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Talk:History of abortion/Archive 2

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Archive 1Archive 2

User:Fictio-cedit-veritati explains removal of information

I have just deleted some unfounded claims revolving around Christianity and abortion. These were all edits that were made and accepted last November. Just recently I became aware that the problem editor that kept reverting changes back (that the anonymous user had so kindly made) had changed things back again; so I have simply manually reverted.

I am well versed Catholic Doctrine and found these corrections quite important to make. Without them, the casual reader is left with an impression that there was a legitimate debate within the Church about whether abortion was a sin. This is simply false. The Catholic Church (which is the synonymous with the early Christians talked of in this article), has always taught, as doctrine, that abortion is a mortal sin, and that life begins at conception. [1] While there were and are people within the Church that question this teaching, both in their words, and their actions, the doctrine has never changed. I can not overstate how important this distinction is. In recent times, however, this fact has been put under debate by many sources, claiming that it is not so- one of these sources was even sited in part of the article that I removed. These sources, that debate the history of the Church's unwavering opposition to abortion, are easily discredited. They are politically inspired, misrepresent history, and most importantly of all, fail to have a nihil obstat rating; making them completely discredited in any authoritative Catholic sense.

As to the dateline article, there are several problems. The fist of which is it is mass media! Wikipedia does not consider a news story to be credible historical information! Furthermore, upon going to the website, I found that not only were some of the claims that it was cited for no where to be found, but some of them even refuted!

In summery, please understand that I am well versed in Catholic Doctrine, have read many important texts in their original Latin (Gration, Aquinas, et cetera), and that before any more attempts at changing this back occur, to please, have a chat with me. As I said before, we have a problem in the past with an editor (v.s.). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fictio-cedit-veritati (talk • contribs) 03:12, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm afraid we can't just accept your word for it as a scholar - you must cite reliable sources. In particular, since your claim that the Church has always taught that life begins at conception is contradicted by, y'know, Augustine and Aquinas, as well as loads of secondary sources, your sourcing would have to be really good to outweigh those. An anti-abortion website like Catholic Answers simply isn't going to cut it. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:03, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for you feedback. It is certainty true that both Aquinas and Augustine wrote about abortion, and Aquinas famously said that (in the case of a male) life begins 40 days after conception. He also, however, went on to explain how abortion, at any point after conception, was a sin against natural law. My source for this will be his work entailed "Commentary on Sentences" Book 4, Distinction 1, Article 3. I looked online for a English translation and found none, perhaps you can find one in a library. Another point that must be made, however, is that, just because Aquinas wrote something (even if he wrote that the Church should fund abortions!) it has absolutely no weight in the sense of doctrine. Doctrine can only be declared by a either the pope via ex cathedra statement, or an ecclesiastical council. A good source for this would be Gratian's Decretum, and there are certainly English translations of it.

In summery, while Aquinas is certainly important in Catholic theology, his work is by no means automatically considered doctrine (same goes for Augustine). Furthermore, Aquinas makes it very clear (v.s.) that he is absolutely opposed to abortion.

Your labeling of Catholic Answers as an anit-abortion website is, at minimum, misleading. While, obviously, the website is pro-life, its purpose is not to push this aspect of their philosophy. But now we're arguing semantics. I selected that article because it tied in many sources into one, clear, concise article, in English. The majority of the sources it cites are in Greek and Latin, further necessitating it. So are you calling into question the validity of the their sources? Also, and very importantly, the article has obtained a nihil obstat from the censor librorum. This all being said, it is a *very* well sourced and also verified article. --Fictio-cedit-veritati (talk) 04:59, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ http://www.catholic.com/library/Abortion.asp

Use of term "unwanted pregnancies" in lead

The second sentence of the lead begins "Unwanted pregnancies were terminated through a number of methods . . . " The use of the term "unwanted pregnancies," especially when linked (as it is) to unintended pregnancy is ill-advised here. Unintended pregnancies are only sometimes unwanted and unwanted pregnancies may have originally been intended (people can change their minds). Moreover, "unwanted pregnancy," today, almost always refers to a pregnancy which the pregnant woman herself does not want. Historically, however, and even in some parts of the world today, many abortions have been performed on unwilling women. The use of the term "unwanted pregnancies" in our article, therefore, leads the reader to think exclusively of abortion in terms of the "everyday unwanted pregnancy" that we are most familiar with rather than abortion in its larger historical context. Badmintonhist (talk) 23:52, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

PS: Simply saying "pregnancies were terminated . . . " avoids the above mentioned problems. Also, since obviously somebody doesn't want the pregnancy to continue, "unwanted pregnancy" is redundant.

The article that is linked to is about both unwanted pregnancies and mistimed pregnancies. Just because one the more general unintended pregnancy name is used to store the article does not make it any less about the other sub-topics.
See WP:Build the web#Link specificity. There it says that:
  1. "Always link to the article on the most specific topic appropriate to the context from which you link" Since unwanted pregnancy is more specific than pregnancy, and, as you note, it is obvious that "pregnancy" in this context refers to unwanted pregnancy, so linking to the more specific article is preferred.
  2. "If an article on the specific topic does not yet exist, create a redirect page to the article about a more general topic" Which in essence is what was done (although in this case the redirect already existed).
Linking to the unintended pregnancy article, but just using the text "pregnancy" would be okay, though I prefer the clarity of having the linked item in the text (when it doesn't interfere with legibility).
The point about unwanted by whom is reasonable, and should be mentioned or incorporated into the article on unwanted pregnancy. (Just because it currently primarily covers unwanted by the parents doesn't mean it can't cover the topic more completely.) I know a couple sources that cover the problems of defining unintended/etc. pregnancy that have yet to incorporate. If you have suggestions of good sources on the subject, please share them on talk:unintended pregnancy. Zodon (talk) 08:39, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
Well argued, but not convincing to me. What we know for certain is that the history of abortion has involved the aborting of fetuses which at least one person didn't want, but these instances have not been limited to unwanted pregnancies or unintended pregnancies as either of these terms is commonly used today, or as they are described in the linked article. Therefore the use of the term "unwanted pregnancies" and the link to that article are inappropriate. Badmintonhist (talk) 15:28, 24 September 2011 (UTC)
So what WP:MEDRS do you have to support the assertion that many abortions were performed on pregnancies that were desired by one or both of the couple involved? I see nothing about this in this article at this point. Certainly there are a few legal cases floating around, but nothing here to suggest that this was common. Zodon (talk) 06:42, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
It doesn't really matter, Zodon, if it has been "common." What matters is that abortions always involve pregnancies but they don't always involve pregnancies that are unwanted by the pregnant woman. Therefore it is better to use "pregnances" in the second sentence of the lead than it is to use "unwanted pregnancies." However, there's plenty of evidence that coerced abortions not only were performed but are still performed [1] [2] Badmintonhist (talk) 15:52, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Possible use of abortifacients in the torah/ancient testament

See Talk:Abortifacient#Possible_use_of_abortifacients_in_the_torah.2Fancient_testament (to avoid unnecessary duplication). 76.10.128.192 (talk) 06:26, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Updating the Abortion Law section

For being the main page about the history of abortion, this page could be developed further. It covers the medical aspect of abortion and the way society's views changed on the subject over the years, but it has little to nothing written about the effect of reproduction legislation on populations and focuses more on distant history than it does on recent events. Thus, I would like to add to this particular section of the page. I feel this is important because as the issue is being hotly debated in presidential candidate debates and in political bodies all over the United States, it is important that the discussion come with a knowledge of history, so that mistakes are not repeated. y updating and rearranging the set of pages surrounding the history of abortion, it would provide those interested in the topic with more thorough information that would better inform their opinions on the subject matter and hopefully lead to better debates and better written legislation.

At the moment, this section is mostly a short summary and an incomplete timeline split up between two pages detailing reproductive legislation from around the world; the 'see also' page only has three links. The Abortion Law page itself only talks about current abortion law, and the pages specializing in abortion in certain countries are also more focused on the present than they are on past legislation. No page goes into detail as to why these laws were implemented, how these laws affected a population, or why they may have been revoked. I plan to be consolidate and link all these pages to each other in order to eliminate redundancy and ensure cohesiveness. Information on the effects of said laws also need to be included to give a more holistic view of the situations they present.

I intend to rename the section "Legal: History of abortion law" as "Abortion Law" and reorganize it as such:


3.1 Timeline of reproductive rights legislation (either link to page, move timeline information already present on this page and consolidate it on the timeline page, or consolidate all the information onto this page; opinions would be appreciated)
3.1.1 17th century to 19th century
3.1.2 1920s to 1960s
3.1.3 1970s to present
3.2 Effects of legislation on population (proposed new section and text; might not be able to add all countries, but will for sure do Romania and China)
3.2.1 China (proposed new section and text; link to "Abortion in China" page, which will also hopefully be updated)
3.2.2 Romania (proposed new section and text; link to "Abortion in Romania" page, which will also hopefully be updated)
3.2.3 India (proposed new section and text; link to "Abortion in India" page, which will also hopefully be updated)
3.2.4 Japan (proposed new section and text; link to "Abortion in Japan")
3.3. Current Abortion Law (proposed new section and text; will link to "Abortion Law" page)
3.3.1 Albania
3.3.2 Andorra, etc. (proposed new sections and text; these countries will be chosen based on the already existing list "abortion by country". A link will be included to each country's page, followed by a very brief summary based on already existing information)


I would be extremely grateful for any thoughts and suggestions in regards to my current plan. Thank you! Scb3 (talk) 06:12, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I think I'm going to move the timeline to the page that focuses on the timeline so that this page doesn't look so cluttered. If there are any opposing opinions, please let me know. Scb3 (talk) 00:50, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Upon reflection, instead of adding a section called "current abortion law" and linking to each individual country page, I am just going to add the category "abortion by country" to the See Also list and remove that proposed section altogether. This should keep the line between current and historical information clear. Scb3 (talk) 02:34, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

An interesting and insightful read. I have a few suggestions for my review, though. In the "China" subsection, your use of the term "legitimate" begs neutrality; I think the sentence would stand adequately without the word. Also, there are no citations in the "Romania" subsection. Otherwise, your additions to this article are much appreciated! Rachelpop- (talk) 15:05, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
I used "legitimate" in order to express that there is real reason for the concern rather than the worry be an unfounded myth. If you feel that it ruins the sense of neutrality, however, then I can remove it. I will also add citations to the Romania section. Thanks!Scb3 (talk) 05:28, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Critique

  1. grammar issues: colon in ‘Medical: Practice & methods of abortion’ unnecessary, plus, I don’t know if the ampersand is appropriate; there were a few minor ones I fixed for you
  2. though I think the classical literature references section is fascinating, it could be more concise; perhaps shrink it down instead of having so many different examples? also, does ‘natural abortifacients’ really belong here as a subsection?
  3. I also think the title ‘Social: History of abortion debate,’ ‘Legal: History of abortion law’ section title is awkward
  4. 5th century to 16th century section needs work - no real introduction, and the few bullet points are sporadic

Overall, really fascinating article. Other than these little things, I don’t think it needs much work. Perhaps do a final check through for sentence structure/punctuation. Ellyhutch (talk) 03:00, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Hello! Thank you for the time and critique, but I unfortunately did not work on any of those sections. My focus was on the effects of legislation. I can go through, however, and see what I can do based on the suggestions you have provided. Thanks again! Scb3 (talk) 05:30, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions for Improvement

Overall, I thought this Wiki page was well-written, thorough, and touched on several important aspects on the history of abortion. What I particularly liked was that various countries were described in terms of abortion and that the links to the countries were well written and in-depth. A few things can be improved on though:

1) In the “17th Century to Present” section you need to sound more neutral; take out “merely” when you say “merely attempting…” and “Simply” from the following sentence.

2) The title “Legal: History of Abortion Law” sounds awkward, try renaming it. Also, this section is a little wordy and could be made more concise so I would recommend cutting it down a bit. Also, can you define the Latin words (quasi homocide, Leges Henrici Primi, rerum natura) - I think that defining these words would make the section easier to understand for readers who do not know what they mean.

Good luck and great work so far! TasneemIslam1025 (talk) 02:58, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Hello! I'm glad you thought the sections linking to the countries were done well, as they were the sections and pages I worked on. I did not work on the other sections you mentioned, but I will go through and see what I can do about improving them based on the suggestions you have given me. Thanks! Scb3 (talk) 05:32, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Abortion advocacy movement coverage ready for community feedback

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Abortion advocacy movement coverage, an RFC that will affect the title of the articles currently titled Support for the legalization of abortion and Opposition to legal abortion if consensus is found in favor of its conclusions, is now in its community feedback phase and ready for editors to register opinions and arguments. Please add your feedback; thanks! —chaos5023 (talk) 18:01, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Reorganization

The material dealing with pre-5th century doesn't divide well between "Practice and methods", "debate" and "law". I'm going to boldly move this material into a single section at the start of the article; feel free to revert and discuss if the results aren't to your liking. (PS: This article is pretty well written overall; nice work!) GaramondLethe 23:13, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

With all the Roman material in one place, there's "While abortion is not mentioned in the Greek and Roman laws" and "In Rome, abortion was forbidden and sometimes severely punished by the jurisprudence" and "abortion was a crime in Athens against the husband, if his wife was pregnant when he died, since his unborn child could have claimed the estate". And I managed to duplicate somebody else's cite to The Oxford Classical Dictionary to book. Ok, let's start fixing things..... GaramondLethe 23:47, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I think I've gotten the self-contradictory bits under control. Comments are welcome.GaramondLethe 00:13, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

The following content may be useful for editing the subsection Classical Rome (in the section Prehistory to 5th Century), but a date is lacking, so I don't know whether it preceded Christianization (it did not if Septimius Severus was always of one view on the matter); if it was a pre-Christianization view, it should be added to the article and the opening sentence ("No evidences [sic] exists for the illegality of abortion under the Roman republic.") should be amended:

Classical Roman law did little to restrict private attempts to curb fertility, and abortion was permitted if the husband consented; for example, Marcian (D. 47.11.4) observes that Septimius Severus exiled a woman who "defrauded her husband of children" by obtaining an abortion. The primary legal interest, then, is protecting the husband's expectation of children .... The husband's rights could last beyond the marriage; Severus also exiled a woman who, after a divorce, aborted her fetus "to avoid bearing a son for her now hateful husband" (see Tryphoninus, D. 48.19.39). See also Cases 47–48.<ref name="CasebkRomanFamL-FrierMcGinn-p195">Frier, Bruce W., & Thomas A.J. McGinn, ''A Casebook on Roman Family Law'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press (Classical Resources ser. (American Philological Association), no. 5), [pbk.] [1st printing?] 2004 (ISBN 0-19-516186-6)), p. 195 (author Frier prof. classics & Roman law, Univ. of Michigan, & coauthor McGinn assoc. prof. classical studies, Vanderbilt Univ., both per cover IV) (book an introduction to areas of law, per p. [v] (''Preface''), used in undergraduate classes, per p. vii (''Preface''), along with "a general handbook on Roman law", per p. vii (''Preface'') and, recommended by coauthors, a book on "legal reasoning", per p. vii (''Preface'') and see p. 321 ("chapter only samples relevant case law ....")).</ref>

I don't have the book anymore, so I don't have Cases 47–48 in the book, numbered by the book's modern authors, and I probably don't have the expansions of the internal citations.

Nick Levinson (talk) 18:22, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

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Unsupported statements

In the 18th–19th centuries various doctors, clerics, and social reformers successfully pushed for an all-out ban on abortion.This sentence seems incorrect on its face. The only statement in the article itself 1765 – Post-quickening abortion was no longer considered homicide in England seems to say just the opposite. When was abortion banned in - Japan. China, India, the rest of the British Empire, France, and Turkey? Name some of these social reformers and clerics in non-western societies. Maybe a more correct sentence would be In the 19th century various doctors, clerics, and social reformers pushed for an all-out ban on abortion in the UK and USA. Nitpyck (talk) 13:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

"19th-century medicine saw tremendous advances in the fields of surgery, anaesthesia, and sanitation. Social attitudes towards abortion shifted during this period under the influence of Victorian morality, and abortion, especially in the English-speaking world, was made illegal. There were a number of factors that contributed to this shift in opinion about abortion in the early 19th century. In the United States, where physicians were the leading advocates of abortion criminalization laws, advances in medical knowledge played a significant role in influencing anti-abortion opinion. Science had discovered that conception inaugurated a more or less continuous process of development, which would produce a new human being if uninterrupted. Moreover, quickening was found to be neither more nor less crucial in the process of gestation than any other step." No citations for these statements2600:8800:4181:2200:21B3:463A:3D33:69ED (talk) 04:07, 26 June 2016 (UTC)

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Undue emphasis/editorializing in Criminalization section

I shortened a paragraph in this section to remove undue emphasis and slightly changed wording to remove editorializing. An editor can say that, according to a certain source, in the early 19th century some physicians made a certain argument to justify their advocacy of criminalization. But an editor should not state as a fact that the doctors' advocacy was based on science and logic.NightHeron (talk) 15:24, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Misleading sentence

I deleted a sentence about not all translations of the Biblical passage about bitter herbs using the term "miscarry". The alternative translation in the source for that sentence is as follows: "if she be defiled, and having despised her husband be guilty of adultery, the malediction shall go through her, and her belly swelling, her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse, and an example to all the people. But if she be not defiled, she shall not be hurt, and shall bear children." In this translation the statement that if she is innocent she will bear children makes it clear that the meaning is the same as in the other translation but just the wording is different. Calling attention to minor differences between two translations (in a way that implies that they are fundamental differences) is giving them undue attention, per WP:UNDUE. NightHeron (talk) 12:17, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Question for article

Do we have information about how middle-eastern cultures view abortion?JamalDamienMusic (talk) 19:41, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

China have most abortions?

I reverted this sentence for four reasons: (1) I couldn't find the claim about China in either of two of the sourced links that I could check. (2) A statement like this needs one or two good sources, not four inadequate ones. (3) It's the rate of abortion, rather than the absolute number of abortions, that's relevant, because China has the highest population and so would be expected to have the highest absolute numbers of people in many categories. (4) An indication of the time period of the data would need to be included. NightHeron (talk) 10:50, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

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Sentence needs a rewrite.

The following sentence is not clear. It should be revised:

"Abortion had previously been widely practiced and legal under common law in early pregnancy (until quickening), but the English-speaking world passed laws against abortion at all stages of pregnancy."

In this context it means that:

"Abortion had previously been widely practiced and legal under common law in early pregnancy (until quickening), but in the 19th-century the English-speaking world passed laws against abortion at all stages of pregnancy."

It should be written in this way or some other, that would make it clear that the laws changed in the 19th century, not before. It is well known that abortion was legal up to quickening in common law in the English-speaking world up to (and for some decades after) the writing of the US Constitution. The way the current sentence is written, the atemporal "but" tends to obscure the facts in regard to the timeframe when abortion was legal under common law, and then changed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AtomAnt (talk • contribs) 22:55, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

I inserted "in the 19th century", as you suggested. Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 23:28, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

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Random aside about the term "abortion"

This article has always been specifically about the history of induced abortion — which makes sense, firstly because that's what "abortion" means in everyday English, and secondly because there's probably much more to say about the history of something people do than about the history of something that happens naturally — but a few editors appear to be uncomfortable with the use of the word "abortion" to mean "induced abortion" specifically, and one of them has added a long sentence about the word "abortion" to the end of the first paragraph:

> A naturally occurring abortion that ends a pregnancy sometimes is described as a "spontaneous" abortion or, with the more frequently used popular euphemism, "miscarriage", to distinguish a difference between an induced abortion and a naturally occurring one, but medically, abortion is the terminology applied to either natural or induced.

I have a few problems with that sentence:

  1. It's needlessly tendentious, e.g. describing "miscarriage" as a "popular euphemism" for spontaneous abortions.
  2. It's not about the subject of the article, and not related to the sentence that precedes it — it's just a terminological aside — but it's not obvious that it's an aside until after you've read the whole thing and discovered that it's not related to anything. (It's not in parentheses, and not marked as an "aside" or "note on usage" or whatnot.)
  3. I could imagine a terminological aside being useful if it helped to clarify what the article is about; but in fact, this sentence doesn't do that! The sentence explains that the term "abortion" can refer equally to other things besides induced abortions, but doesn't mention that this article is specifically about induced abortions. (Perhaps this could be improved by completely inverting the sentence so that it starts with the medical usage and ends with the everyday usage? But that seems almost pointless; almost anyone who knows about the medical usage will also know about the everyday usage. And anyway, that's clearly not what the sentence is for.)

So I tried removing that sentence; but it was shortly re-added (by a different editor) with the explanation that "it's a good idea to clarify terminology in the lead". But I don't think that's really true; after all, the term "history" is also ambiguous (in technical usage it excludes prehistory), but no one has felt the need to write a tendentious aside about that.

What is important is for the article to make clear what it's about. But this aside doesn't help with that, for the reasons I mentioned above, and also because the article anyway begins with the phrase "The practice of induced abortion—the deliberate termination of a pregnancy". But if we want, we can have a hatnote along the lines of {{About|the history of induced abortions|spontaneous abortions|Miscarriage}}.

Thoughts?

—RuakhTALK 01:49, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

According to WP:MOSLEAD, the opening paragraph "should also establish the boundaries of the topic." The opening paragraph currently does this. It says that this article is about the history of induced abortion, and explains that there's also a notion of "spontaneous abortion" that is more commonly called "miscarriage", but this article is not about that. The sentence should not be removed, but could certainly be shortened and edited for clarify and accuracy. For example, it's incorrect to call the term "miscarriage" a "euphemism". If you want, I could propose a replacement sentence, or you could if you prefer. NightHeron (talk) 02:55, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
@NightHeron Re: "explains that there's also a notion of 'spontaneous abortion' that is more commonly called 'miscarriage', but this article is not about that": Not so; the "but this article is not about that" aspect is completely missing! As a result, the sentence does not contribute to "establish[ing] the boundaries of the topic". If you'd like to replace the sentence with one that does contribute to that, that would be a big improvement. :-)   —RuakhTALK 19:33, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
@Ruakh Please check if it's okay now. Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 20:18, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
Much better; thank you! —RuakhTALK 06:59, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

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