Talk:United States anti-abortion movement/Archive 8

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Canadian news article about Canadian used as proof of United States issues on United States pro-life movement page

I was getting reverted on this one, so to the talk page I go. Under Types of advocacy -> Counseling -> Crisis pregnancy centers, a link is given to support the claim that CPCs give false medical information - citation number 93. This source, however, leads to an article in the Toronto Sun about a sting operation done by Canadian news staff at a Canadian CPC. How come this is used as a support in reference to United States CPCs on a United States pro-life movement page? --immewnity 07:24, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Probably because it's practically part of the definition of CPCs and applies in the US too. I assume whoever added it just pulled the citations from our main article; it'd be easy to swap it out for another one. Claims that abortion causes cancer or "post-abortion syndrome" are false everywhere; they're not false in Canada and "controversial" in the US, Immewnity. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:02, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
Oh, that's what your comment was addressing? At the same time, you were removing a science statement sourced to the World Health Organization, so it looked like you were saying that their view of the science didn't apply in a US article. Yes, that source can and should be swapped out. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:12, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

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Recent edits

An IP editor has been trying to rework the statement that the movement is linked to the spreading of false medical information, by editing the material to remove the indication of falsehood. However, the source at use is clearly indicating falsehood. Now that these changes have been undone by multiple editors, please explain your reason for thinking the change to be reasonable and find consensus for that change before reinserting. --Nat Gertler (talk) 21:33, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not sure this edit you made (specifically the word "often") is backed up by the source provided ("Deception used in counselling women against abortion" in the Toronto Star). Reading through that article, I think the most we could say is "sometimes". StAnselm (talk) 21:43, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
There is actually a bigger problem with that particular source, in that it's not addressing the US movement at all (Toronto is not, at this point, part of the US.) However, there are better sources to be used, like this. --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:33, 6 July 2017 (UTC)
I'm not sure that's any better: (a) it's a claim made in a minority report, and (b) it's only a majority of the particular sample that was investigated, it make no claims about "most" centers in general. StAnselm (talk) 06:02, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

Demonstrations under section Health risks claims

Why are the sections for Demonstrations, counseling, etc. included as subsections under "Health risks claims"? This seems incongruous and doesn't make sense as the two topics are completely different. This also seems like a case of potential bias as placing pro-life demonstrations where they are directs the reader to a section on discredited pro-life medical arguments before reading about large, prominent demonstrations and counseling methods that are peaceful and benign activities of the pro-life movement. Demonstrations and counseling should be under their own section. Jgefd (talk) 17:44, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

George W. Bush and Donald Trump Pro-Life?

It is noted under the section "History" that "Two anti-abortion U.S. Presidents – Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush – were elected." Should the statement be expanded to include George W. Bush and Donald Trump? Stomalia (talk) 19:40, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Article needs consistency in its use of the terms "pro-life" and "anti-abortion"

The name of this article is "United States pro-life movement", yet according to the ol' Ctrl+F, the term "pro-life" appears only 40 times on this page while the term "anti-abortion", which the first sentence establishes as a synonym to "pro-life", appears 91 times. What is wrong with this picture? I think it would be appropriate, for consistency and fairness, to change instances of one to the other, except where there is a meaningful distinction. (The word "consistent" appears 18 times in the WP:MOS, in case you were wondering. ;D) What say you? Bobnorwal (talk) 00:17, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Inclusion of Jim Pouillon

Is it appropriate to include this given that the murder was not politically motivated, and if so, what kind of text can we add to clarify? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:05, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I'm finding the whole sentence there problematic, as it paints a broad brush with s single case that, as you note, is not 100% on-the-mark. It fails to make a clear statement about he situation as it relates to the article topic. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:17, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

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Title change proposed

Returning to the issue raised by @Bobnorwal: last December, there's a consistency issue in the use of the term "pro-life" in the title. The title should be United States anti-abortion movement. Please note that other similar articles use the term "anti-abortion," for example, Anti-abortion movements. The article's lede even explains why "anti-abortion" is the neutral term.NightHeron (talk) 23:36, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

  • Support Agree that "pro-life" is promotional marketing term that means in fact "anti-abortion." You could imagine pro-life groups that try to improve people's quality of life, e.g. with better child nutrition and healthcare for all. Or pro-life groups that try to prevent unnecessary deaths, e.g. by opposing assault weapons or capital punishment. But that is not at all what "pro-life" groups care about. Also, what NightHeron said. HouseOfChange (talk) 19:14, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I'd be more tempted by Abortion opposition in the United States. --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:16, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Trying to move this to wider discussion, so pinging NatGertler, NightHeron, Bobnorwal to discuss. HouseOfChange (talk) 19:32, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
  • This should work better: NatGertler, NightHeron, Bobnorwal (I pang myself!) --Nat Gertler (talk)

No archive links?

Can someone who understands how archiving works please adjust the settings so that there are links to the archives of this talk page? Thanks, JBL (talk) 22:23, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

The problem is that this article and talk page have been moved a number of times, and apparently on some of the moves the subpages that contain the archives were not also moved. The archive box assumes that the archive page names have the format "Talk/United States pro-life movement/Archive #", where the "#" is 1, 2, 3, etc. I'll see if I can figure out what the names of the various archive subpages should be, but it may take an administrator to fix it. Indyguy (talk) 23:39, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, that makes sense. Hopefully it is fixable (and then not immediately broken again by the RfC above :) ). --JBL (talk) 00:50, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
I was able to move them to the correct name. There are 7 archives. Indyguy (talk) 02:37, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Thank you! --JBL (talk) 12:24, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Anti-abortion movements which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 08:16, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 19 May 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Both moved. This has been open for 18 days, and there have been no comments in 2 days. There is a consensus to move the articles, and - as pointed out by a number of people - this makes the articles consistent with others. COMMONNAME has a number of exceptions, which have been brought up by the majority here. Black Kite (talk) 20:09, 6 June 2018 (UTC)


Consistency. Similar articles such as Anti-abortion movements use "anti-abortion" not the promotional term "pro-life." HouseOfChange (talk) 19:32, 19 May 2018 (UTC)--Relisting. Galobtter (pingó mió) 16:59, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Not just promotional, but often quite hypocritical. The "United States pro-life movement" tends to be populated heavily with people who are also pro-death penalty and pro-war, neither of which tend to involve protecting life. HiLo48 (talk) 04:08, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

As others have said, the need for this name change follows from the consistency criterion in WP:NAMINGCRITERIA, along with WP:NPOVTITLE.NightHeron (talk) 20:30, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Comment I did a simple google search for "anti-abortion movement" versus "pro-life movement." The former has significantly more hits (as of May 2018) than the latter: "About 4 950 000 results" (anti-abortion movement) vs "About 4 280 000 results" (pro-life movement). Also as per consistency, if you search "pro-life" in Wikipedia search box you are sent to this page Anti-abortion movements. HouseOfChange (talk) 19:39, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
Ye olde "simple Google search" is fraught with problems. First, search results are biased to you by the search engine. Search engines also skew heavily to current, online resources whereas something like Ngrams has the benefit of a long-term pool of published works which is rigorously weighted. See WP:DETERMINEPRIMARY and Wikipedia:Search engine test. Those "millions of results" you see could be way off depending on so many factors that it is unreliable to ever base judgment off "a simple google search". -- Netoholic @ 20:21, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
  • The following excerpts from the article itself make it clear why the term "pro-life" in the title violates WP:NPOVTITLE:

Both "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are examples of terms labeled as political framing: they are terms which purposely try to define their philosophies in the best possible light, while by definition attempting to describe their opposition in the worst possible light.

and

The Associated Press encourages journalists to use the terms "abortion rights" and "anti-abortion".

NightHeron (talk) 19:43, 20 May 2018 (UTC)

Footnoting NightHeron, see AP stylebook on "abortion". HouseOfChange (talk) 20:21, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
Here's the thing: neither of these titles meets WP:COMMONNAME, if you look at the NGram for what we actually propose as the title. The title is bad on multiple levels, including as a grammatical construct. While there may be disagreemnts over what it should be changed to, it should be changed to something else. --Nat Gertler (talk) 21:40, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
If you read WP:COMMONNAME, paying special attentions to the examples given to illustrate it, you'll see that that policy is simply not the issue here. Both pro-life and anti-abortion are extremely common terms that are easily understood and recognized in English, so both of them satisfy the policy. The issue, rather, is NPOV. As explained above, the current title violates WP:NPOVTITLE.NightHeron (talk) 23:42, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support move. We should not use politically polemical terms like this; "anti-abortion movement" is far more clear, accurate, and objective. The fact that the Associated Press stylebook recommends this phrasing bolsters the point. Neutralitytalk 00:30, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support move per Neutrality. --JBL (talk) 00:51, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Following merge/ping by Galobtter (thanks), clarifying that I support both moves. --JBL (talk) 17:53, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Support as proposed. Neutral name for politically charged topic, especially since Pro-choice redirects to Abortion-rights movements. Binksternet (talk) 01:20, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support I made a comment above, but now need to formally note my support. The present name is for marketing alone. It is not the truth. HiLo48 (talk) 04:27, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose:
  1. NPOVTITLE is being erroneously applied. The policy is written in clear and unambiguous language: "Resolving such debates depends on whether the article title is a name derived from reliable sources or a descriptive title created by Wikipedia editors." In this case "pro-life" is used extensively by reliable sources. "Pro-life" was not created by WP editors. NPOVTITLE in fact supports the current title "pro-life."
  2. As Netoholic points out the Google Ngram results definitively reflect that "pro-life" is more widely used and thus per COMMONNAME the title must be "pro-life."
The arguments presented and policies cited clearly demonstrate to an objective person that the title should be "pro-life." Counterarguments for "anti-abortion" are not based on policy--well not NPOVTITLE--and in fact are based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT. – Lionel(talk) 10:05, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Please drop the insults. Many arguments have been made against the current title. Debate them rather than condemning other editors. HiLo48 (talk) 10:17, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
FWIW, while I disagree with Lionel's assessment, it clearly contains an argument. (It would be better without "an objective person", of course.) --JBL (talk) 12:27, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Information There is a parallel move request at United States pro-choice movement for that article to have its name changed to United States abortion rights movement. Both articles are outliers from the usual Wikipedia naming scheme, which repeatedly refers (and redirects) queries about "Pro-life X" and "Pro-Choice Y" to "Anti-abortion X" and "Abortion rights Y]. I believe both moves will improve Wikipedia. HouseOfChange (talk) 14:05, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support I was notified of the discussion via Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Christianity/Noticeboard‎. The article does not discuss "life" but simply abortion. If the article discussed anti-euthanasia efforts, or anti-death penalty efforts, or anti-gun rights, I would consider leaving the article here. This point is elaborated by Christian author Shane Claiborne at https://www.redletterchristians.org/praying-with-our-feet/ and the point has been made by multiple other Christian authors and speakers. As a Wikipedian, we should identify article subjects using neutral terms, not the (invalid) political framing that they want to use to describe themselves. Walter Görlitz (talk) 14:52, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose along with coordinated move request. Please review WP:RFC/AAMC for why these titles, which were considered as options, were not selected by the community, and review WP:RFC/AAT for a hint of the kind of damage giving these articles titles which are not equivalently weighted in propaganda value can bring about. —chaos5023 (talk) 18:13, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. There are 19,000,000 Google hits for United States pro-life movement, while only 2,890,000 Google hits for United States anti-abortion movement. The people in the movement themselves refer to it as the United States pro-life movement and renaming it to the title requested is POV pushing. Why? Because this request would be akin to requesting to move United States "pro-choice movement" to United States "anti-life movement." desmay (talk) 20:59, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Invalid evidence. Google searches are tailored for you personally. If I searched I would get a different result. There is no logic in the final sentence. HiLo48 (talk) 23:08, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support (I didn't formally vote in my previous comment). NPOV is a basic pillar of Wikipedia; COMMONNAME is not. Moreover, it's clear that no title under consideration violates WP:COMMONNAME because all are easily recognized terms. The terms "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are misleading and inaccurate, as well as politically slanted. The issue is: one side believes in prohibition of abortion; the other side believes in the right to abortion subject to certain restrictions (depending on stage of pregnancy). The proposed titles accurately reflect that and, most importantly, are neutral.NightHeron (talk) 00:38, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
    • Very well put. NPOV is not negotiable, while WP:AT is simply a means to an end. Andrewa (talk) 18:54, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose per the arguments enumerated by Lionelt, who has demonstrated that appeals to NPOV are invalid. Lepricavark (talk) 01:52, 25 May 2018 (UTC)
How can you claim that there's no NPOV issue when the article itself says that the term "pro-life" is an example of political framing?NightHeron (talk) 16:49, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
I can do it very easily: there's no NPOV issue. Lepricavark (talk) 14:56, 4 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Support The movement is about abortion, not life. "Pro-life" is what some people think anti-abortion is, and there are many who don't agree. I seccond "NPOV is a basic pillar of Wikipedia; COMMONNAME is not." by NightHeron. --Comedora (talk) 09:33, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. Anti-abortion is accurate and descriptive, and should be preferred to the slogans used by either side, who are both organised and funded to the point that deciding the most common name is going to be problematical. Andrewa (talk) 07:48, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose for reasons stated by Netoholic, Lionelt, and Chaos5023. Ltwin (talk) 12:41, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support There are five equal WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. The importance of COMMONNAME is routinely overestimated. In this case it can't even be definitively established what the COMMONNAME is, so that obviously should not be the decisive rationale. Both are recognizable. Neither is natural. United States anti-abortion movement is both more precise and more consistent with other articles.LeadSongDog come howl! 14:45, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Both options are linguistically awkward. "United States" is not naturally read as an adjective. Add to that the fact that abortion opposition here is not fully separate from elsewhere (as judge the US campaigners in the recent Irish referendum), and that "United States pro-life movement" only gets 94 Google results (yes, it says a few thousand at first, but try clicking through - and many of those results are citing this article) so and I really want some other choice - most particularly "Abortion opposition in the United States", but either "Pro-life movement in the United States" or "Anti-abortion movement in the United States" would be better than what we have. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:58, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
    • Another possibility would be "Anti-abortion movement (United States)", which to me sounds less awkward. If you Nat Gertler want to file a different page move request with a different title proposal, that is also fine, but please do it on both articles in parallel. I think it will be simpler to solve the "pro-life" vs. "anti-abortion" question first, and then to move on to consider localization. HouseOfChange (talk) 15:56, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
      • Rather than parenthetics, the more natural-language forms would be "Anti-abortion movement in the United States" and "Abortion rights movement in the United States", but either way could work.LeadSongDog come howl! 16:10, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
      • I am feeling a bit low-energy at the moment to be starting multiple discussions (although it does make me flinch to think that we'll be setting up a move just to set up another move.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:24, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
      • I'm not opposed to changing the grammar, but I don't think it's necessary. If you do a search for Wikipedia articles starting with the words "United States," you'll find plenty that have the same structure as the proposed title being discussed, e.g. United States elections, United States dollar.NightHeron (talk) 16:52, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Can we please use this discussion to consider "pro-life" vs "anti-abortion" and (if anybody wants to create another section for it) to talk about ways to describe localization somewhere else? HouseOfChange (talk) 18:21, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
    • Agree that we need to focus here... somehow. And that's one way of doing it, and I have no better suggestion... it's now a mess however we try to go forward! Andrewa (talk) 18:48, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Per WP:COMMONNAME, as well as the reasoning by Netoholic, Lionelt, and Chaos5023. --1990'sguy (talk) 03:28, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • The empirical evidence disproves the idea that "pro-life" is appreciably more common. A search of Google Books for "pro-life movement" OR "pro-life activists" + United States yields some 11,000 hits; a search for "anti-abortion movement" OR "anti-abortion activists" + United States hits more than 17,000 hits. Neutralitytalk 04:54, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • First of all, that's not what "OR" means. Second, you need to tone down the rhetoric ("shameful skewing"). Neutralitytalk 01:16, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support. They have done a very successful job of branding, but in the end the title is POV. "Pro-life" movement is responsible for closing down women's preventive healthcare clinics and "pro-life" states also have statistically worse neonatal and maternal mortality rates. They are also generally the most vehemently pro the death penalty, less likely to support medicaid expansion (which disproportionately impacts single mothers and their children), and their senators are the ones that voted to end CHIP, as well. So they are only pro-life until the mother goes into labor, after that they appear to completely stop caring. Anti-abortion is more accurate and neutral. It's not our job to be their spin doctors. Guy (Help!) 15:07, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Absolutely nothing in this cites Wikipedia naming guidelines or external evidence. Its just a rant. -- Netoholic @ 20:04, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
And that's just an attack on other editors. HiLo48 (talk) 00:08, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support as an accurate and neutral description of the movement. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:49, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose for reasons stated above עם ישראל חי (talk) 17:06, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support A shift to a more neutral and precise title. While it's been pointed out that WP:COMMONNAME isn't preeminent among naming conventions, both terms are commonly recognizable as established by narrowed Google searches or NGrams as established above, so it isn't much of a concern anyway.--tronvillain (talk) 22:59, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support per nom. Unreal7 (talk) 17:24, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Support According to the summary of WP:TITLE guidelines, "Article titles should be recognizable, concise, natural, precise, and consistent." Let's go through one by one:
    Recognizable - both are easily recognizable
    Concise - both are similarly concise
    Natural - both are similarly natural
    Precise - "Anti-abortion" is more precise than "Pro-life". "Pro-life" does not mean "anti-abortion" to everybody. For example, Google defines pro-life as "opposing abortion and euthanasia."[1]. The Pro-life_(disambiguation) page also lists other uses of the term such as "Opposition to the death penalty", "Opposition to euthanasia" and "opposition to embryonic stem cell destruction." To me, this all strongly indicates that "anti-abortion" more precisely defines the movement described in this article.
    Consistent - "Anti-abortion" seems more consistent with other articles on Wikipedia. For example pro-life redirects to Anti-abortion movements; Pro-life-feminism redirects to Anti-abortion feminism; List of pro-life organizations in the United States links to List of anti-abortion organizations in the United States; Roman Catholic Pro-life movement redirects to Catholic Church and abortion, etc.In fact, besides this page, I couldn't find a single example of an "Anti-abortion" title redirecting to a "Pro-life" title.
Conclusion: If going purely by the guidelines outlined in WP:TITLE, there is no question that this article should be renamed to United States anti-abortion movement between the two options listed in the move request. Lonehexagon (talk) 23:15, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

I note the discussion at Talk:Anti-abortion movements#Requested move 1 June 2018 but decided to try to centralise discussion here. Happy to take it to another forum if others wish.

Let me try a little summary and analysis.

There are two opposing, recognizable factions on the issue of abortion morality and law, both deserving one or more articles.

One refers to themselves as pro choice and refers to the other as anti abortion. The other refers to themselves as pro life and the other by various names of which pro abortion is one. All four terms are in common use but highly politically charged.

Pro choice and pro life are both political slogans, and poorly describe the actual topics.

Anti abortion is accurate and NPOV. But a name for the opposing movement is problematical. Abortion rights still has a political flavour to it, and is not the preferred term used by either faction, both of them highly organised and well funded. So abortion rights is unlikely to be as common as pro choice or pro abortion. Can we do better? Andrewa (talk) 18:51, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

The preferred terms used by factions is what we're trying to avoid, as their preferred terms are spin. A good neutral source like the AP style guide is good to go with. Having said that, I think we can do well with less trying to name a "movement" (as if it's a single thing), and rather go with "Abortion rights support in the United State", "Abortion opposition in the United States". --Nat Gertler (talk)
In addition to "pro-choice," another preferred term among advocates of that position is "reproductive rights movement." That name, however, could muddy the waters, because it can be interpreted to include many other things besides abortion (pre-conception birth control, access to prenatal care, anti-forced-sterilization, etc.). Also, I don't see why a movement isn't a "thing." Of course, it's not centralized or monolithic. But see, for example, Anti-war movement, which includes a wide gamut of historical movements in one article.NightHeron (talk) 20:11, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
The preferred terms used by factions is what we're trying to avoid, as their preferred terms are spin... yes and no. We want article names that are neutral, see Wikipedia:Article titles#Neutrality in article titles. But that doesn't mean avoiding a common name just because it is also used in "spin" (positive or negative). The problem is, we consider only secondary sources in deciding what is a common name, and one of the most important techniques of spin is to make what's really a primary source look like a reliable secondary source. Difficult! Andrewa (talk) 06:54, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Three terms to avoid

As stated above I think that pro-life, pro-choice and pro-abortion are all terms that we need to avoid in article titles on this and related topics. This isn't a poll, but I'd welcome any comments on whether that's reasonable. If it is, then we may be able to build consensus for some sort of move. Andrewa (talk) 07:00, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Recognizing" things that may or may not exist

It is dangerous for Wikipedia to affirm in our voice that someone "recognizes" a right to do something, because then that shall be taken by the reader as indicating that Wikipedia (1) affirms that the right is granted by God and (2) is correctly being upheld by laws and governments. Is it not preferable to document what the group says (in this case the Episcopal Church) per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV and allow the reader to come to her own conclusion. This is following policy, and a pillar of Wikipedia. 2600:8800:1880:91E:5604:A6FF:FE38:4B26 (talk) 02:24, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

This is using definition 1 of recognize from this dictionary entry, not definition 3. We do not work under the assumption that all rights flow from G-d, which would be heavily POV and apply poorly to, say, legal discussion of Miranda rights, right to an attorney, copyrights, and so forth. --Nat Gertler (talk) 05:00, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Here is the actual quote from the source given for this statement, in case you haven't read it:
While the Episcopal Church recognizes a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy, the church condones abortion only in cases of rape or incest, cases in which a mother’s physical or mental health is at risk, or cases involving fetal abnormalities. The church forbids “abortion as a means of birth control, family planning, sex selection or any reason of mere convenience.”
The word "recognizes" is accurate here, and consistent with our source. Bradv 05:07, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
So you would have no problem with changing the line in the lede. It reads:
  • "Advocates generally argue that human life begins at conception and that the human zygote (or embryo or fetus) is a person and therefore has a right to life."
It could be changed to:
  • "Advocates recognize that human life begins at conception and that the human zygote (or embryo or fetus) is a person and therefore has a right to life."
It makes sense to me. 2600:8800:1880:91E:5604:A6FF:FE38:4B26 (talk) 19:40, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
No, for several reasons. "Rights" (like treaties) only exist in the recognition thereof; an unrecognized right is not actually a right. That's a different situation than "life". Also, you are taking something phrased for a majority of advocates and rewording it so that it falls to all advocates. --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:03, 20 June 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, that's not how "recognize" works. The appropriate parallel would be "the church recognizes that a woman has a right to terminate her pregnancy", which is not the same thing as what we've written. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:11, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Are non-primary sources needed here?

Why did someone flag the claims that state the positions of pro-life groups as being in need of non-primary sources? That's like saying "rather than quote Astronomy & Geophysics on their publication policy in order to find out what their publication policy is, we need to quote National Geographic discussing A&G's publication policy". If the article is stating the positions of pro-life organizations, those positions should be stated by pro-life organizations themselves. This is especially true given how unabashedly many media outlets misrepresent pro-life positions. This Vice article is a perfect example: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/nnm88x/the-uk-pro-life-movement-are-campaigning-non-stop-for-40-days

Despite the article's slanted title, subtitle, and completely unsupported assertion that the activists' positions are due to childhood trauma instead of the reasons they provide for their positions, the article is (despite my protestations) still used as a source for the "40 Days for Life" Wikipedia article. I understand that relying solely on primary sources can be problematic because there's no way to judge the relative notability of the various pro-life groups, and that creates issues in cases where they have conflicting positions. Still, is it really worse than secondary sources that don't even try to represent their opponents' arguments? Matthew V. Milone (talk) 14:52, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Edits and Missing History

Hi! I found a some information lacking in the “History” and “Legal and political aspects” sections and so have updated them to more thoroughly discuss the early development of the anti-abortion movement. Essentially, I added some context to the beginning of the “History” section about the liberalization of abortion laws and the emergence of primarily Catholic anti-abortion groups to mobilize against those laws. I also expanded discussion of the Republican Party’s platform against abortion to include the early development of that position (I do have a question here - would this information fit better within the “History” section, even though it’s specifically elaborating on a political position?). I also deleted a reference to the formation of the National Right to Life organization in Australia because this is a page about the anti-abortion movement in the United States; the article added no context to justify the inclusion of this seemingly irrelevant information, but if there’s a compelling reason to have it in I’m sure someone will replace it. Everything I've added has been cited with scholarly secondary sources and should follow Wikipedia guidelines.

Things I’ve noticed are still missing from this article, but that I haven’t had a chance to correct or expand myself, include: The first anti-abortion advocacy movement—that is, the mostly physician-led effort that succeeded in making abortion a crime in all states during the 19th century. Right now, this page treats the “United States anti-abortion movement” as the modern United States anti-abortion movement. Is this intentional, or just something no one has added yet? More information on the history and current status of the Democratic Party’s position on the anti-abortion movement.

I’m new to Wikipedia editing, so don’t know how to flag these in any official capacity (if there is a way to do so), so please let me know what I can do.

- Rouah162 (talk) 02:26, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Revert

I reverted the recent edit which removed the article title from the text. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 05:03, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

United States pro-life movement

This page was unnecessarily re-titled.

I believe this to be a form of vandalism, and wish for it to be changed back and locked.

This page went from "United States pro-life movement" to the current title "United States anti-abortion movement". This title puts a non neutral slant on the article.

If this name is to remain, other pages, such as the "United States abortion-rights movement" should be changed to "United States anti-life movement" to give it an equal slant.

71.66.190.162 (talk) 19:27, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

You can find the discussion that led to the moving of the page at Talk:United_States_anti-abortion_movement/Archive_7#Requested_move_19_May_2018. No vandalism was involved. --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:35, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Pro-Choice Slant?

When it comes to the health risks section of the page, it discusses groups that "peddle" in pseudo-science. The links do point to legitimate concerns, but shouldn't this be its own section? Just some cursory research on the scientific relationship between elective termination and negative health outcomes demonstrates that legitimate groups (at least the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists) have compiled real scientific research on the matter. More work needs to be done on this section.

```` Anonymous (5-25-2019)

We cannot just accept an advocacy's group claim that their own materials are accurate. As such, I'm undoing your additions for now. Reliable third-party sources is what we seek. --Nat Gertler (talk) 04:33, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
I see that RJensen has reinserted text on them, without finding a third party source. This is just another group making the same disproven claims (they also make the same disproven breast cancer claims as everyone) - do we have a reason to separate them out from the pack? --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:38, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
Because an advocacy group that purportedly consists of medical people is widely perceived as having more credibility than other advocacy groups? If a group of scientists or doctors is circulating claims that support a discredited fringe theory, doesn't the fact that they're doing that meet Wikipedia's notability standard? NightHeron (talk) 18:58, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
If this group has some special perception, then we should have third-party sources to show it. This is not a group of scientists or researchers, this is a group that claims some members who are practitioners, which is a separate situation. Merely having a good name does not make a group special --Nat Gertler (talk)
The Wikipedia article on the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists (the Wikipedia article has existed since 2005) states:
AAPLOG held the title of "special interest group" within ACOG for 40 years, from 1973 until 2013, when ACOG discontinued the designation of "special interest group."
Someone who reads that sentence in Wikipedia would be likely to perceive that the group has some credibility, especially if they don't know that it makes claims that contradict the scientific consensus. NightHeron (talk) 23:10, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
So you're saying that because Wikipedia promotes the group, Wikipedia should promote the group? That seems rather circular. Anyway, Wikipedia is not a reliable source. --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:29, 26 May 2019 (UTC)
No, I'm just suggesting that, since the group has had a Wikipedia page for 14 years, there must have been a consensus among some editors that the group is notable. Perhaps that was wrong, and the article on the group should be discussed at AfD. In that case it would be good to have some RS that say that the group is insignificant and that ACOG was wrong to have given it the title "special interest group" for 40 years. If, on the other hand, the group is notable, then the fact that it's circulating bogus claims while claiming to be a scientific group is also notable, in which case the paragraph under discussion should remain.
By the way, ACOG itself is a mainstream organization, and not anti-abortion. According to its Wikipedia article,
In 1986, the organization successfully challenged an anti-abortion law in Pennsylvania before the U.S. Supreme Court in Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
NightHeron (talk) 00:31, 27 May 2019 (UTC)
Now, do we have a reliable source saying that the group is circulating false claims, or is that just WP:SYNTHESIS? We are for some reason separating this group out from larger, more significant groups that we talk about as a set in the paragraphs above this one, for which we have sources. Wikipedia is really supposed to be built around what reliable, third-party sources are saying. --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:45, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

I found this quote from this 2018 literature review on abortion and mental health. I think it is relevant to the discussion at hand. "Evidence-based medicine is centered on the idea that there must be real evidence of benefits that outweigh the risks associated with a medical intervention. But there are no statistically validated medical studies showing that women facing any specific disease or fetal anomaly fare better if they have an abortion compared to similar women who allow the pregnancy to continue to a natural outcome. Nor is there evidence of any mental health benefits. As a result, in approaching a risk–benefits assessment, there are literally no studies to place in the benefits column of an evidence-based risk–benefits analysis. Conversely, there are literally hundreds of studies with statistically significant risks (both physical and mental) associated with abortion which must be considered in weighing abortion’s potential risks against the patient’s hoped for benefits... In this regard, induced abortion is an anomaly. It is the only medical treatment for which the principles of evidence-based medicine are routinely ignored, not for medical reasons, but by appeals to abortion being a fundamental civil right or a public policy tool for population control. From these vantage points, there has arisen an a priori premise that abortion should presumed to be safe and beneficial. Therefore, according to defenders of abortion, the burden of proving the safety and efficacy of abortion is no longer on them. Instead, abortion skeptics must prove that abortion is the sole and direct cause of harm to women—and not just a few unfortunate women, but a large proportion of women." I've removed the reference numbers for readability. 184.166.34.46 (talk) 05:54, 29 June 2019 (UTC)

no zero visible relevancy to the topic at hand. --Nat Gertler (talk) 06:11, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
[2] [3] (borrowed from the main Abortion article). —PaleoNeonate – 17:00, 29 June 2019 (UTC)
I'm confused how this is not relevant. It shows the reader that the scientific evidence, whether anti-abortion or pro-abortion is marred by politics. That seems, to me, to be directly relevant to the political movements surrounding this and gives the reader an accurate view that mainstream organizations as well as individual academics/doctors are not guaranteed to be reliable sources from a medical perspective. It seems dishonest not to include this in an already extensive article. I agree that this evidence may be slightly slanted to the anti-abortion movement perspective, but that doesn't invalidate its relevance or usefulness as it directly pertains to the topic at hand. If it isn't mentioned here, maybe it could be included in a separate wikipedia page, though I don't know which page. 184.166.34.46 (talk) 12:39, 10 July 2019 (MST)
There is nothing in the piece that says it relates to the anti-abortion movement. For us to say that it does is thus a form of original research, which is not what Wikipedia is for. There are plenty of other articles on Wikipedia regarding abortion, and I'm not saying this is not relevant to any of them, just discussing the edits here. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:50, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Most of the citations in this section count as original research. There is no need to point towards contradicting sources against this alleged link of abortion and breast cancer unless there is active attempt to editorialize and an attempt to change the characterization of the anti-abortion movement. Especially the connection between state legislatures and their policies is clearly not just a discussion about the movement itself and its alleged claims. Rather, that is a consequence of the movement, a result. If any contravening evidence is included, that is an editorialization, not an unbiased framing. I'm not asking for the quote to be included directly in the article text. However, a simple inclusion as a quote in the citation box would suffice alongside a brief blurb that, without slant for or against abortion related science, would get to the essence that 'Abortion related research is not aligned with the medical standard.' I think that's more than fair, especially because having a variety of perspectives (considering that editorialization is present) is the only way to add to the text and reduce slant. It's that or remove contravening evidence. 184.166.34.46 (talk) 16:22, 20 July 2019 (MST)

NRLC

Cited source says that it was founded (as an independent organization from the Family Life Bureau) in 1973 as part of the post-Roe wave, not in 1968. I would suggest rephrasing the text if you feel that it's inappropriate, rather than citing information to a source that doesn't contain it. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:39, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Better to discuss here before making contentious edits

Edit5001: It's much better to discuss an edit on a contentious article here before inserting it into the article (except for minor edits).

Your rewording of the sentence about the 2019 Gallup poll makes it very confusing and imprecise. A 1-digit percentage difference could mean that they're not close at all (such as 12% vs 21%). Your wording gives no information at all about what the percentages were. The earlier wording is a direct quote from the source, and gives precise, unbiased summary information. Please restore the earlier wording (that is, self-revert). Thank you. NightHeron (talk) 01:10, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

NightHeron The Gallup poll covers more than just the question that you added. It also covers the percentages who identify as pro-life vs pro-choice, as well as what percentage support abortion "only under some circumstances". We have the options of either just writing the poll's findings on each issue, or - for the sake of brevity - noting that the poll found men and women's views were quite similar on all questions. I don't really care which option we choose of those two but I opted for brevity. Technically we could make it more precise and say "low single digits", as the biggest difference between the sexes the poll found was 5%. Edit5001 (talk) 01:20, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
Edit5001 The earlier wording summarizes the source exactly as in the source. The source's "story highlights" consist of 3 bullet points, of which I quoted the first 2. I did not quote the 3rd bullet point partly for brevity and also because it does not contain a gender comparison and so is not relevant to the first part of the sentence. My summary of the source, quoted directly from the source, is accurate, unbiased, and readable. NightHeron (talk) 01:37, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
That isn't really a "summary" so much as "highlights", as the article puts it. While I'd prefer the current version, if you insist we should include the stats of the first question then we should also include the stats of the two others too as they synthesize to give a fuller understanding of where everyone in the US stands. Edit5001 (talk) 01:53, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
I corrected a big error in your edit (getting the men's and women's statistics reversed), added the 3rd summary point from the "highlights" section of the source, and removed the vague and hard-to-interpret sentence about identifying with the political-spin words "pro-life" or "pro-choice". NightHeron (talk) 04:21, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
I'm fine with your changes outside of the addition of the college part, as many different other educational levels were surveyed, and it's worth pointing out that the "pro-life/pro-choice" part of the poll was an important section of it and the survey conductors are the ones using the two words, not Wikivoice. Edit5001 (talk) 04:58, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
Edit5001: Please correct the last sentence there, which I left in. I just noticed that the statistics must be wrong (probably men and women reversed as in your earlier sentence that I corrected). I couldn't find it in the source; at least it wasn't highlighted. NightHeron (talk) 12:04, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

"False" seems like a dishonest characterization

Avatar317 Is a claim "false", even when it's based on sound scientific research, simply because leading medical organizations have disagreed with it? Even in recent studies that look for increased breast cancer risk among abortion recipients, such as this one[1] they acknowledge; "Different epidemiological studies have indicated conflicting information about the association of induced abortion (IA) with breast cancer risk." They even go as far as to say; "After subgroup analysis, our study showed that IA might increase the risk of breast cancer in parous women, but in the nulliparous..."

In other words, they don't simply dismiss one side as "false", but acknowledge there has been conflicting research. Would it not be a better and more honest way to phrase the breast cancer-related claims as "conflicting with research done by international medical organizations", rather than simply saying they're "false"? I'm not going to push hard on this, but it's something to think about. Edit5001 (talk) 06:06, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Furthermore, I think an extremely partisan political opinion piece from the Rolling Stone written by an open pro-abortion feminist is an absolutely spurious source to cite on crisis pregnancy centers. Obvious NPOV problems with using that article for important statements. Edit5001 (talk) 06:47, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Edit5001: Please read WP:AGF, and do not accuse other editors of being "dishonest". The source you cite says specifically that for women who have not given birth, there is no association between abortion and breast cancer risk. For women who have given birth there "might" be a connection. But the consensus of medical opinion is that there is no convincing evidence for such a connection for any women. The Crisis Pregnancy Centers tell women (including large numbers of women who have never given birth) that there's an increased risk of breast cancer if they get an abortion. They state this claim as if it were a medical fact. This is false. Saying it's false is not dishonest. NightHeron (talk) 12:56, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
Do they "state it as medical fact", or do they simply warn of the possibility of it (unlike abortion providers, who sweep the entire possible connection under the rug as this article does?)? Pretty significant difference. Edit5001 (talk) 13:06, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
They state as a fact that there's an increased risk. Concerning abortion providers, it would be irresponsible for anyone to alarm a patient by telling them of a remote possibility which the consensus of medical opinion believes evidence does not support. A woman who goes to an abortion provider for an abortion has already made the decision, and the provider is not in the business of trying to convince women to have abortions. In contrast, the Crisis Pregnancy Centers are in the business of convincing women not to have abortions. The abortion provider has no interest in presenting false information to a woman, whereas the basic strategy of the CPCs is to provide false information in order to scare the woman out of wanting an abortion. NightHeron (talk) 13:23, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
Talking about something as an abortion risk when it's stated by scientifically valid studies (yes, a small minority, but still valid science) is not presenting "false" information. It's presenting highly contested information.
The abortion provider has direct interest in women obtaining abortions without question because if women weren't getting abortions, abortion providers would be out of jobs and all of their funding. Edit5001 (talk) 13:33, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
When fringe or small-minority viewpoints (denial of anthropogenic climate change, belief that vaccines cause autism, belief that abortions increase breast cancer risk) are presented as if they're facts, that's a falsehood.
And do doctors who earn money from delivering babies go around trying to talk women out of abortion? I doubt it. Do you have any evidence that doctors who perform abortions try to convince women who might not be inclined to have an abortion that they should have one? NightHeron (talk) 15:47, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
Is there a page on Wikipedia that directly describes when it's fitting to call a stance "false" as opposed to something like "highly contested" or "controversial"?
At least one Planned Parenthood outlet has hyped abortion over childbirth. See: https://twitter.com/PPBlackComm/status/925380307242582016?s=20 Another abortion lobby ad showed a little girl and said "She deserves to be a choice." https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/this-pro-abortion-ad-is-the-most-ghoulish-thing-youll-see-today So at least some organizations engage in this. We also have several statements of former employees who claim that Planned Parenthood nudges women toward abortions. See: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/planned-parenthood-abortion-quotas/ Edit5001 (talk) 16:25, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
Planned Parenthood has long been a target of slander and disinformation in the right-wing media and blogosphere. In reality, it is a nonprofit organization that supplies a wide range of services to women. Many of its facilities do not even perform abortions. Moreover, it has no need to convince women to have abortions. Already, because of state TRAP laws, there aren't enough providers to meet the demand. It is true, though, that Planned Parenthood believes that children fare better if they're the result of planned parenthood and not an unwanted pregnancy, where the mother did not feel ready financially or psychologically to be a parent. Do you have any reliable source for the claim that Planned Parenthood gives false information to patients? NightHeron (talk) 21:32, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
A non-profit that gets hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts every year. I think they profit plenty. Your other question is moving the goalposts, I believe I adequately gave evidence that some abortion providers actively point women in the direction of abortion over childbirth. Edit5001 (talk) 21:59, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

A reminder here that Wikipedia is NOT A FORUM WP:NOTFORUM for discussion of the topic's merits. Stick to what proof you have for improvements to the article. Let's stay on topic here.

There are plenty of references in multiple articles here (CPC, this article, and others) that have more than sufficient references to prove that CPC's lie to women and provide known misinformation. As an example, no one is talking about the possibility that vaping can cause brain/pancreatic/liver/breast/testicular/skin cancers, because no causal links have yet been found. That is why it is false/misleading/lying to talk about the abortion/breast cancer non-link. And that's what the sources characterize it as: misinformation and lying. ---Avatar317(talk) 23:01, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Avatar317 Except there have been valid scientific studies that linked abortions to increased chance of breast cancer. They are a tiny portion of the total research, but they aren't made up, which would actually justify the words "lie", "misinformation", etc. I provided a 2018 study above thats very words say ""Different epidemiological studies have indicated conflicting information about the association of induced abortion (IA) with breast cancer risk." They even go as far as to say; "After subgroup analysis, our study showed that IA might increase the risk of breast cancer in parous women, but in the nulliparous...""
Because this type of research does actually exist, and it's not scientifically invalid (like, say, snake-oil), the use of "lie" and "pseudoscience" still seem unjustified. Edit5001 (talk) 13:33, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
I'd also like to point out that the Abortion–breast cancer hypothesis does not refer to it as "misinformation" or "lies". Not once do either of those words appear on the page. The word "pseudoscience" only appears in relation to what critics of the hypothesis have said. The page actually says what I've suggested the wording be here, that the hypothesis "is at odds with mainstream scientific opinion and is rejected by major medical professional organizations". Edit5001 (talk) 00:58, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://journals.lww.com/md-journal/Fulltext/2018/01190/Induced_abortion_and_breast_cancer__An_updated.23.aspx

Medical definitions says a fetus is "unborn offspring"

See: Medicine.net "An unborn offspring". Therefor it's not a matter of disputing "medical" terms or definitions. Edit5001 (talk) 00:53, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Medicine.net is a website for the general that defines medical terms using words that are more easily understandable to a broad public. fetus is the medical term that is being defined in the cited source. Those with an anti-abortion POV seem to dislike the public use of medical terms such as zygote, embryo, and fetus, but that doesn't change the fact that those are medical terms. NightHeron (talk) 01:31, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
1) I agree completely with NightHeron's point above. 2) @Edit5001: WHY do you object to calling terms such as zygote, embryo, and fetus "medical" terms? ---Avatar317(talk) 06:30, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
Because it isn't a matter of "medical terms" vs "terms". The medical terms often match up with things pro-lifers argue. To frame it "Oh these pro-lifers have a problem with medical words" is a pro-choice slant. Edit5001 (talk) 17:01, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
It's not a slant, it's a fact. Surely you're familiar with the anti-abortion literature, which almost never uses the medical terms, preferring such loaded terms as baby (for a fetus), unborn child, etc. NightHeron (talk) 18:21, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
A fetus is defined as "unborn offspring", are you accusing groups like medicine.net of using loaded terms? The fact is even medical professionals sometimes call or define a fetus as an unborn baby. This isn't some black and white issue like you're trying to make it out to be. Edit5001 (talk) 23:48, 24 December 2019 (UTC)
The medical terms distinguish between the different stages of development from a fertilized egg to a delivered baby 9 months later: blastomere, zygote, embryo, fetus, viable fetus, newborn. Those who agree with the official Catholic POV that it's a human being requiring full legal protection from the moment of fertilization obviously don't like to use these medical terms. The terms I mentioned that are very common in the anti-abortion literature -- baby or unborn child for a fetus or embryo or zygote or blastomere -- are consistent with their POV, but at variance with the scientific terminology. NightHeron (talk) 00:22, 25 December 2019 (UTC)
  • It's WP:SYNTH / WP:OR to rely on a source that isn't about the United States anti-abortion movement for something like that anyway. In the context of this article, we have to rely on how the sources about this subject have covered it, with some consideration for maintaining a neutral WP:TONE (as fraught as that can be in a situation where language is as contested as this.) --Aquillion (talk) 05:29, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Edits on birth control post-fertilization and pre-implantation

First, I changed "embryo" to "zygote" (which is the correct term) and removed the POV phraseology about "starving." Second, I changed "widespread scientific consensus" to "view" because the source from the NY Times does not say that there's a widespread scientific consensus but only that "emerging data suggest," which is much weaker. There is definitely a scientific consensus that, in the words of the article's title, contraceptives are not "abortion-inducing." That's because the scientific view is that pregnancy is not established until implantation has occurred, and so an action that prevents pregnancy before implantation is not an abortion. The anti-abortion movement disputes this. NightHeron (talk) 15:12, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Mental health risks section

The last sentence under "Abortion health risk claims" is somewhat misleading in its wording--"Some U.S. state legislatures have mandated that patients be told that abortion increases their risk of depression and suicide, despite the fact that such risks...are contradicted by mainstream organizations of mental-health professionals such as the American Psychological Association," but the citations here seem to disagree. The APA and USA Today sources mainly discuss mental health effects after a single abortion, while this part of the sentence reads as more general, like these sources contradict the idea that any abortion, not just a first, can trigger mental health issues.
The APA article also quotes Dr. Brenda Major as saying "'the evidence regarding the relative mental health risks associated with multiple abortions is more uncertain'", along with its task force in saying that "'global statements about the psychological impact of abortion can be misleading'".
Could the part of the article I quoted be reworded to better reflect its citations? I would do it, but I'm new and wanted to discuss it first. Gessit (talk) 20:41, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

The statement is fine as it is. This article is not where we give medical advice. The subject at hand is that some state legislatures require statements to be made to women seeking an abortion that have no basis in medicine or science; the statement accurately reflects that. ---Avatar317(talk) 05:27, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Anti-abortion views predominated

The lead currently states:

Before the Supreme Court 1973 decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, anti-abortion views predominated and found expression...

There's nothing in the body of the article that justifies this assertion in the lead, and in any case, there is no source for it. If this is meant to be about laws, they didn't "predominate", they were universal (in the U.S.) before 1973. If this assertion is really about "views", i.e., public opinion, there's no source for this, and it's not clear if it even can be sourced, because it might not be true.

Minor point: that should be "1973 S.C. decisions", not the other way round. Mathglot (talk) 02:05, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Good point. However, anti-abortion laws were not universal all the way up to 1973. For example, Hawaii and New York State had legalized abortion earlier. (According to [4] abortion was legal in 6 states before Roe v. Wade.) NightHeron (talk) 11:04, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Other parties

The legal and political talks about Republican and democratic parties. How about the minor parties like libertarian, American constitutional, Solodaeity party, etc?69.47.47.12 (talk) 03:21, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Not a good idea, per WP:UNDUE. In the US political system minor parties have little significance, and their positions on abortion are referenced far, far less in reliable sources. NightHeron (talk) 10:31, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Change Name of Article

Movement prefers to be called pro-life. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.143.179.54 (talk) 02:59, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

We have other guidelines than what the subject may most desire. --Nat Gertler (talk) 03:45, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

The common usage term is "pro-life". I'm surprised that Wikipedia is allowing naming to be decided by politically driven motives. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia that provides npov information and doesn't attempt to enter the argument. I'm pro-choice but this is disappointing. 8.45.132.4 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 18:21, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

I'd further add that changing the name to "Anti-abortion" will not somehow change which side of the issue people will fall on anyways. 8.45.132.4 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 18:34, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Please read the FAQ at the top of the Anti-abortion movements talk-page [5]. NightHeron (talk) 19:21, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Anti-abortion is a politically fabricated title. People pertaining to pro-life or right to life movement do not refer to themselves as anti-abortionists. If I tell someone my name is Bob, I expect to be called bob, not frank. 2600:100C:B225:5E95:6DF8:E090:B16D:29AD (talk) 20:43, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

By your example: Your real name is Frank, and you are lying that your name is Bob? Because these people are not pro-life, do not care about human lives, and have dedicated their lives to campaigns of violence. See Anti-abortion violence for lists of murders, attempted murders, assaults, kidnappings, arsons, and bombings by American "pro-life" activists. Dimadick (talk) 10:18, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Pro-forced birth movement

This article should be updated to accurately present the Jesua freaks' movement as pro-forced-birth, as if women were cattle. They believe women should be treated as cattle. 2600:8804:202:2F00:417E:4236:4BF5:9FDB (talk) 08:39, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

I personally agree, but Wikipedia content must be supported with reliable sources. Neither you nor I can add such a description without having a source that backs up the whatever content we add. I haven't ever looked. Maybe there is something out there. HiLo48 (talk) 08:48, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
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