fight about at Talk:Abortion and mental health ? I'm not "hiding" your comments. You and IronAngelAlice have both constantly pasted huge blocks of text to the talk page which make it virtually unreadable and unusable for its goal of improving the article. I'm collapsing those using the hidden template so that people can read the page, then open the box to see the text. I'm applying this to both you and IronAngelAlice. Are we really at the point where this is something we have to fight about? MastCell Talk 19:57, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * First, I assumed it was probably IAA who collapsed the text. Certainly, collapsing the list of Coleman's bibliography was justified...I didn't even see her point in including it all.  But I believe the list of edits, most of which I believe IAA has cut without discussion, should not be collapsed because I am truly inviting additional editors, perhaps new ones to the page, to see and comment on these edits, as in my opinion they are all clearly relevent and based on reliable secondary sources. If they are "collapsed" or "hidden" that discourages the discussion I am trying to invite.


 * I don't see that you have made any comment regarding the Coleman entry/deletion. Also, you indicated that you did not object to a Soderbert entry, but you have done nothing to reinsert it.  Perhaps if you were to work with me to integrate some of these reliable sources into the article that would get IAA to back off of her "instant deletes."--Strider12 (talk) 20:10, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I am honestly extremely fatigued with editing that article. There are entirely too many reverts flying back and forth. I will take a look. I honestly had no intention of "hiding" your comments and applied similar treatment (I believe) to IAA's lengthy posts. If you feel very strongly, I won't revert again, but I think the current state of the talk page is largely discouraging to any new editors. MastCell Talk 20:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Weight & Majority View
As you, MastCell, noted in one comment, there is actually a lot of good material for a good article. The problem is that I have a ton of well sourced materials that go against what you consider the "established view" and you have therefore reinforced IAA's trigger finger. While you and I disagree on WEIGHT, I remain hopeful that you will one day agree to just let the facts speak for themselves and just edit my contributions for accuracy. I really do appreciate that you actually read the studies, a step which it appears to me that IAA and some others often neglect. Contrary to your concerns, I am not trying to add EVERY study that runs counter to the Russo/Stotland/Baezlon take. I'm only trying to insert enough to show that there are more perspectives and evidence than that which has been "enshrined" as "Gospel" in the current article. But since every source I add gets deleted, I go and get more sources to show that the one's I am bringing forward are not isolated. Seriously, if you want to help cut off the warring, try taking my side regarding inclusion of these reliable sources. Then we can work together to discuss HOW they should be presented rather than arguing about IF they should be allowed. To me, the HOW question is a quite fair one that invites collaboration. The IF question, by contrast, violates the spirit of Wikipedia to document ALL facts, not just those that support a particular theme or POV, in this case the POV that abortion has positive, little or no effects on mental health.--Strider12 (talk) 20:33, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Let me be clear that I recognize that data exist which find an association between abortion and negative mental health outcomes. The view that such an association exists, over and above the risk associated with carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term, is a distinct view which requires coverage. That said, to the extent that there is a "majority" or mainstream view, it would have to be that expressed by the APA. I am very interested to see what the APA's update will have to say, since as you note there has been quite a bit of additional data since 1989 on both sides of the question.
 * I think we disagree in a couple of areas. First, the WP:WEIGHT issue and the "majority" view. While there are experts who believe a link exists, I think that the majority view is that put forward by the APA and other such large organizations. That doesn't mean that we refuse to cover the "minority" view - it has significant adherents, even beyond Reardon and other pro-life activists - but it does mean that the context needs to be preserved.


 * As I have previously pointed out, WEIGHT should be determined by evidence, not a claim of "majority" views. As flat-earthers don't have any peer reviewed studies that they can cite, that automatically serves to prevent giving them undue weight in an article about the planet Earth.  If they did have peer reviewed articles, they should be included without limit and offset, without limit, by round earth articles.


 * Also, I seen no reason to deify the APA panel...especially a twenty hear old report...as defining the majority opinion. They didn't even represent the majority opinion back then!  They took the same data that Koop looked at and said was too weak to draw reliable conclusions and still tried to spin it as "since nothing reliable has been found we see no reason to conclude that anything exists."  Their conclusions are an extension of pro-choice policy based which exploited the weakness of research...not any positive evidence of benefits...to assert a much quoted view that "nothing has been shown" to assuage public concerns.  Plus, it is an undisputed fact that the APA is OFFICIALLY a pro-choice organization and that ALL six authors were active in the pro-choice subgroup of the APA devoted to advancing "reproductive issues" hardly suggests that we should assume their views are free of bias. I certainly grant that they have expertise and a right to their opinions, but that's all.


 * Even if their views do reflect what you call the "majority" opinion, is it a 51-49 split, 80-20, 95-5 split? No one knows.  So why should we not balance the article with a 50-50 presentation?  Or better yet, why not just let the facts in regard to actual study results speak for themselves, and instead just limit ourselves to giving a 50-50 spread for summary OPINIONS of experts.  If we properly identify the experts, we can let the reader decide if he or she believes that since the APA said it that should matter more than what Coleman or Fergusson say.  In that sense, readers can WEIGHT opinions themselves based on the source and the data available to all teh experts.


 * Also, as you know "Claims of consensus must be sourced. The claim that all or most scientists, scholars, or ministers hold a certain view requires a reliable source. Without it, opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources." Even APA team didn't claim "consensus." As most people like Grimes are claiming, without evidence, that "most physicians" agree with their assessment.


 * Clearly there is no reason to argue that there is a "consensus" that there are "no significant mental health effects associated with abortion," especially since so many sources agree that the research is difficult and filled with methodological limitations. In FACT there is only a consensus, which the APA89/Adler article acknowledges: at least SOME women have severe negative reactions and that there are certain subgroups of women who are at higher risk.  (Typically, even short term studies find 10-20% with significant negative reactions. Longer term studies tend to find higher overall rates on a cumulative basis.)  That is in fact all that the anti-abortion experts are also saying.  Coleman and Reardon have never claimed that the MAJORITY of women experience psychological ILLNESS because of their abortions.  They are saying SOME do and are trying to identify how many do...which is one of the research needs that Wilmoth pointed out.--Strider12 (talk) 22:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The second issue has to do with how that minority view is presented. It seems you believe that the best way to do this is to present a series of individual studies and their conclusions. I don't think this is going to produce a useful, accurate encyclopedia article.


 * I don't mind trying to be more encyclopedic, but my brief edits (like my long ones) get reverted immediately. So I am left with no choice but to demonstrate that the slant and intro of the article our out of step with the facts by including FACTS from unimpeachable peer reviewed articles--all of which IAA and MargerineRed will immediately delete, but at least I'm educating them, and you...


 * There are dozens of studies on this topic - how do we decide which to include or feature? That decision inserts POV and editorial opinion right there. Your argument that you're just inserting peer-reviewed sources isn't convincing me, because highlighting specific journal articles (and specific sub-findings of specific journal articles) without the context of how this evidence is interpreted by experts is WP:SYN and serves to advance a point.


 * I totally disagree. The articles themselves include the expert's interpretations...which are generally very conservative statements to the effect that it appears abortion is significantly associated with X and more research needs to be done. Also, nearly EVERY study done in the last ten years shows negative associations.  I don't have to be picky.  Anything I pull out of my file shows that that broad dismissals of the abortion mental health link in the opening section are out of sync with the data.
 * Regarding the BEST studies, it's clear that the best studies methodologically are Fergusson's life time longitudinal study and Gissler's and Reardon's California studies which are all records based and not subject to recall bias or self-selection. The only weakness, but an important one, is that these have not had data on whether the pregnancies were initially intended or unintended.  Coleman has done a couple that did have data on intendedness, however.


 * I think we should first characterize the existing views and their prominent adherents, and then, possibly, cite a handful of representative studies on both sides. That way we truly let the facts speak for themselves. This is an extension of WP:PSTS, which indicates that articles should be based on reliable secondary sources, with primary sources cited to flesh out the article but not arranged in such a way that they allow an editor to rebut or undermine what the secondary sources have to say. MastCell Talk 17:45, 27 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm all for that. But I continue to disagree with your classfication of peer reviewed studies as primary sources.  THey are not.  They are expertly developed secondary sources analyzing primary data (the medical records of Finland and California, for example) and the author's analyses and methods have been peer reviewed by experts in the field.  THESE ARE THE BEST RELIABLE SECONDARY SOURCES.  Your interpretation, which would put Baezlon's article above the peer reviewed studies would gut the WP policy:In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses."  These journal articles are checked much more carefully than the New York Times Magazine articles.--Strider12 (talk) 22:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Primary Secondary Sources

 * I'm not the one classifying journal articles as secondary sources; see WP:PSTS: "...published experimental results by the person(s) actually involved in the research..." are primary sources. There is a very sound reason for this: it is extremely easy for a sophisticated person to cherry-pick the original peer-reviewed literature to explicitly or implicitly advance whatever agenda they like. The defense against this is to require secondary sources for context and weight - that's where things like the APA panel, major review articles (e.g. Grimes), the New York Times, and so forth come into play. MastCell Talk 23:47, 27 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I still believe you are misintepreting and misapplying that. As stated above, your intepretation would cut out 98% of all peer reviewed scientific studies and hobble us to waiting for periodic review articles, in peer reviewed journals (which are good, but rather rare and also prone to promoting a school of thought, ie. a slant) or worst of all, to wait for some journalist to write an "interesting" slant.


 * If you've read the discussions on this topic, most editors appear to agree that the definitions of primary and secondary sources can overlap and mean different things both within the source and in other contexts. Furthermore, in regard to many of the studies we are talking about, the quote you gie above doesn't apply at all.  For example, Russo and Reardon both analyzed data that THEY did not gather at all.  It was gathered by an unrelated NLSY team of researchers who publish the raw, PRIMARY data for secondary analysis by researchers like Russo and Reardon. Similarly, Gissler and Reardon analyzed government paid health care claims (Finland and California, respectively), which is data they did not gather but rather simply analyzed as SECONDARY analysts of primary data.  This is not about "cherry picking" it is simply reporting what peer reviewed analyses have reported.  If ever I (or you) report something from an analysis tha fails to describe some other balancing material from the same source, that might be cherry picking, but the proper response is to add the balancing material from the same source (as I have done in regard to the APA and Stotland sources which specifically admit that there are SOME cases of negative reactions, points not made in the original Wikipedia article.)


 * Moreover, "...published experimental results by the person(s) actually involved in the research..." is, in my opinion, written very narrowly to describe published experimental data in it's raw, unalyzed, form. For example, a climatologist who publishes tables of atmospheric temperatures is publishing primary data.  If he stops there, that source is just a primary source. But if there are additional sections in which he analyzes the data and draws conclusions from it, and that analysis and conclusions are peer reviwed, that portion of peer reviewed article then becomes a reliable secondary source with both the researcher AND peer reviewers have intepreted.  In that sense, a Wikipedia editor should be cautious about using the raw data, but any averages, trends, and conclusions of the researcher, as peer reviewed, can and should be treated as a reliable, peer reviewed, secondary source discussing the raw data.  Also, consier a study like Fergusson's where he is one of a team of scores of researchers who gather the data over 25 years, he and a few others analyze and intepret it, and he also interprets it in the CONTEXT of other studies which he had no hand in at all.  Is not, at the very least, his peer reveiwed interpretation of a large body of literature related to his findings a reliable source regarding all the studies he examined in relation to his own?  In essence, most of the studies we're talking about are review articles in that they review dozens of related studies which are interpreted in the context of additional information which is analyzed as part of the study which contributes to the literature which is the main focus of the paper. I think Carl's comment below is the correct intepretation of the quote you raise:


 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:No_original_research/Archive_34#Scientific_Studies_As_Reliable_Secondary_Sources The PSTS section is very carefully worded so that most peer reviewed papers are not classified as primary sources. This would be very unimportant apart from the use of the term "primary source" to taint things. Only "written or recorded notes of laboratory and field research, experiments or observations" and "published experimental results by the person(s) actually involved in the research" are considered primary sources. The bulk of peer reviewed research, including all interpretation and analysis, is considered a secondary source for the purposes of the NOR. This may or may not disagree with your favored definition of "secondary source", but it's what we've arrived at here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:13, 29 January 2008 (UTC)]
 * Well, since most peer-reviewed scientific and medical publications (excluding review articles) consist exactly of "published experimental results by the person(s) actually involved in the research", I don't agree with the distinction you're drawing. The fundamental problem remains: selective citation of primary sources/original journal articles to advance a point out of proportion to its proper weight is inappropriate. You can try to put lipstick on the pig if you like, but it's still a pig. MastCell Talk 05:56, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Show me any "published experimental results by the person(s) actually involved in the research" in Gissler's analysis of the suicide data. He conducted no experiments.  He simply ANALYZED records made by thousands of other people.


 * You're more familiar with Wikipedia. Why don't you take this to one of the reliable sources discussion pages.  Cut and paste, if you would, my argument and your own (and put a link here for me to follow) and let's see what others say.  If you get universal support from other editors, I'll concede your argument.  Will you, visa versa?--Strider12 (talk) 06:16, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * And I will certainly never agree that a popular magazine article (NYT Magazine) can in anyway be treated as a reliable secondary source when it comes to analyzing a body of medical literature...especially Bazelon's article that does not even bother to describe any actual research findings (not a single %, as I recall), but simply embraces and repeats opinions of a few "representative" experts. The Coleman review article, at least qualifies as being both a true review article and one that was peer reviewed by experts in the field (not just a NYT fact checker.)


 * Perhaps you (or we) should start a discussion of what that means on the reliable sources dicussion page to get further input. --Strider12 (talk) 05:26, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

re: Primary Secondary Sources
I take "published experimental results by the person(s) actually involved in the research" to mean "experimental results published by the person(s) actually involved in the research". The key is whether the author and the publisher are the same person or different people. When they are the same person there is no independent fact-checking to verify the data or methodology. When the publisher is independent of the author and the publisher uses peer reviewers to carefully analyze the paper then the result is most reliable.

If a researcher collects articles from peer-reviewed journals and then self-publishes the results, without any independent scrutiny, then that paper must be considered a not-so-reliable primary source. But if that very same article is submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, and after fact-checking is published by that journal, then that paper is a very reliable secondary source.

The wording in WP:Verifiability regarding reliable sources and self-published sources I think is clearer than the wording in WP:NOR. It talks about "third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". "The most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals ... the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts ... and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments ... the more reliable it is." It is clear that fact-checking and independent scrutiny are the important factors. It doesn't matter that the author of a paper is involved in the research - that applies to just about every paper ever written. What matters is whether the paper was scrutinized by independent experts.

To take one point mentioned above: "[Gissler] conducted no experiments. He simply ANALYZED records made by thousands of other people." It doesn't matter whether he conducted the experiments or simply analyzed the records. What matters is whether his resulting paper was fact-checked by independent peer-reviewers.

I don't know if my interpretation falls on one side or the other of what apparently has been a long debate. I'd like to know whether the disputed sources qualify as self-published or as independently fact-checked. Sbowers3 (talk) 13:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * By moving the word "published" from what's written in the policy, you've changed the meaning. The point is that the results are compiled "by the person involved in the research", not that they are published by the person involved in the research. No serious research is self-published. In any case, when I write a paper and it's accepted by a medical journal, I would say that I "published" my results. That doesn't mean I own Elsevier Publishing - it means that I wrote up the results and "published" them in a medical journal.


 * Peer-reviewed papers are reliable sources and have gone through a fact-checking process. The question is separate though - can an editor select and cite particular journal articles, in a way which circumvents WP:WEIGHT and proportionate expert opinion on a subject? It's extremely easy for a sophisticated editor to mine the medical literature and advance any claim that they like. The spirit of WP:NOR and WP:SYN (and, I believe, the letter of it) are intended to prevent this. I could write an article on HIV/AIDS where I cite a bunch of peer-reviewed, verifiable sources and make it look like HIV is not proven to be the cause of AIDS. Doing so would violate both the letter and the spirit of WP:NOR, despite the fact that I'd be using reliable "secondary" sources. We're dealing with something similar here. MastCell Talk 21:04, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, taking your last example, if you wrote an article using a lot of reliable sources, but abusing WEIGHT, the objection to your sources would not be that they were Primary sources, it would be that you were giving Undue weight to them. Peer-reviewed sources are reliable sources per WP:V. If they are to be excluded it would not be because they do not qualify as RS, but because of Undue or possibly Syn.
 * I thought the problem was something like this: A researcher (e.g. Reardon) analyzed a number of peer-reviewed papers, then published on his own web site, without independent checking of facts or methodology, his analysis. That clearly would be a primary source and could be rejected on ground of RS. But if he took that same paper to a peer-reviewed journal, where it was carefully scrutinized and then published, then his paper would qualify as an RS. We might still reject it on grounds of Weight but not on grounds of RS.
 * At Talk:Abortion_and_mental_health I asked whether the disputed texts were disputed on the grounds of RS or for other policies. IAA stated definitively that it was for RS because Reardon was biased. In your reply, you stated "That doesn't mean his studies are "unreliable" in the Wikipedia sense - they can still be cited, and at least some probably should be." I think you and I mostly agree as to what is reliable or not but I think that IAA understands "reliable" with a layman's definition, not as defined in WP policies.
 * I'm still confused about your opening paragraph above about PSTS. Let's take the case above: Gissler analyzes a number of peer-reviewed papers, writes a survey paper, submits it to a peer-reviewed journal, which after serious scrutiny publishes Gissler's paper. Now is that a Primary source or a Secondary source? And regardless of whether it is primary or secondary is it a reliable source? Sbowers3 (talk) 22:55, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
 * The distinction I see is between publishing novel results (a primary source), and reviewing and synthesizing existing primary-source journal articles, as is done in a review article (a secondary source). I doubt we're that far apart. I can't speak for IronAngelAlice - my problem is not that Reardon's articles are "unreliable" in a Wikipedia sense. My problem is that Strider12, in particular, repeatedly mines and cherry-picks the original medical literature in a manner which produces undue weight. It's both a matter of WP:WEIGHT and WP:NOR/WP:SYN. I think the letter of which specific sub-parts of which policies are being violated is less important than the fact that the article is rendered misleading by many of her proposed edits.
 * To answer your specific question: Gissler et al. performed an original analysis of existing data and published their results in the BMJ. I consider their article a primary source in that it should not be cited in isolation or outside the context of WP:WEIGHT as determined by expert opinion. Secondary sources, to me, would be review articles which synthesize the multitude of articles such as Gissler's into a coherent narrative, as well as the position statements of organizations like the APA, which have reviewed the available data and synthesized it. MastCell Talk 03:02, 2 March 2008 (UTC)


 * MastCell's position on peer reviewed studies is simply wrong and upside down. Gissler is a secondary source, not a primary source, by any reasonable definition.  Also, it is upside down because your arguments give more weight to the views of advocacy journalists than researchers.
 * Consider Soderberg and Baezlan. Soderberg gathers primary information (interviews) from over 800 women.  She tabulates the TOTAL results and ANALYZES this primary data to report not raw data but a statistical analyis of ALL these interviews.  This peer reviewed analysis and methodology is therefore a reliable secondary source.   Meanwhile, Baezlan interviews a couple dozen people (gathering primary data) and selectively picks the comments that fit her thesis and ignores interview material that doesn't (see Symposium: Is There a Post-Abortion Syndrome where many of her interviewed subjects report her bias and selectivity).   Clearly, both Baezlon and Soderberg have conducted interviews, but because Soderberg published in a peer reviewed journal you want to put her findings into the ghetto of "primary research" not citable in Wikipedia (even though she anlayzed and reported on all of the women she interviewed), but you embrace Baezlon's article as a reliable secondary source (even though she selectively picked only quotes she likes) because it is published in New York Times Magazine.
 * As this example proves, interviews are a form of gathering primary data. It is not the fact that a researcher or reporter gathers primary data that makes a source a primary source.  Once a researcher or reporter ANALYZES, SUMMARIZES, and INTERPRETS the primary material, THAT analysis and summary is now a secondary source, and when it comes to scientific matters, peer reveiwed medical journal articles are and should be more highly prized than magazine articles.--Strider12 (talk) 23:11, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

(This discussion has been copied to Talk:Abortion and mental health. It would be best to continue discussion there and not here.) Sbowers3 (talk) 02:17, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Your RFC
You may have noticed that I wrote some defense at Requests for comment/Strider12. This is not to say that I fully defend your recent behavior but that I think the RFC was somewhat flawed. My interest is in improving the process of dispute resolution. I have a neutral POV regarding David Reardon and Abortion and mental health. Whatever I may think personally of the topics, I think that all Wikipedia articles should show an NPOV. You obviously think that they are not neutral and you may be right.

What I hope is that you may take advice from me better than from those you think are pushing their own POV. I suggest that the way you are proceeding is not effective - that it won't result in the changes you want. And it might lead to your being banned from the article and unable to influence it at all. You are more likely to achieve your objectives by following Wikipedia policies and making sure that other editors follow them.

You are a relatively new editor and you recognize that you have made mistakes. And from what I can see you have stopped making some kinds of mistakes but you are still making other kinds of mistakes. I am going to try to make sure that you understand policies such as WP:3RR, WP:Verifiability, and WP:Reliable sources. You'll be more effective if you employ them on your side, rather than have them used against you.

I will have much more to say later but for now I just want to mention one small point: Your edit warring about the unbalanced tag is hurting your cause. The article already has a totallydisputed tag at the top. Adding the unbalanced tag really won't help and it just makes it easier for others to accuse you of edit warring. Just skip the tag; there are bigger things to focus on. Sbowers3 (talk) 15:43, 27 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I appreciate the advice.  The tagging was an experiment to try to show specific areas where I was proposing we should work on.  But of course, as always, it backfires when people won't collaborate but just delete it and accuse me of being the problem.--Strider12 (talk) 22:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Online references
I have a suggestion. At Talk:Abortion_and_mental_health you have provided a lot of references but only one of them has a URL for online access. It isn't necessary but it would be very helpful if you could supply URLs for online access to those references. Verifiability is a core policy of Wikipedia. Online access makes it much easier for editors to verify that a reference accurately supports the content of an article. For any article that is as controversial as abortion it is important to nail down every sentence with a supporting reference. References that are easily verifiable make it easier to defend a statement. Conversely, lack of an easily verifiable reference makes it easier for opponents to remove a statement. Most scientific journals have online access so I hope that you'll be able to find URLs to support the text that you want to include. Sbowers3 (talk) 22:51, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, I know that would have been best and apologize that I did not take the time to embed links to the abstracts. In several cases, I had in earlier versions. I apologize for the short cut, but most of the people who have been working on the article are familiar with looking up studies at PubMed.  I'll try to go back and put in links as time permits...which unfortunately may be a while.  In some cases, I believe I can find links to the full articles, not just the abstracts.--Strider12 (talk) 05:01, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

In addition to finding links, it will be important to cite the exact language from each paper to demonstrate that you are not doing original research. If you want to say that a particular paper claims that abortion is associated with a higher rate of anxiety (e.g.) you will have to show language in the source that says precisely that.

Then it will be necessary to determine the relative proportions to allot to each viewpoint. The article presents three viewpoints: that abortion has a positive, negative, or neutral effect on mental health. I'm curious to hear your opinion as to the prominence each of these viewpoints has in the scientific literature. In the end I think the only fair way to determine relative prominence is to count the number of reliable sources (but not counting duplicate reports of the same research) for each viewpoint. Sbowers3 (talk) 03:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Most are easily confirmed by reference to the abstract, easily found on PubMed. If you have specific questions regarding one, I can provide it.


 * Clearly the weight of the studies identifies that subgroups of women have strong negative reactions. There are virtually no studies showing statistically significant benefits.  There is only the speculation that women who fair badly after an abortion would have faired worse if they had carried to term...but there is no data to support that theory.  Proponents of abortion are on the defensive to such a degree that they are now describing women who have abortions as being "emotionally unstable in the first place" -- as per Dr. Stotland's comments to the [Stotland told the LA TImes that women who have abortions are more likely to be emotionally unstable in the first place. LA Times.  Stotland, by the way, is not a neutral source as she is an activist with Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health and has served on their Board.


 * This chart summarizing studies published since 2002 was prepared by Priscilla Coleman in "The Question Too Dangerous To Ask: What If Post-Abortion Syndrome Is Real?, one of several articles in Symposium: Is There a Post-Abortion Syndrome?] regarding Baezlon's article that was published in journal Human Life Review, Spring 2007. While certainly from a pro-life perspective, the Human Life Review is a respected journal of opinion which is subscribed to by most major university libraries.--Strider12 (talk) 15:34, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Abortion and Mental Health
I've attempted to calm the furious edit war over at Abortion and Mental Health, so perhaps the waters are safe for swimming again. NCdave (talk) 06:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The art of persuasion
Long ago, I started to write an essay I called The Art of Persuasion. I never did finish it but I want to quote its beginning: '''It's not enough to be right. Sometimes you have to persuade others that you are right.''' In the heat of an argument it is natural to respond emotionally instead of logically, but such a response will usually not persuade other people. It might just add fuel to the fire. It is more useful, more likely to persuade others, to take time to consider words carefully. As editors, we can always take minutes, usually hours, sometimes days before posting. We do not have to respond instantly as in a verbal conversation. If we're hot and bothered about something, especially if we are angry, it is a good idea to pause before clicking the 'Save page' button. Take a few seconds to read your words and ask, "Will these words persuade others to agree with me?" It can feel good to blow off steam, to think that you have put down the other guy, but that feeling won't help you accomplish a goal. Words should have a purpose. If they don't help you achieve your purpose then press the Cancel button. Writing the words may make you feel better but that doesn't mean you have to send them out. If posting the words won't help you accomplish your goal, then don't post them.

I say this in the spirit of trying to help you reach your goals. Frankly, some of your words on Talk pages probably make it harder to get what you want. Your arguments would be more persuasive if you omitted some of your words. You usually do make some good points, but you also toss in phrases that not only won't help persuade others that you are right, they antagonize others so that they won't even consider your good points.

It is hard to assume good faith when you are convinced that others are acting from bias, but you will find it easier to persuade them if you try extra hard to AGF. Even if you don't persuade those particular editors, outsiders will find that your writing just reads better, is more convincing if you omit what appear to be accusations of bad faith.

Without mentioning any names, I'll say that I think the other editors aren't as biased as you think they are. My own reading is that one editor usually spins things to her/his POV, but will accept neutral rewording if asked in the right way. There are occasional editors who share your own POV. But there are several editors who are not nearly as biased as you think they are. I have a suspicion as to what their POV is but I'm not at all sure because I think they are making a good faith effort to write with a NPOV. It can be difficult to be completely neutral and they might not succeed but I think most of them are making a good faith effort to be neutral. When you suggest that they are not neutral, you make it harder for them to agree with the points you are trying to make.

Even if you are right, even if the other editors are as biased as you think they are, accusing them of being biased won't help you persuade them or other editors to accept your own proposals.

What I recommend is that you always reread your words and ask yourself, "Will these words persuade others to agree with me?" You usually have some persuasive words - keep them. But you also usually have some words that "turn off" readers - go back and delete those words.

I hope you accept my message in the spirit of trying to help you, not hurt you. It will be easier to reach a good, neutral article that all of should want if we try extra hard to cooperate in an area that is inherently very contentious. Sbowers3 (talk) 23:28, 22 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I am certainly aware of and trying to temper any accusatory language. I have been especially mindful of this over the last two or three months. You may notice that while several of the editors with whom I have conflicts habitually start all their comments with attacks on my edit and a lack of GF regarding the sources and edits I contribute, I try to ignore these attacks and focus on the content.  Most recently, however -- and I assume you are referring to -- I've felt it very necessary and unavoidable to point out the double standards which one editor appears apply when choosing which sources to accept and which they want to delete.  Compared to yet another editor who deletes material with barely any pretense of reason, at least this other editor does offer reasons...even if in my view somewhat contrived.  Despite the conflicts, I think it possible to work with the latter.  The other editor, however, seems very disruptive.


 * In any event, I appreciate your involvement and am willing to collaborate and even defer on issues if editors with a broader, less biased perspective, like you are involved and recommend going this way or that. The problem is that for several months I was the only editor trying to include any material from the "other side" of the abortion mental health debate and it was all routinely deleted.  As more editors have gotten involved, it has gotten better.


 * Per your suggestion, I will redouble my efforts to avoid being too pointed in my criticisms of content deletions.


 * By the way, do you disagree with the general ArbCom princple that deleting well sourced material is disruptive. If not, perhaps you should emphasize that point on the talk page.  In general, I have little problem if people want to shorten or balance or reorganize the material I add.  It is the outright, complete deletion of peer reviewed material which I find most objectionable.--Strider12 (talk) 15:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * If we're to make any progress, can I ask you to please stop abusing that ArbCom decision? The principle you're quoting reads, in full: "It is disruptive to remove statements that are sourced reliably, written in a neutral narrative, and pertain to the subject at hand." You continually interpret this to accuse me and others of disruption for removing parts of your edits. In fact, as is obvious, the dispute is over whether your edits constitute a "neutral narrative". Yet you continue to cite the ArbCom case as if you've created a neutral narrative and we're deleting it disruptively. Rather than pursue any recognized form of dispute resolution, you've canvassed sympathetic editors, collected what amounts to an attack page in violation of WP:UP, tried to rewrite fundmental policies to further your agenda, and kept up a drumbeat of accusations. I can name at least 2 or 3 editors off the top of my head - neutral editors - who came to the article, encountered the poisonous atmosphere to which you are the major contributor, and have been driven off. Your editing uniformly seeks to advance a specific, narrow agenda and places sources and Wikipedia policy in a subservient role. If we want to make any kind of progress, then it would work best if you stopped wikilawyering the ArbCom decision and started discussing specific sources, one by one. It would also help to limit yourself to starting one or maybe two talk page threads at a time and seeing them through to some sort of resolution. Outside input is good, and I hope Sbowers sticks around, but you can't simultaneously criticize the lack of "neutral", uninvolved editors and ignore the role your editing has played in preventing such editors from sticking around. MastCell Talk 17:03, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Can I ask you to review Sbowers recommendations and apply them to your own edits? Just go back through your entry above and count how many times you have made accusations against me or used perjotive terms like "abusing?"  Your apparent refusal to extend any GF to my edits and intentions does not make it easy for me to resist responding in kind.


 * Regarding my edits, I believe I bend over backwards to word them very neutrally, and generally try to stick to verbatim entries just to avoid NPOV disputes. If they could be more neutrally worded, be my guest and reword them.  But deleting the material does not contribute to making it more neutrally presented...it just makes it GONE!


 * If you look at your own complaints against my entries, they are not generally about the wording of my entry but about (a) the source or (b) about your perception that I have "cherry picked" only one aspect of the source (such as Stotland's case study). In my view, if the source is peer reviewed, it is reliable and you have no legitimate basis for a complaint according to Wikipedia standards.  In regard to (b), if you feel I've "cherry picked" the solution is not to cut, but to ADD material from the same source that puts the material into better balance.  That has been my approach, for example, to the APA 1990 article that recognizes that SOME women do have significant problems but has been repeatedly presented as if concluding the opposite.


 * I think we could get along and put together a good article if you would simply start respecting my right to add material from reliable sources and then would work with me on where and how the material should be included instead of IF it should be included. I will be happy to extend the same courtesy to you.--Strider12 (talk) 18:36, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I assume good faith until I see solid evidence to the contrary, and I'll leave it at that. I think a central issue here is the hangup on removing material as somehow uniquely disruptive or inappropriate. Cutting material is just as much a part of editing as are adding and rewording. I'm sure you're sophisticated enough to realize that the article does not become better by having editors gradually accrete primary sources and juxtapose them in "rebuttal" to each other. Posting a bunch of primary sources supporting "your" POV and then asking me to add a bunch supporting "my" POV is a recipe for contention and an unreadable article. A better solution is to integrate available information, respecting the opinion of experts in the field and the unresolved and controversial nature of the topic - that goes a lot further for the encyclopedia than juxtaposing quotes from various study abstracts. If I feel you're cherry-picking material to suit your POV, then the solution is not for me to cherry-pick and insert other material supporting a different POV.


 * The solution is to try to move toward a cohesive narrative in which studies are presented in context. The article should not be a sequential rehash of individual primary studies, which is the direction you seem to be taking. Take a look at other featured and good articles; how many follow the format you're proposing? MastCell Talk 19:08, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

(interjection) I sincerely hope that the two of you are having a discussion that will lead to improved cooperation and won't lead to an argument that I helped start. Sbowers3 (talk) 19:23, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Reorg of AMH
I'm glad to see that you have seen and commented at Talk:Abortion and mental health. A few questions: Sbowers3 (talk) 20:43, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Are the sources you mentioned (Rue ... Ferguson), your full list that you think should be in the article?
 * Are there objective reasons for choosing those particular sources and not others? E.g. are they cited by other researchers or by members of the pro-life community or the pro-choice community more than other sources?
 * Are there events or milestones that are particularly significant?
 * Is there any natural divisions in the timeline of the last 40 years? E.g. in US history, a timeline would include WW I, the roaring 20s, the great depresssion, WW II, etc. Are there periods in AMH, that would be more natural than the 70s, 80s, 90s, etc.?


 * The list of names is fairly inclusive, but I'd have to run through it more carfefully. They reflect people on both sides of the political debate and also both sides of the research debate and include politically pro-choice experts who acknowledge that abortion has mental health effects.  While I can't say I know of any researchers associated with the "pro-life" side who would say there are NO mental health effects of abortion, there are certainly many on the pro-choice side who do acknowledge mental health effects...probably most.


 * Milestones, pre-1960 when most psych articles related to abortion stated/presumed negative emotional consequences, the 60's to 70's when mostly benign viewpoint emerged, 80's when WEBA, Rue, Project Rachel and similar programs and people began pointing to concerns about negative reactions culminating in Reagan asking Koop to do report, early 90's reactions to Koop and attempts to define what is known and needs to be known(APA review, Stotland, Fogel, Wilmoth), mid-90's to present a substantial number of better studies, including the first NLSY study by Russo (self esteem), Brenda Major's studies, Reardon & Cougle's NLSY studies and Schmiege and Russo, and then the record based studies by Gissler & Reardon, and the detailed long term investigations by Soderberg and Rue, and finally the longitudinal study by Fergusson. Roughly speaking that's the outline I'd suggest.  I don't see a need to include every study. By organizing around experts, who often author several studies, rather than individual studies it should be easier.  As mentioned earlier, there are not "literally hundreds" of studies that might be covered.  Only a couple dozen, at most, and this is reduced by focusing on experts.


 * In terms of political leanings, Russo, Major and Stotland are major figures at one end and with Rue, Reardon & Coleman at the other end.  Fergusson, Gissler, Soderberg, & Wilmoth are "middle" folk who appear to be politically (and or I know from personal communications at least more comfortable with) a pro-choice leaning but significantly interpret the data in a light that acknowledges that the mental health effects MAY be significant and warrant a much closer look.--Strider12 (talk) 21:53, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Updated Summary

 * Okay, how does it come to be that Stotland, Russo, Major, Reardon, etc. are "experts"? Would other editors agree that they are experts?


 * I also meant to ask:
 * of the various studies, which ones are a review of existing research and which are new research? I understand that Koop's letter was based on a review of some 150 papers
 * this is mostly for my own curiousity: How many papers do you suppose have been written in the last 20 years?
 * would you agree with this statement: Writing about the effects of abortion on mental health, a great many researchers reported findings that were neutral, a great many reported negative findings, and a great many reported the data is inconclusive.

Sbowers3 (talk) 23:22, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Several of the other editors insist that Reardon should be excluded due to his pro-life advocacy, even though he has over a dozen peer reviewed studies. Other than him, most insist that Stotland, Russo and Major are "the" experts.


 * Koop reviewed both studies on physical and pscyhological effects. There are far more studies on physical effects than psychological.  Coleman has a pretty good list of studies in the last ten years published in see Symposium: Is There a Post-Abortion Syndrome.  The recent studies are definitely the better ones in terms of methodology, controls, sample size, etc.
 * No, I couldn't say your summary statement is accurate. Findings and researchers opinions are two different things.  Wilmoth's summary is probably one of the best.   He clarifies where the disagreements and uncertainties are.  I believe his points should be incorporated into the introduction.


 * If one looks at statements published in the last fifteen years, here's what I consider a balanced breakdown of the range of opinions:


 * 1) The consensus of experts is that some women have severe emotional reactions to abortion.
 * 2) Many, perhaps most women, have some negative feelings associated with their abortions. But negative feelings are not the same as mental illness.  On the other hand, the line between negative feelings and illness is sometimes difficult to determine.
 * 3) Only a minority of women will have mental illness that is associated with an abortion. "Associated with" does not necessarily mean "caused by", but may include caused by, aggravated by, triggered by, or incidental to an abortion if some women at risk of mental illness are also at higher risk of a particular mental illness.  This "minority" is no less than 1% and many studis find 10 to 20% experiencing significant reactions in a relatively short period of time, under two years.
 * 4) Some reactions will be near term, others delayed, some lasting only a short duration others persisting for years. The cumulative "count" of severe reactions therefore increases with time. Disatisfaction with abortion increases with time.  Short term reactions are not necessarily predictive of long term reactions. (Major, 2000)
 * 5) There is a growing consensus that women who have abortions are more likely to have mental health problems, but the explanation for this is in dispute. For example, Stotland who once denied there is any evidence of negative mental health effects now complains about the "stack" of studies linking abortion to mental health problems and tells the Los Angeles Times that findings of higher rates of pscyhological problems among women who have had abortions may be because who have abortions are more likely to have prior psychological problems .  Brenda Major suggests the same explanation in her CMAJ commentary regarding the MediCal study. (Oddly, this explanation seems to suggest that women having abortions are more likely to be mentally unstable than "average" women which is hardly a ringing endorsement of their ability to make a fully informed decision....but that's just an side note.)
 * 6) There is a growing consensus that there should be screening of risk factors that predict more negative reactions after an abortion. Besides the Royal College statement, Stotland is recommending a series of questions related to risk factors for women considering abortion, see here.
 * 7) Desipte the above three points, there is no clear consenus regarding the overall impact of abortion on mental health. In part the inability to arrive at a consensus is due to amplified concerns regarding the political impact of any formal recognition of even moderately common negative reactions. Specifically, (a) some experts believe that the effect is neutral or positive for most women, (b) some believe the negative effects may be less than the negative effects that may be associated with being "forced" to carry an unplanned child to term and raising that child under adverse circumstances,  (c) some believe severe reactions are too few to impact public policy, and (d) some believe the rare occurance of severe reactions for a few women should not result in policies that inhibit the relative freedom of women to seek and obtain an abortion without "undue" screening or inhibition of each woman's autonomous choice.
 * 8) Conversely, other experts believe that "severe" effects are relatively common, are sufficient to impact public policy, and that the negative effects of abortion are more severe than the negative effects of carrying an unintended pregnancy to term. These disputes reflect what Wilmouth properly describes as kinds of value judgments which are difficult to resolve scientifically.  For example, how many women commiting post-abortion suicide constitute a public health crisis?  1, 100, 1000?  How much depression is "severe"?  1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year?  How many women who claim their lives are improved by abortion are required to offset 100 women who say that abortion destroyed their lives?Strider12 (talk) 02:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Uh. That's a lot. I already have a long reading list - I'll get through it all but it will take me a while. In the meantime, can you try to write one short sentence that crystalizes the essence of the subject. Many writers say that the hardest task is writing a short, short article, but that's what would be the most useful right now. Sbowers3 (talk) 17:48, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I wasn't trying to offer a concise statement but rather educate editors, specifically you, regarding where I see the consensus and divergence of opinions to be. As stated, I believe Wilmoth offers as as concise of a statement that is possible.

Gaming the system
It is obvious to me, from your latest attempts to reinsert disputed material without discussion or consensus by mixing controversial and non-controversial edits and then accusing me of "disruption", that you are attempting to game the system. At this point I am not willing to spend more time engaging with you until you demonstrate some indication that you are interested in making the article better rather than "winning" by whatever means necessary. I'm just really tired of dealing with you, but I realize that you have successfully worn down and driven away many other contributors to abortion and mental health and I'm unwilling to reward your behavior. If you are interested in discussing the content issues in good faith or pursuing dispute resolution, my door is open. If you continue as you have been, then I don't see it as a good use of my time here to engage any further with you. MastCell Talk 21:16, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Once again you are making accusations and framing my GF edits in the worst possible light. The reoganization of material on chronological lines was discussed and little if any objection raised.  The Fogel quote from the Washington Post is a well sourced verifiable quote which is JUST as pertinent and valuable as Stotland's.  You don't see me trying to delete Stotland's material.


 * You have not been elected or assigned the task of unilaterally deciding what reliable material is "up to" MastCell's standards. All the material I provide is from well sourced, reliable and verifiable. I do not engage in synthesis.  I simply present fact and leave synthesis to readers.  Your objection appears to be that facts which go against the synthesis offered by experts you like should not be included in the article because the facts undermine your expert's sythnesis.  That standard for excluding material is nowhere to be found in Wikipedia standards.


 * Instead of demanding that I must get permission from you and other editors before including material, why don't you try to get my permission and that of other editors before DELETING material? That would show good faith.  And isn't that what all the wiki markup is for to indicate in the article what sources are being questions or need to be verified?  I'd suggest that instead of deleting material you start using such markups in the text as a way for you to show me and other editors what you want me to better verify or clarify.  Just deleting material is not collaborative; it is just disruptive.


 * Also, very importantly, how can other editors review and comment on my edits if you delete them within fifteen minutes? Shouldn't they at least be left in for a week or two so editors and readers can read and comment on them?  The reason I need to keep putting these edits back in is because you and IAA continously delete them within ten or fifteen minutes of posting on the flimsy excuses, even though the material is from reliable, verifiable sources.  How can you accuse me of not being collaborative when you are the one who is reflexively deleting material?--Strider12 (talk) 21:30, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * It's apparent that you seriously misunderstand Wikipedia policy; see e.g., Verifiability which explicitly states The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. It doesn't get much clearer than that. Your continued insistence that the burden be reversed is singularly unhelpful; you are not a new editor, I'm surprised you are unaware of this. Raymond Arritt (talk) 21:40, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The burden of evidence is that the editor contributing material needs to cite a reliable source in the text. I have done so in every case. The policy does not say that the burden is on me to convince all editors, or even the majority of editors, that the material is relevent or important or fits the POV of other sources in the article.  It ONLY requires that I have an obligation to give a reliable source, ie a citation.  MastCell does not deny that Fogel was interviewed for the Washington Post article, she just doesn't like including his quote as a counterpoint to Stotland's opinion.
 * I would think all of you more experienced editors would understand that this is not about TRUTH but about collecting facts that can be reliably sourced...and as I repeat constantly, peer reviewed studies are by Wikipedia definition reliable sources.
 * Please show me the Wikipedia policy saying that reliable material can and shoudl be deleted if a contributing editor has not first obtained a consensus of otehr editors that the fact cited should be allowed into the article. --Strider12 (talk) 22:10, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * WP:Consensus.Ferrylodge (talk) 00:13, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

STOP!
Strider12 and MastCell, both please stop! At this point it doesn't even matter whether the edits are good or bad. We've got to pause, take a breath, and try to figure out where to go from here. Please give me a chance to make a suggestion over at Talk:Abortion and mental health before making any more edits. Sbowers3 (talk) 22:01, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I did take a long pause. And I tried what I thought were very modest edits and carefully researched the Fogel quote and clarified it. But once again, another editor, this time AndrewC came in and deleted ALL my edits in one fell swoop.--Strider12 (talk) 22:10, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * It would have been better if you had started with what I think is uncontroversial (reordering sections chronologically) rather than intertwine that with controversial changes. That way if someone were to revert the controversial changes at least the uncontroversial parts could remain. It would have been much better if you had let me make that change because I had proposed it. You could have nudged me to do it and then I could have taken any heat instead of you.


 * More importantly, reverting MastCell twice was a very bad mistake. However much you think he was wrong to revert your edits, your reaction was much worse. Think about it - was there even a ghost of a chance that it would work? Doing something that won't work is worse than useless. Doing it a second time was just asking for trouble - and I'm afraid that you're going to get some trouble.


 * And by the way, if Andrew c had not reverted all of your edits, I probably would have done it myself, just to stop the edit war and get the article back to a stable position, then after discussion proceed with small steps at a time. We're at a stage (way past that stage) where we have to think as much about tactics as results. You have to think about what might work not just about what you think should happen. No matter how good your arguments for this or that change repeating them an Nth time is unlikely to work if they have failed previously. Telling people not to delete something is almost guaranteed not to work. If before pressing the Save page button you had asked yourself, "Will this work?" I'm pretty sure you would have answered No and so should have clicked Cancel.


 * How 'bout you change focus for a while. Take a look at David Reardon. Tell me what you think of it. If you like it or hate it, tell me. There's a little more I want to do to it but I think it's close to okay. I'd like to know if anybody else thinks it's almost okay. That would be a productive use of your time, where what you did today was not productive - even if all of your edits should eventually happen, the way you did it was bound to fail and only make matters worse. So go work on something else for a while. Sbowers3 (talk) 23:41, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Sbowers3 offers very good advice, IMHO.Ferrylodge (talk) 00:09, 29 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Please understand that further edit waring will result in a block. Take it to the talk page, discuss it in a civilized manner, and maybe (like stated below) arbitration is the best route. Tiptoety  talk 00:27, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Request for arbitration
This is to notify you that I have filed a request for arbitration naming you as an involved party. You can find the request here. MastCell Talk 22:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for information
Hi there. Thanks for the information - let me confirm that your quote is perfectly in order. Let me also add that I gave up trying to contribute to the 'Abortion and mental health' and other abortion related articles when I realised that a few editors were 'guarding' those articles. I have since moved on to other areas where I feel my time making contributions will be better spent (ie - unlikely to be immediately reverted.) I admire the fact that you have not been intimidated into silence by the actions of other editors - feel free to quote any of the above in addition to the original quote you informed me about. Best wishes. Fishiehelper2 (talk) 10:31, 29 March 2008 (UTC)