Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pro-abortion violence


 * 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   delete. Sam Walton (talk) 23:25, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Pro-abortion violence

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

This is demonstrably not a real phenomenon, and if editors are going to insist on assembling ludicrous sources and unrelated events (eg. the murder of Pouillon, which is well-known not to have been politically motivated) to spin out an article from a redirect, we'll have to hold it up to our policy standards. I cannot verify the claim that Alesha Doan's book says anything about "pro-abortion violence", especially since a search of the book brings up nothing and the chapter containing .p 182 is on anti-abortion violence, so it seems pretty unlikely, Alesha Doan doesn't in fact make any claims about the existence of "pro-abortion violence", while Dallas Blanchard's book explicitly states that pro-choice violence is so infrequent that it's impossible to say anything about. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 04:21, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Thinking about it further, I'd also support a redirect to Theodore Shulman as that is literally the only identifiable incident of this supposed phenomenon. On the one hand, he did not commit any acts of violence, but on the other hand, redirects are cheap. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 20:56, 5 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Whatever the outcome, I would like to strongly discourage editors from recommending redirection. At least at RfD, a good destination that actually discusses the subject was not found. And if you're recommending a merge, make sure a merge will really happen. Unless you see me vote here later, I'm not watching this page, so ping me or something if you need me. --BDD (talk) 04:29, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep as (re-)creator. I created the article in response to a discussion as to where to point the redirect. I'm afraid the nominator is wrong about the murder of Pouillon being "well-known not to have been politically motivated", the CNN article referenced clearly cites it as part of its claim that "There have been at least two abortion-related slayings in the United States this year, one on each side of the debate." Blanchard does not say that "pro-choice violence is so infrequent that it's impossible to say anything about" - he says that it is too infrequent to form a basis for generalizable conclusions" (he wrote this in 1993) and it is "beyond the scope of our immediate concern". Finally, I don't know why the nominator doesn't want to take the Alesha Doan in good faith, but in any case, the snippet view is here StAnselm (talk) 04:40, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I was using a different online edition, so thanks for the link. It doesn't help your case, since it attributes this claim to a fringe anti-abortion organization. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 04:52, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I also see that Google Scholar comes up with a result: "America's last prophetic witness: The literature of the rescue movement". StAnselm (talk) 04:54, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * And what does this article on anti-abortion violence say? –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 05:05, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know, it's behind a paywall - but it discusses it, and provides evidence of notability. Please remember WP:PAYWALL. StAnselm (talk) 05:12, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * If you can't access the source, how do you know it contains information on "pro-abortion violence", when its first page and all citations to it only mention anti-abortion radicalism and violence? Why are you attempting to use this to support your case?? I ran the Google Scholar search that you must have run, and got the result you must have gotten, which uses the phrase only in the title of a fringe anti-abortion publication. This is really disingenuous, StAnselm. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 05:18, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Not at all, it introduces the article by saying "For a recent source on violence against rescuers..." - that is clearly what it's discussing. But yes - I can't see enough of it to use it in the article. StAnselm (talk) 05:25, 1 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete weird WP:POINTy nonsense. Artw (talk) 05:08, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * (I came back after all, but am still not watching this discussion.) This is, perhaps, a common misunderstanding of POINT. While it's fair to say StAnselm created the article to make a point, WP:POINT proscribes disrupting Wikipedia to make a point. Even if this article is deleted, it must be said that StAnselm improved Wikipedia to make a point. I'm not entirely convinced by either the arguments to keep or delete, but we're already better off than we were when this title was just a misleading redirect. --BDD (talk) 19:25, 5 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment – The problem with this article is that it defines "Pro-abortion violence" as "violence directed at anti-abortion advocates or protesters." but then fails to provide reliably sourced examples of that. There is one documented case of one murder against one anti-abortion advocate. On that basis the article shouldn't use the plural case. The pro-life activist organizations are extremely unreliable POV sources. I don't trust their numbers at all. If the article does quote their numbers, it should note that they are using an expanded definition of "Pro-abortion violence" that includes things like botched abortions and violence by boyfriends against women who refuse to get abortions. – Margin1522 (talk) 09:29, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's a good point. HSI lists two "murders of pro-lifers", but the other one, that of Anne Gordon, cannot said to be "pro-choice violence". StAnselm (talk) 09:51, 1 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete as WP:Original research. Sure, there have been violent acts related to the abortion controversy. Information about violent, disruptive, or semi-violent mass protests seems to have been added to the article after the AfD nomination. However the whole topic itself has not been identified in reliable secondary sources.  Information on incidents could be added to existing articles on the the pro-abortion movement.  That would also be in keeping with WP:Balance.Borock (talk) 17:29, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * BTW it's actually remarkable that there has been so little violence, considering how large the issue is to both sides. Borock (talk) 17:39, 1 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep There has been significantly more press coverage (and sadly, violence) since this article was originally created. I will do what I can to help expand it and would encourage others to do so as well. As an aside both Pouillon's murderer and the State of Michigain said that he was killed for his political beliefs. Juno (talk) 17:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * That is literally the opposite of the truth - the state said that Drake felt that his victims had wronged his family. Shameful, Juno. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 17:55, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Drake felt Pouillon had wronged them...by expressing his political beliefs. "Authorities say the suspect, Harlan James Drake, was offended by anti-abortion material that the activist had displayed across from the school all week." and then from the trial: "He says his mother was upset by Jim Pouillon's pro-life signs and said he was protesting at Owosso High School that day." Juno (talk) 18:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Is this attempt to mislead deliberate? He said his mother and nieces were disgusted and scared by the graphic imagery. He has no known political beliefs. This wild attempt to connect an obviously unrelated event to pro-choice is only serving to demonstrate that this is not a real topic that Wikipedia can have an article on. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 18:10, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * If you call quoting the police, and the murder word-for-word about his motives an attempt to deliberately mislead, then sure? Juno (talk) 18:14, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 20:57, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Terrorism-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 20:57, 1 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep - per WP:GNG.--BabbaQ (talk) 21:28, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete - As a POV-driven original essay. Carrite (talk) 19:14, 2 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep  I’m not crazy about the title because “pro-abortion” does not seem to be a term anyone uses to self-identify but the topic meets WP:GNG.
 * Fair enough - I would be happy to move the article to Pro-choice violence. StAnselm (talk) 20:34, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep. Meets GNG. Soonersfan168  (talk) 01:16, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment. I trust that the throwaway "meets GNG" comments will be given the weight they deserve in the face of a total lack of sourcing. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 14:55, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I hope they get more weight than comments like "weird WP:POINTy nonsense"... StAnselm (talk) 19:35, 3 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete - the sources which identify this as a thing are Christian blogs with a clear anti-abortion agenda. They are clearly not reliable sources for this topic. We have a dubious stat published by a self-identified pro-life organization and cited by a clearly-identified pro-life Christian blog; a neutrally-sourced murder of an anti-abortion protester which was revealed to actually be a confused anti-abortion killing; a single person identifying himself as a "pro-choice terrorist", and reports of violence in Australia and Argentina sourced to a Catholic newspaper, an Australian right-wing blowhard (and clearly marked "opinion") and a clearly-identified pro-life youth organization. There are no reliable sources that indicate that pro-choice or pro-abortion violence is a notable thing. Ivanvector (talk) 16:24, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
 * You seem to be ignoring the CNN source. But I don't understand the "neutrally-sourced murder of an anti-abortion protester which was revealed to actually be a confused anti-abortion killing" bit. Are you talking about thee Poullion murder? StAnselm (talk) 19:34, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Not ignoring the CNN source, it just says very little about this, nothing besides the Poullion murder. My description of it was a bit off, admittedly, but from what I am reading there is no definitive link between Poullion's murder and the pro-choice movement, nor that the murder was at all motivated by political or religious beliefs. His murderer was angry that he was protesting in general, not because of what he was protesting; the shooter then killed another person some time later for some completely different reason, and planned to kill a third but was arrested first. Ivanvector (talk) 20:38, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
 * A bit earlier in the article it says "There have been at least two abortion-related slayings in the United States this year, one on each side of the debate." StAnselm (talk) 20:49, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It does. The two are George Tiller, killed for performing abortions (not pro-abortion violence), and Jim Poullion, killed for protesting near a school (not pro-abortion violence). Ivanvector (talk) 06:03, 10 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete as OR with dubious sourcing. --JBL (talk) 14:20, 5 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete - The big issue here is the same as with the RfC on the same subject: that individual incidents of violence against someone who takes a pro-life stance, covered primarily via routine news coverage, are being synthesized here as an overarching phenomenon ("pro-abortion violence"). The sources available for the subject of pro-abortion violence rather than coverage of individual or small clusters of incidents, look to be very, very poor. --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 00:46, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * ...Let's look at the sources cited in this article, though. A blog called "PRO-CHOICE VIOLENCE: Setting the story straight about violence in the fight for life"; a blog post about that website; a New York Times piece about a specific incident; a CNN article that appears to be relevant only for its mention of a specific incident; a Huffington Post entry about a specific incident; a Catholic Weekly post about a specific incident; an opinion column in the Herald Sun about a specific incident; and a story about specific incidents on an anti-abortion website. Now, we all know that at AfD what is presently cited is not the whole story, but the sourcing here is entirely consistent with the far more numerous sources over at the RfC and what I was able to find on my own (i.e. articles published in well known publications synthesized in order to line up with a concept that otherwise doesn't exist outside of very unreliable sources). --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 00:46, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I was unaware of the RfC at Abortion debate when I created this article. I note that some people are opposing the inclusion of the section there on the grounds that it should have its own article. StAnselm (talk) 03:17, 7 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep - I concur that this topic has been covered sufficiently in secondary sources to justify the existence of an article. The article should and most likely will be expanded with time, but I think that most of the sourcing is decent already. If the factual details of a specific incident of pro-abortion violence are disputed, then additional secondary sources can be cited to provide a counterpoint, but some of these sources, like Catholic Weekly, don't need to be tagged as unreliable unless there is a more reliable source disputing the facts of the incident. Furthermore I think that the claims of original research are inaccurate. Reliable sources like Doan do clearly refer the term, even if it's not a widespread phenomenon like anti-abortion violence, and the sources that refer to violence committed by pro-abortion activists are clearly relevant to the category even if they don't explicitly use the expression "pro-abortion violence". If need be for neutrality reasons, I think that we could rename the article "Allegations of pro-abortion violence".CurtisNaito (talk) 02:52, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Commentː User:Rhododendrites has mentioned the discussion at Talk:Abortion debate. There is a list of 30 references there; some of these are from pro-life websites, but most are not, e.g. Chile Cathedral Vandalized By Pro-Abortion Protestors (Huffington Post). Now, some of these are not explicitly pro-choice (though some are); instead they are anti-pro-life. So perhaps the article could be renamed Violence against pro-life advocates. StAnselm (talk) 03:41, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The example you give here makes my point. Only a handful of unreliable sources are about the phenomenon of pro-abortion violence. The rest is a glut of synthesized individual incidents. You're linking to a story about a case of vandalism. The subject is not pro-abortion violence. --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 03:51, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
 * No, the headline says it clearly: vandalism by pro-abortion protestors. StAnselm (talk) 04:14, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Precisely. It's a news story about a particular incident of vandalism. It was perpetrated by "pro-abortion protestors." That is not about the subject "pro-abortion violence." Coming to that conclusion based on a mess of examples is where the synthesis is. --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 05:42, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Are you saying it wasn't violent? StAnselm (talk) 10:09, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know how many other ways I can spell synthesis. If I find 20 routine news stories about an act of violence perpetrated against a Canadian rainwater engineer, that doesn't mean we should have an article called Anti-Canadian rainwater engineer violence because we need more and better sources about the subject itself independent of news stories about those individual incidents. Look at the sources at anti-abortion violence. See the many, many sources about the subject of anti-abortion violence and how the subject doesn't rely on routine news coverage of individual incidents. --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 19:33, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * ↑↑↑ Exactly. MastCell Talk
 * Delete. I don't think that anyone outside a circle of committed anti-abortion activists believes that "pro-choice violence" is a real or notable phenomenon. Certainly the sources don't support this as a notable topic; they consist of a bunch of anti-abortion websites (proving my point that this is a purely partisan construction) and one or two man-bites-dog stories. This topic doesn't meet our notability criteria, and it smacks of original synthesis. MastCell Talk 04:51, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Strong delete and salt - per WP:TNT. Besides being synthesis, soap-boxing, and nothing but a conspiracy theory, it's exactly the sort of frat boy misogyny that is giving Wikipedia the bad reputation for being two steps ahead of Gamergate. Salt it so this zombie story remains buried. Bearian (talk) 00:54, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * How exactly is this frat boy misogyny? StAnselm (talk) 03:56, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * If you can't see any connection between an anti-feminist made-up fringe theory and a woman's right to choose not to have some strange man's sperm in her uterus, then Todd Akin is not the only man who is part of the problem. Bearian (talk) 22:55, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * This doesn't seem like a very constructive line of discussion in the context of an AfD. --JBL (talk) 23:19, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Bearian is making a tendentious argument I hope the admin who closes this debate will ignore. One does not have to be guilty of "misogyny" to think that it would be worth creating an article about pro-abortion violence. Any number of women oppose abortion. Protecting the article against re-creation would be inappropriate, as the topic could easily become notable in future, even if it does not presently meet the notability criteria. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 05:57, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not making a tendentious argument. I'm making the reasonable claims that (1) this whole article's premise is based on some made-up fantastic male phobia, and that (2) the article's continued existence makes the English Wikipedia look ridiculous and sexist (think of the optics) for hosting such a non-notable fringe theory that doesn't really exist right now.  The fact that some females oppose abortion does not lead logically that pro-abortion violence even exists. The whole stub fails WP:V, a basic rule here. Bearian (talk) 20:43, 10 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete Other editors have pointed out that the article is OR and SYNTHESIS.  But it is also virtually empty--it contains two items, Pouillon and Shulman, and neither qualifies as pro-abortion violence.  According to Harlan Drake, the man who murdered Pouillon, he did it because he and his mother were offended by Pouillon carrying a bloody, gory sign near a school where children could see it, not because of Pouillon's opposition to abortion.  If Pouillon had carried a bloody, gory sign in order to protest the war in Afghanistan, or in order to protest the use of animals in scientific experiments, or in order to advertise a local butcher shop, Drake would have shot him just as dead.  Pouillon's anti-abortion politics were incidental.  As for Shulman, he never did anything violent, and therefore belongs in an article about "Pro-Abortion THREATS or PREDICTIONS of Violence", not "Pro-Abortion Violence".  2604:2000:C6A1:B900:9515:97B:6D8:881B (talk) 00:00, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Neither you nor anyone else can know what Drake would or would not have done under other circumstances. I do not myself think that the difference between threats of violence and actual acts of violence is so great that threats do not belong in an article called "pro-abortion violence". FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 05:52, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * RE Drake: That's silly--Drake himself knows why he did what he did and what he would have done in similar circumstances. He told why he shot Pouillon, and it was not because of any disagreement about abortion.  Go back to the article and follow the link and read Drake's description of his motives and you will see.  RE Shulman: I agree with you in that I could see including Shulman's threats in an article on pro-abortion violence if the article also contained a substantial list of cases of actual pro-abortion violence--violent deeds, not just words, to justify the article's existence.  But to create an article entitled "Pro-Abortion Violence" purely on the basis of one case of threats, with no actual pro-abortion violent actions in the article, seems to me to be an unwarranted, unjustified exaggeration and a clear case of WP:SOAPBOX.  2604:2000:C6A1:B900:F959:3DB7:4D2A:FECA (talk) 09:02, 10 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete this article, as a POV-pushing term mainly pushed by fringe ultraconservatives with delusional persecution complexes. The "sources" that are being used to support the claims in the article are laughably biased and do not meet WP:RS by any stretch of the imagination.  I could possibly live with a redirect to Theodore Shulman, as perhaps the only credible example of this supposed phenomenon.  Lankiveil (speak to me) 13:13, 10 February 2015 (UTC).
 * Delete. The title seems a bit non-neutral, and it would be better to rename the article to "pro-choice violence" if the article is kept (which seems rather unlikely).  Putting that issue aside, the article is pure OR by SYNTH.  When reliable sources start discussing the phenomenon of pro-choice violence, then we can have an article.  But we shouldn't be in the business of trying to create a narrative on our own that includes Jim Poullion and Theodore Shulman.  They have their separate articles, where reliable sources concerning them can be included.  And tabloids from Australia and pro-life websites calling themselves "Live Action News" do not strike me as particularly reliable sources.   Sławomir Biały  (talk) 14:00, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete, irredeemably POV and OR. Stifle (talk) 11:37, 11 February 2015 (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.