Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Birth rape


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   merge to Childbirth-related posttraumatic stress disorder.  MBisanz  talk 15:16, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Birth rape

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Failure to meet WP:GNG. This is a sensationalist term used in journalism and no sources indicate a use of this term outside of a sensationalist context.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)   13:38, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete. Article with a suspect agenda, created by a blocked sockpuppet . —MistyMorn (talk) 13:48, 17 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete. A hyped-up neologism of limited note. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:49, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete: Neologism with very little real world usage, that seems to be pushed by one advocate. The only sources that refer to this topic are sensationalist tabloids. --  李博杰  &#124; —Talk contribs email 13:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment The "limited note," "one advocate" and the "only in tabloids" claims are demolished by the multiple sources I found quickly and easily at Google Books and Google scholar, linked to below, which the nominator should have checked for before making the AFD nomination. Edison (talk) 16:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete not enough in reliable secondary sources to support a full article. No prejudice against a possible merge of a sentence from this article into some other article, maybe Unassisted birth.    14:03, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Adjusted my own !vote to remove suggestion that a merge would be appropriate. I've thought about this.  It is true that there probably should be a paragraph at Childbirth discussing how some women perceive childbirth as a traumatic assault, according to the amount of discussion given to this aspect in the secondary sources, it does not appear to be a very big part of the topic.  The number of references to this perception in the secondary sources as "birth rape" is very, very small compared to "traumatic birth experience" and this discussion should be added as a sentence or two at Childbirth with a "main article" link to Childbirth-related posttraumatic stress disorder.  I do not see enough coverage in secondary sources of the term "Birth rape" for a redirect link, although if we ended up with one I probably would not care.    17:44, 22 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete - NPOV, notability BS WP:NOT, you name it!!!Petebutt (talk) 14:18, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep per usage in multipile reliable sources, a definition is given in Essential Midwifery Practice: Intrapartum Care Wiley p219 It is discussed in midwifery today as can be seen in The Social Context of Birth Radcliff Seems a widely used term. Darkness Shines (talk) 15:44, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Even if that were the case, merging is a better option than keeping a separate article, because the topic is still not notable. As Zad68 said, a brief mention can be placed in Unassisted birth. --  李博杰  &#124; —Talk contribs email 15:54, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete or interwiki - wp:DICDEF belongs in Wiktionary if anywhere LeadSongDog come howl!  15:50, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep "Birth rape" is a term and a concept which is important in contemporary discussion of bad hospital birthing practice. Here is a use in a textbook of midwifery from 2010,"Essential Midwifery Practice: Intrapartum Care," published by Wiley-Blackwell, a respected academic publisher: .That textbook in turn cites four apparently reliable sources in relation to women's experiences during birth being like rape. The definition of "birth rape" is given as "the experience of having fingers, scissors, and/or tools put/pushed/shoved inside a woman's vagina or rectum without her direct (or indirect) permission, quoting Freeze (2008). Another book discusses "birth rape" here in"Birth Journeys: Positive Birth Stories to Encourage and Inspire (2011)." Google scholar shows that "Women’s perceptions and experiences of a traumatic birth: a meta-ethnography" in Journal of Advanced Nursing, Volume 66, Issue 10, pages 2142–2153, October  says "The term 'birth rape' has been used by women who feel that their bodies have been violated, and that they have been coerced into consenting to procedures without being informed of their details and accompanying risks. ..." "The impact of Childbirth experiences on women's sense of self: A review of the literature" in The Australian Journal of Midwifery, Volume 15, Issue 4, December 2002, Pages 10–16 per the snippet, cites "Christensen, M. (1992) "Birth Rape." Midwifery Today. 22 34. " Then there is "Birth rape: another midwife's story." in Midwifery Today Int Midwife. 2008 Spring;(85):42-3.  Merging "a sentence" into the unassisted birth article in no way addresses the complaint, widely covered in reliable sources, about brutal and traumatizing practices in hospitals in which the woman in labor is treated in ways which can lead to PTSD. It is not just a dicdef., but an issue in contemporary, medical practice, in which hurried doctors do not explain what they are doing and why. Edison (talk) 16:08, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi Edison, clearly this subject matter is important to you personally, but we have to apply Wikipedia's standards here...
 * "Essential Midwifery Practice: Intrapartum Care" -- looks to be only a brief mention on one page
 * "Birth Journeys: Positive Birth Stories to Encourage and Inspire" (2011) -- Published by "Star Cass" which appears to be a vanity publisher: http://en.youscribe.com/star-cass/publications/, has published no other works, does not appear to be a reliable source by Wikipedia standards
 * "Women’s perceptions and experiences of a traumatic birth: a meta-ethnography" in Journal of Advanced Nursing -- A one-sentence passing mention wouldn't qualify as "significant coverage". From the little Google Scholar snippet it doesn't appear to provide anything more than a defintion.
 * "The impact of Childbirth experiences on women's sense of self: A review of the literature" in The Australian Journal of Midwifery -- the Google snippet only shows the term appearing as a citation of "Birth Rape" by M. Christensen (1992) (below). If a significant discussion of "birth rape" really appears in this secondary source (a review article), that would really go a long way toward establishing notability, but I'm not seeing it
 * "Birth Rape" by M. Christensen (1992) in Midwifery Today, "Birth rape: another midwife's story" by Richland (2008) in Midwifery Today -- these might be useful as primary sources but we really need some good reliable secondary sources to use to actually write an encyclopedia article that isn't more than a dictionary definition and a list of anecdotal quotes from primary sources
 * Looking at other resources, like http://www.midwiferyjournal.com and doing a search on "birth rape" at PUBMED turns up zero hits. I'm still not seeing enough significant coverage in reliable secondary sources to be able to build a Wikipedia article.   16:54, 17 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep The gender gap project should be told about this. We have a birth trauma (physical) article but that is explicitly about physical trauma and is a poor effort with too much jargon.  Other terms for the results of the mental trauma of the mother include unhappiness after childbirth and birth trauma.  See The Social Context of Birth for detailed discussion.  Our editing policy is to build upon such starts, not to delete them. Warden (talk) 18:19, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * So you are saying this is a content fork of birth trauma (physical), but that's okay because there are editing issues with the extant piece, but we should canvas a select group so that we can keep this in spite of that? Carrite (talk) 18:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm saying that it would be good to have some women commenting upon the matter. And the topic here is not so much physical trauma as mental trauma.  Warden (talk) 19:11, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Hence we have an article on Childbirth-related posttraumatic stress disorder. There is no need to have another fork, when a merge and redirect will suffice, so that the larger article has a brief mention on the POV-charged neologistic term. --  李博杰  &#124; —Talk contribs email 19:17, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * PTSD is a condition which develops after a trauma; it's not the actual trauma. And merger is not accomplished by deletion; it is a variety of Keep. Warden (talk) 19:26, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment WP:PRESERVE says to fix problems and add sources yourself, the issue being raised at this AFD is that there aren't enough good sources to support an encyclopedia article. Do you have significant coverage and reliable secondary sources you can bring to help out?  We looked and couldn't find them, that's the issue.  And why do you think women in particular would be better equipped than anybody else to find such sources?    00:04, 18 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete as non-notable neologism. It's a midwifery POV slogan, a play on "birth rate," not an encyclopedic concept. Carrite (talk) 18:52, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment - Awesome, this article was created by a blocked sockpuppet who was adding info to the ultimate troll magnet piece, Donkey punch. Best case scenario is that this is a POV-drenched non-notable neologism, worst case is that Wikipedia is being trolled, with some apparent success. Carrite (talk) 19:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment I question your assertion that "birth rape" is a "play on birth rate." Any sources, or is it just your editorial intuition? The argument that the article must be deleted if created by a bad guy even if other editors find sources is unconvincing. And the coverage in a textbook published by Wiley calls into doubt your assertion that it is just "a midwifery slogan"  as if it only appeared only on signboards of angry midwives marching around hospital entrances in protest. On the other hand, we do have a whole category of articles about  slogans. Edison (talk) 19:22, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't the article title also be a blatant violation of WP:POVTITLE? It's essentially equating/associating medical intervention with, you know, the act of being forced to engage in sexual intercourse without consent, which in most societies holds negative connotations. --  李博杰  &#124; —Talk contribs email 19:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * @Edison. What, you want me to footnote common sense observations in an AfD debate? Carrite (talk) 20:39, 21 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Merge content and redirect to another article, if at least one decently developed paragraph can be written. The ineptitude or distastefulness of the term is irrelevant, but after reading the meager stub I still don't know what "birth rape" is supposed to mean. The section at Postnatal seems to be a place where we collocate topics pertaining to new motherhood, pointing to postnatal depression and postpartum psychosis. It's a bit of a mess, though, and could use some sorting out, as psychological responses appear under the section on physical aftermath. Birth trauma (physical) is a confusing piece of work that according to the lede is about the child (or not?). Childbirth-related posttraumatic stress disorder has no real lede. So an editor who cares about our coverage in this area could probably serve our readers better by organizing and developing more centrally located content in these preexisting articles. Cynwolfe (talk) 19:55, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * As nearly as I can tell, it means "sometimes women have very unpleasant birth experiences", with particular venom reserved for medical professionals who either behave badly (making rude remarks, for example) or who behave perfectly but are believed to have behaved badly by a mother, who was perhaps not in the best condition for figuring out what was going on (you know, being busy giving birth, which probably didn't leave her a lot of time to keep track of who said what, much less enough education and experience to know whether an intervention was appropriate). I expect that we can find the same sorts of complaints from psychiatric patients, people recovering from surgery, people with cancer, people with advanced heart disease, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Weak delete - am inclined to support deletion given the apparent lack of multiple reliable sources available to establish that this is a widely used term beyond a small group of (perhaps WP:FRINGE) activists (one of the sources describes them that way), per WP:NEO. My reading of the material available is that even those reliable sources that accept the general "premise" (the traumatic experience), disagree with the application of the term itself, on the basis that it denotes a fringe-view reinterpretation of the word "rape". My concern would be that citing the sources that are available (quantity aside) could only ever result in a WP:WEIGHT issue if we suggest that the sources demonstrate an acceptance of the term. I could accept that the term has been used (though not widely) but any article would need to reflect what the sources say: that it is a fringe term used by activists and rallied against by those few mainstream media commentators who have decided to weigh into the issue. Stalwart 111  (talk) 04:59, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:52, 19 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:NEO and WP:SOAPBOX -- Scray (talk) 15:49, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete or merge into one of the articles of similar topics mentioned above. Sources are unreliable and sensationalist. Agree that it violates WP:NEO and better suited for Wikitionary. Kelly Marie 0812 (talk) 22:26, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete. In the current version it is a dicdef about something that possibly exists but not under this cacaphonous and alarmist term. I would suggest delete without redirect. JFW &#124; T@lk  23:07, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete. WP:NEO says it doesn't matter if sources use the term. What matters is when reliable secondary sources analyze the term. The issues this concept raise are better discussed where they matter, perhaps somewhere like obstetrics and gynaecology. However, I see no requirement that the term "birth rape" be used to discuss the concept. Biosthmors (talk) 16:55, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete:. Many people make up many phrases. Wikipedia should reflect actual usage, rather than merely referencing someone who used inflammatory language. Ninahexan (talk) 04:47, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Nathan  T 17:59, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep (if substantially beefed up) or Merge to both Birth trauma articles. There are enough reliable sources to beef up the article if someone wants to do it and it definitely is a slightly different take from both Birth trauma articles. Otherwise beef it up a tad bit and mention it in BOTH articles. CarolMooreDC 18:20, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete Non-notable WP:NEO per available RS. Current potential is a dictionary def at best, and a WP:NPOV issue at worst. There isn't enough for an encyclopedia article and if its notability warrants further attention, someone should attempt to work it into an existing, broader article. czar   &middot;   &middot;  19:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions.  czar   &middot;   &middot;  19:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment - this article from the sydney morning herald could probably be used to beef up the article somewhat, and could be used to keep it if another couple sources are found. Kevin Gorman (talk) 20:00, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * This is a blog and so fails as WP:SPS for establishing notability. I don't doubt this term exists in the chat stream on certain blogs but that's not good enough to establish notability on Wikipedia.    20:09, 24 October 2012 (UTC)


 * That's not an article; it's a blog post. Specifically, it's the blog post that the Salon article names as its primary source.  What we need are reliable sources that are truly independent, not a bunch of sources that are quoting each other.  See footnote 3 at WP:N:  "Several journals simultaneously publishing different articles does not always constitute multiple works, especially when the authors are relying on the same sources, and merely restating the same information" (emphasis added). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:21, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.