Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paper Abortion


 * 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 no consensus, defaulted to keep. There is no consensus in the discussion that the article needs to be deleted. There is consensus however that there is a strong POV which needs to be addressed (possibly even by merging the article).--Ymblanter (talk) 11:09, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Paper Abortion

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Multiple editors on the article's talk page agree that even if this is a topic worthy of discussion, the current version of the article is so thoroughly POV in its tone and in its synthesis and misrepresentation of sources that it would be better to WP:TNT it. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 15:59, 14 March 2016 (UTC)


 * But it is very funny, how they don't come with arguments. I tried my best to write about Paper Abortion, a highly discussed topic in Denmark and Sweden. As you said, it is a relevant article. Feel free to edit instead of deleting the article. Till now, I have used reliable sources (according to the Wikipedia guidelines), I even had a peer-reviewed article to this topic. Till now, there wasn't any argumentation against the article: just a lot of bullying in the form of 'You can't clean propaganda. Nuke from orbit' or 'ridiculous screed'. No real argumentation. Maybe you can come up with some, pointing out what I should correct - or maybe you just correct it yourself? --Momo Monitor (talk) 16:32, 14 March 2016 (UTC)


 * I will copy the overview of when an article should be deleted on Wikipedia. If the article Paper Abortion do not attack any of this content, it shouldn't be deleted at all. If the article Paper Abortion do not attack the point listed, I will give it a . Reasons for deletion include, but are not limited to, the following (subject to the condition that improvement or deletion of an offending section, if practical, is preferable to deletion of an entire page):


 * 1) Content that meets at least one of the criteria for speedy deletion
 * 2) Copyright violations and other material violating Wikipedia's non-free content criteria
 * 3) Vandalism, including inflammatory redirects, pages that exist only to disparage their subject, patent nonsense, or gibberish
 * 4) Advertising or other spam without any relevant or encyclopedic content (but not an article about an advertising-related subject)
 * 5) Content forks (unless a merger or redirect is appropriate)
 * 6) Articles that cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources, including neologisms, original theories and conclusions, and articles that are themselves hoaxes (but not articles describing notable hoaxes)
 * 7) Articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed
 * 8) Articles whose subjects fail to meet the relevant notability guideline (WP:N, WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC, WP:CORP and so forth)
 * 9) Articles that breach Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons
 * 10) Redundant or otherwise useless templates
 * 11) Categories representing overcategorization
 * 12) Files that are unused, obsolete, or violate the Non-free policy
 * 13) Any other use of the article, template, project, or user namespace that is contrary to the established separate policy for that namespace
 * 14) Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia


 * As you can see, nothing of the article actually violates any of the deletion policy. Well, I agree that the article I wrote wasn't perfect and need some help. But why not just edit it and improve it that way? According to Wikipedia Guideline: If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page. I think we should rather put the article on the on the edit page instead. While some sections might be deleted, rewritten or edited, most of it should be correct.


 * And I think some administrators should take care of some users. Or is 'Nuke from Orbit' and 'ridiculous sheet' a user-friendly tone? --Momo Monitor (talk) 16:58, 14 March 2016 (UTC)


 * In conclusion: don't delete the article, but send it to the edit-to-improve page. I don't know how to do it.--Momo Monitor (talk) 17:06, 14 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep -- The nomination is based on the premise that "multiple editors" agree that the article is currently hopelessly POV, and that it is pointless to try to fix this perceived POV problem. When a topic is supported by verifiable reliable sources that establish it notability, deletion over contributors failing to reach a consensus on a POV version has always been a last resort.  When I checked the talk page for myself I found the discussion the nominator refers to is only hours old.  In that discussion nominator calls the current state of the article "a ridiculous screed".  That is not what I found, at all.  I found an article written in the idiosyncratic style of someone who was not a native speaker of English.  I did not detect any attempt to use the wikipedia for a "screed".  I will remind nominator that WP:Wikipedia is not censored.  Nominator's statements on the talk page, and here, give the appearance that his or her objection is to coverage of a genuine real phenomenon -- one they don't like.  I have asserted, over the years, that there is no topic that can't be covered from a neutral point of view, if there are references to support its notability, and good faith contributors willing to make the effort.  Geo Swan (talk) 04:04, 15 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep, improve, make neutral in tone. Enough well sourced material on the topic for a stand-alone article. As a sociological phenomenon (one based on actual male behavior rather than on formally claimed rights) it has already been discussed by prominent scholars. Check to determine if this is the best title for such an article. See my article Talk page comments. Motsebboh (talk) 02:21, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

It is theoretically possible to make this article neutral. However, it would involve renaming the article and rewriting every sentence in it. Because the author asked for evidence that it was biased, I compiled four examples. (They were written in response to the author, to whom I refer in the second person.)
 * Delete

1. "Feminists are very divided on this. Some feminists want equal rights and promote this idea. Other feminists deny it." Are they actually very divided on it? Is it anything close to an even split? Or are there just a small number of feminists who are in favor of it? Similarly, do you see how your way of contrasting feminists who are for and against the idea is biased? Because it is absurdly biased, and I'm not sure how I can explain it to you if you do not already see it. Imagine a statement like, "some children have good taste and prefer vanilla ice cream. Other children prefer chocolate ice cream." I've implied that children with good taste prefer vanilla ice cream, and that those who prefer chocolate ice cream have bad taste. Also, your use of the word "deny" is a non-native usage.

2. "The denial of parenthood meats same contra arguments[11][12] as common abortion did[13]: use birth control or don't have sex at all.[14][15]" Not only does this sentence contain a typo, grammatical errors, and a basic structure that is non-intuitive to native speakers, it also presents the arguments against "paper abortion" in a dismissive, straw-man tone. Did you think that you had done a good job summarizing the arguments against your position?

3. "But there is a huge debate in many countries." How many countries? How huge of a debate? You mentioned two countries, and one of them (Sweden), was a proposal by five kids involved in a youth politics group that got media attention because of how it was such a bad idea. You say "huge debate in many countries," but to me it seems like "a small debate in a handful of countries. But debated a lot online by men's rights activists."

4. When you say that 7 out of 10 Danes want to support "paper abortion," you cite an article that cites a Gallup poll. The article that you cite also talks about another poll in which 42 percent of Danes would support "paper abortion." So here you have an article that presents two facts, and you have picked the fact that makes "paper abortion" seem better-supported. Why did you pick 7/10, instead of 42%? Did you think you weren't being biased?

The author of this article didn't do basic research behind this article -- for example, they didn't bring up the US court case on this issue, and they didn't link to it from its subsection in another Wikipedia article. They also cherry-picked from a Danish article in one citation and flat-out lied about the content of a Swedish article in another citation (and then denied having lied about it, confusingly). Trying to work with them to improve this article is going to be a huge and frustrating waste of time. You already needed somebody who can read three different languages to catch the shady stuff they're pulling.

The author wrote a bad article and posted it without prior experience with editing or creating articles (at least, not on this account). They made Wikipedia worse by writing this article. If they want it to be an article, they can write a version worth keeping. Triacylglyceride (talk) 05:08, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

Also it violates WP:FRINGE. Triacylglyceride (talk) 05:11, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * , with regard to your fringe assertion, did you read Fringe theories? FRINGE is pretty clear -- it only applies to topics that have never been written about by verifiable authoritative sources.  The idea that fathers should get a get out jail card, or rather a get out of responsibility for their progeny dispensation, has been discussed, in reliable, verifiable sources.  That makes the topic notable.  Even if all that discussion had mocked the idea, it would still make the topic notable -- same as the meme of the flat earth.  This is an aspect of the core principle of verifiability, not truth.  As for your assertion that the article can't reasonably be brought into compliance with WP:NPOV...  Your suggestion that we leap immediately to deletion is not appropriate.  The deletion of articles due to irresolvable editorial disagreements is supposed to be reserved for a very last resort, when ordinary discussion on the talk page fails.  Our nominator lapsed from compliance with WP:BATTLEFIELD with his or her immediate jump to nominate this article for deletion, without making a sincere good faith attempt to voice their concerns on the talk page first.  Frankly, your comments on the talk page on March 14th also lapsed from compliance with BATTLEFIELD.  On the fifteenth you did offer specific concerns on the talk page -- specific concerns which you seemed to have repeated here.  Okay, first, specific concerns like yours should have been expressed on the talk page, first.  You and nominator, and critics of the article should only have called for its deletion if you could point to a civil, collegial, effort to reach a compromise, on the talk page, an effort that failed in spite of your best efforts.  Nominator skipped that step.
 * On the talk page you wrote: "It would take a massive amount of work to rework this into a presentable article. Since none of us think that this should be an article in the first place, none of us wants to rewrite it." News flash: Maintaining ANY article is hard work, even articles on topics where there is no controversy or disagreement.  If we deleted every article that looked like it was going to be hard work, we wouldn't have a single article left.  Let's be serious and drop the idea that this article should be deleted because working on improving it would be hard work.  With regard to "none of us" wants to work on it, please don't claim to speak for the entire community.  Please don't claim to speak for me.  I found this article interesting.  At the point you were claiming no one else wanted to work on the article I had already spent half an hour working on the references.  Geo Swan (talk) 16:38, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep and improve. Topic is notable - there are a boatload of sources out there on "paper abortion" and this is definitely something being discussed. Where the topic is notable, but the article is not well written, the solution is to keep the article and improve it, not delete the article. Original deletion argument sounds to me like WP:IDONTLIKEIT which is not appropriate grounds to delete. TheBlinkster (talk) 09:22, 19 March 2016 (UTC)


 * delete and salt and merge to Paternity (law). This is Gamergate DS territory so strong, consensus-based admin action is important here.  This topic fails WP:GNG by a very long way, especially with regard to independent sources discussing it.  There is probably enough for a section in Paternity (law) but that's it, for now at least. Jytdog (talk) 16:40, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * My !vote is unchanged in light of the edits by Insertcleverphrasehere. This article remains an absurd act of rhetoric akin to "death tax" and the sources that have been introduced are poor.
 * This bit is pure, unadulterated WP:SYN and coatrack which I just removed from the article: "It would give men a redress in cases when they are tricked into parenthood, raped or when their semen is stolen. "


 * So any of those sources even discuss "paper abortion"? This bit is the same.  What the heck is the NHS source doing in the following except SYN? "Advocates argue that it would protect men who have no interest in fatherhood in cases when contraception fails. "


 * Other sourcing.... above we have Quora - SPS/forum, and not reliable.  A press release from a men's rights organization?  As before.  Some [SPS] on a law school website?  And then a bunch to http://politiken.dk/, which appears to be a Danish Politco or the like, just making flames to catch eyeballs.  This article fails.  delete and salt Jytdog (talk) 04:55, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * By your own admission though, you just removed the material... how can material that has been removed count as justification for the deletion of an article? If you don't think a ref is appropriate... delete it, don't use it as justification that the whole article should be deleted. The article still needs considerable work, is not perfect, and needs considerable expansion based on other sources, but none of those are reasons to delete.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  05:11, 25 March 2016 (UTC)


 * There are a number of articles from very good English language news sources such as Time, The New York Times, and the Atlantic Monthly on essentially the same topic which we have yet to use in our article. The notion that this concept hasn't been covered enough to merit an article of its own is simply mistaken. Motsebboh (talk) 20:28, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Wikilinks to impressive-sounding sources are not actually sources. Jytdog (talk) 21:05, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I can't find Time or Atlantic Monthly articles, but there is a [New York Times Op ed] that was reported on [here] and [here]. I also ran across a bunch of other english language sources on my way: [washington post], [daily mail], [the observer], [AUS women weekly], [NZHerald]. So the sources are definitely out there.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  21:28, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * right. an op-ed in the NYT that gets banged around the talking-head-o-sphere. None of that adds to NOTABILITY.  It is really something how many garbage sources are, and how much bad editing is, being thrown at this topic, which is why I am saying delete and salt. Jytdog (talk) 21:43, 25 March 2016 (UTC)

except you decided to ignore the other sources I provided, and the good ones that are already in the article, which is why I'm saying don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. InsertCleverPhraseHere  22:55, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I've commented on all the sources that have been brought, and I am not ignoring anything. But I will have to be honest, when I saw the daily mail in the list of sources you list above, i stopped.  As I said above, it is really something how many garbage sources are being thrown at this topic.  Your editing on this topic is terrible Insertcleverphrasehere, and the more things you do to try to save this, the more you show why this article should be deleted and salted.  The daily mail for pete's sake.  Jytdog (talk) 22:57, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Ok your attitude is getting to the point of insulting. If that source isn't appropriate, fine I've crossed it out. Once again it doesn't make the other sources any less notable. I'm getting rather sick of your use of this particular logical fallacy. I'm completely done talking to you, as you don't seem to have any good faith or a very constructive attitude but would rather go around insulting people's best efforts to help build an article.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  23:11, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * You are the person who worked over the article and left in the piles of SYN and bad sourcing that were there, and you are the one who proposed the daily mail for pete's sake, and all this blogosphere garbage. You did that, not me.  Garbage editing is garbage editing. I gladly praise high quality editing and have changed my !vote when someone actually saves an article. Jytdog (talk) 23:16, 25 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Here is the Time Magazine source:  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Motsebboh (talk • contribs) 02:47, 26 March 2016 (UTC)  And here's the The Atlantic source:  Motsebboh (talk) 02:51, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thank you for providing those sources which make it absolutely clear that a) this is Gamergate DS territory; b) this whole thing is a "legal stunt" by men's rights activists groups; c) that has gotten exactly zero traction in the real world in the ten years since the Time article was published. This is a completely fringe legal notion. Jytdog (talk) 03:10, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * The Atlantic article is three years old and the Scandinavian articles are quite recent. Also, as I mentioned earlier, social scientists have already discussed the the social phenomenon of biological fathers' de facto assumption of the such a "right". Sounds like I just don't like it on your part. Motsebboh (talk) 04:56, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * let me put it to this way. Can you name any jurisdictions where a father has a right to a "paper abortion"? Jytdog (talk) 17:17, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Sorry to insert it here, Insert, but to answer's question: No, but I also don't know of any jurisdictions where Wages for housework prevail or where the  the descendants of slaves in the United States are being paid for that fact. Motsebboh (talk) 15:17, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for stating that as far as you know this has not been enacted. As to your comparisons with other articles, you are scraping the bottom with an WP:Other stuff exists argument that is invalid at AfD. Jytdog (talk) 19:01, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT is in full effect. Why would you ask this question? You know damn well that whether a law is passed or not has nothing to do with deletion policy. InsertCleverPhraseHere  19:18, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Nope, it goes to how real of a thing this is. The Time article makes it clear that this started a "legal stunt"; the question is whether it ever gained traction and actually became a legal right to disclaim paternity, anywhere in the world. Based on your reaction the answer is apparently "no", and this just remains a rhetorical device. Jytdog (talk) 19:41, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Why did you try to crowbar discretionary sanctions onto the article under the guise of "Gamergate"? These two things are completely unrelated except for a tangental connection to mens rights/feminism. I'd like to understand your reasoning here, as it seems like a choice made to scare people off of improving the article.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  20:28, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I just provided you formal notice of the DS that arose from the Gamergate case. Please read the links there. Jytdog (talk) 21:03, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I didn't realise that the Gamergate decision was so far broadened to include 'any gender related dispute or controversy'. I guess that means that the Feminism article and the Men's rights movement article should also be listed with the Gamergate discretionary sanctions (they currently are not tagged as such but perhaps they should be).  InsertCleverPhraseHere  22:05, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
 * ok, thanks Jytdog (talk) 22:23, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   18:56, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 20:08, 23 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete - See WP:TNT — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ethanlu121 (talk • contribs) 13:13, 24 March 2016‎ (UTC)
 * Strong Keep - This article needs significant work, but is clearly notable. I'll put my hand up to do a bunch of copy editing to bring the article in line with WP:NPOV. EDIT: i have done considerable work in bringing the article up to scratch. While many of the sources are Danish, and the article needs some more english language sources, it is unsurprising that many of the sources on the subject are Scandinavian, as the movement seems to have originated there. The article has been the subject of dozens of edits in the last week by multiple contributors, to the point that it is hardly recognisable from the article that was nominated for deletion []. As a result, many of the early 'delete' arguments are now irrelevant. This is now a case of WP:DONOTDEMOLISH and WP:BATHWATER.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  04:04, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment I wonder how much of the problem is the title. I had never heard it before tonight, though I've always known about irresponsibility of male parents, otherwise known as desertion. The analogy with abortion is a false one, and I can see several different possible political motivations for using it. An abortion terminates the pregnancy;  (the relevant connection to abortion  would be whether the male parent as well as the female has to give permission for an abortion)  Many other things can terminate the responsibility for a child. The female parent can and sometimes does desert the child also, though I have the impression it's much less common than the male. (somehow it seems wrong to use the terms father and mother in this context).   What is needed here is more than copyediting, though I am undecided between rewrite, and delete and rewrite.    DGG ( talk ) 03:54, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I wonder if there's a better location for this article. Since it seems to have originated from either Denmark or Sweden, perhaps the Danish or Swedish term would be a better title? I don't believe this concept has made it into the legal scholarship of the Anglosphere. Of course, even in those languages it seems like the term has been intentionally chosen to be controversial. —/M endaliv /2¢/Δ's/ 05:21, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * No, on english wikipedia the articles should have an english name, unless a foreign word or phrase is commonly used in english sources. As english sources tend to use the terms "Paper abortion" or "legal abortion", there doesn't seem to be a case for using a Danish or Swedish title. "Legal abortion" is far too vague and easily confused with other abortion issues to be useful, and the term "statutory abortion" doesn't seem to be used much in english sources as far as I've seen.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  12:04, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete I'm happy that I could merge the content into the existing Parental responsibility /Child support etc etc articles without any destruction of Wikipedia's encyclopedic worth. Bosley John Bosley (talk) 12:39, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * As this is generally framed purely as a men's rights or egalitarian issue in the available sources, I really don't feel like it fits in those articles at all. If you want to support a merge, the Men's rights article is a far better choice.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  19:18, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I would accept a merge to that article too. it probably is better there. Jytdog (talk) 22:26, 27 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Comment Regardless of where the content goes as a merge, the POV issue still must be addressed. This article treats the topic as a serious proposal, while Time magazine refers to it as a "legal stunt". It is purposely provocative, yet that aspect of it does not appear anywhere in the article. The WP article could be a statement by a supporter, including the section on "Opposition". Nothing in the section on opposition refers to the accusations of mysogyny or, as Time calls it, a legal stunt. Unless these aspects are included, NPOV is not achieved. Very little of what is in the cited articles actually makes it into the WP article. The references are treated as citation "ballast" to support the article, not as sources of information. For example, the Time article says: "But solving one problem may just be creating another: pregnancy counselors find that another great source of pressure on ambivalent women is often the father of the child. As states crack down on "deadbeat dads," men have a greater financial incentive to pressure women into ending unwanted pregnancies." That's not in the WP article. The Atlantic article says: "Narratives like these—and they abound in the men's movement—lack historical context and philosophical nuance and seem chillingly misogynistic." So there's a criticism that isn't in the WP article. Personally, I would see it merged it into Men's rights movement because that provides the proper context for the message, which definitely arises from that philosophy. LaMona (talk) 02:36, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * A merge into MRM certainly makes some sense.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  05:04, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * No, I think that there is source enough material on the topic for a stand-alone article as well as a mention in other articles. Since the article was only created days ago, from brief and recent Danish and Swedish language sources, of course it lacks substantial context. The English language sources mentioned in this discussion hadn't even been added to it the last time I looked. Also, as I've mentioned before, the most important aspect of this general phenomenon (which this article and its title could perhaps be modified to fit) is that over the last several decades men have increasingly behaved as if they already had this "right". See George Akerlof: Reproductive technology shock. Motsebboh (talk) 14:04, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I should be more clear; merging makes more sense than deletion. However, I agree that this topic has more than enough sources to support a standalone article, and this is my preferred option by far.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  14:18, 28 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep Despite its clear that there shall be many arguments to improve the article. Merging makes sense yes, but at this moment keeping the article is more important. Capitals00 (talk) 04:43, 30 March 2016 (UTC)


 * Merge and Delete - Merge selectively to Paternity (law) (and possibly to Parental responsibility or Men's rights movement) and delete more or less per . There is a notable subject about the rights and responsibilities of fathers. We already have an article on that in paternity (law), which could certainly use expansion. Then there's a neologism "Paper Abortion" which very few of the acceptable sources even mention, which is about paternity with a provocative MRM rhetorical spin. In other words, per WP:NEO and WP:NOPAGE we don't need pages about neologisms when there's already an article about the bigger, far better sourced subject. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 17:17, 2 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep I've read at least three articles discussing this topic in mainstream media in the past, so in my judgement there's no legit case for deletion. (If I've got extra time, maybe I'll hunt for them and add them later.) I don't recall any of them specifically using the term 'paper abortion' though. So, if someone wants to propose renaming to something better, I wouldn't be against that. I do oppose merging. The arguments for doing so seem to be either that the article's quality is subpar or that the topic can be subsumed within the scope of a larger (less controversial) article. However, since almost all articles start out as something that needs improvement and that could be merged into a larger article, I think those arguments are disingenuous and really just cover for getting rid of an article on a controversial topic. Seriously, what do you suppose the ratio is of new articles that get created when a section got too big within a parent article versus new articles that start out needing major overhaul and/or those just starting out as stubs? Ock Raz   talk  10:39, 3 April 2016 (UTC)


 * PS: Personally, I find the idea of granting men a right to a 'paper abortion' to be completely repellent, but offensive topics are supposed to have WP articles. Ock Raz  talk  10:43, 3 April 2016 (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.