This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Lead archives: 2006 -- 2007-10 -- 2011
LCP made a BOLD edit to the LEAD which was reverted. Let's discuss and propose changes to the lead. Some of LCP's concerns were basic, grammar things, others are bigger.
LCP modified the word "removal" with "surgical" and "expulsion" with "natural" and "its" with "the embryo's or fetus'" so An abortion is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death would read An abortion is the surgical removal or natural expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by the embryo's or fetus' death. About modifying "removal or expulsion". I these words were chosen to make sure to cover nearly all cases of "abortion" from induced to miscarriage. I think that meaning is conveyed. Adding the words "surgical and natural" makes it even clearer, almost to the point of being verbose. However, we have to keep in mind abortoficiences and medical abortion. These are non-surgical methods that some people would clearly not classify as "natural" that cause abortion by expulsion. Therefore, making this dichotomy doesn't account for all case of abortion and therefore I cannot support adding those two words.
Regarding the second change to this sentence, I believe one use of "embryo or fetus" is clunky, and two is even clunkier. It would be nice if there was one nice word we could use (like products of conception), but we can't just use embryo or fetus. 80% of the abortion in the use are embryonic, while fetus is a more generic, commonly used term. I think that keeping "its" is better than repeating "emrbyo or fetus".
One thing that LCP's edit did was completely remove the medical definition. I think because we had around 21 cited source ( there is a talk page link), with the majority of them mentioning a gestational age, we are not doing our sources justice by ignoring this very common definition of the word. It is giving undue weight to the non-medical definition by not mentioning something so sourced.
Finally, there was concern about the last part of the sentence being gramatically incorrect, if not awkwardly worded: which is considered nonviable. Does anyone have any suggestions for improvements on how to convey that a fetus before 20 weeks is considered non-viable (while keeping the medical definition intact)? - Andrew c 00:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
[reset indent] I disagree with your counting. I believe discounting a source because it isn't online is not valid, and I believe discounting a source because the word abortion is later modified by another word or phrase is not any more of a contradiction than defining "threatened" or "incomplete abortion" different from an unmodified "abortion".
To make it clear, the reason why I'd just like to let the lead sit and move on is because I feel that these matters were quite timely and consuming in the past and that it took a lot to build a version that most everyone could agree with and do not want to open that can of worms again. I do not feel right spending a great deal of effort going over the same matters again when there are other areas of this article needing attention. It's like, how many editors at Jesus want to argue AD vs CE again? How many editors at Roman Catholic Church want to argue RCC vs. CC again. These are all top tier articles that are not featured (but should be), but editors always find ways to argue over the same stuff instead of focusing on improving the less talked about areas of the articles. So forgive me if my past experiences makes me jaded. Maybe this discussion can be cleared up in a jiff.
Perhaps the simplest way we could address your concerns is by adding the word "sometimes" to the current version. So the last sentence would read along the lines of Commonly, "abortion" refers to an induced procedure at any point during human pregnancy; however, it is sometimes medically defined as miscarriage or induced termination before twenty weeks' gestation, which is considered nonviable.
To address LCP's concerns, maybe we could rephrase the final portion to say defined as miscarriage or induced termination before the point of viability.- Andrew c 14:28, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
"It" herein is referring to any mammalian fetus — not just human fetuses. My is point is that, although several editors have objected to "death" before, suggesting that it should be removed from the article, formulations which avoided using "death" have not passed the test. I see purposely trying to avoid the word "it" as being the same. The above proposals ("products of conception" and repetition of the phrase "embryo or fetus") remind me of some of the awkward, overly complex constructions that have been designed to sidestep using "death," namely, "An abortion is the termination of an embryo of fetus' gestation in a womb, so as not to result in a live birth." I think, in this case, going out of our way to avoid particular words only serves to decrease the clarity of the text, by making it more complicated than it needs to be.
Does everyone here agree with the idea of changing the last sentence of the first paragraph to, "medically, it is defined as miscarriage or induced termination before twenty weeks' gestation, the point at which a fetus is considered viable?" in order to address LCP's initial concerns? -
Severa (
!!!) 02:56, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi Ferrylodge.. your link doesn't prove a woman carrying a foetus should be called a mother.. that is contingent on accepting the POV that the foetus may be called a "child". Zargulon 19:14, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi.. are you saying the phrase "joining mother and fetus" in the definition of "after-birth" proves that carrying a not-just-about-to-be-born fetus makes someone a mother? This is not very a very good argument given the word under definition is *after* - *birth*.. I would at least expect to see something under the definition of "mother" or "fetus". I looked through the other dictionaries link and I couldn't find anything that supported the position that the definition of mother applies in any situation other than immediately surrounding the time of birth and thereafter. Of course many people either casually or deliberately use mother to include any carrier of a foetus, as you noticed with your Wikipedia and google search.
Zargulon 20:22, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Severa has reverted. Take your time to think it over, Severa. Andrew c previously proposed this, and reconfirmed the proposal at 16:40 on 22 June. Then, at 15:31 on 23 June, I asked for people to explain any objections they might have to this edit. Then at 22:00 on 23 June, I said I'd go ahead and make the change. Then at 04:00 on 24 June you visited this page and made a comment on another subject. It was not until 5:58 on 24 June that I finally made the edit. Please don't say that I'm jumping the gun. Okay? Thank you for kind indulgence. Ferrylodge 06:47, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
(unindent)Sorry to have been so silent. I've been off-line. The current version resolves the main issue that I had with the previous lead. Many thanks to everyone who pitched in! LCP 18:29, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
No one replied to this post, where Ferrylodge stated, "I'll go ahead and modify the last sentence of the first paragraph" — probably because the "mother" vs. "pregnant woman" discussion expanded above it and it was easy to miss — but a lack of reply is not the same as an agreement to go ahead. There hasn't been any definitive agreement that any of the proposals put forward should be put into action in the article. I never expressed that I thought this proposal should be enacted. Nor do I interpret the following comment from Andrew c as exactly giving the green light:
Specifically, Andrew c expressed concerns over the word "sometimes," but this was still included in the intro revision. I also have an issue with the addition of the word "sometimes," which I feel is weasel wording, but also with the removal of the reference to "twenty weeks," which was agreed upon by last year's consensus. At the peak of that discussion, over 10 editors were involved, and the debate proceeded for over a month. In comparison, we have four (maybe five) editors now participating in this discussion, which has been going on for a couple of days, and none of us have agreed conclusively on a course of action. Things are still up in the air. Let's not get hasty and think that we are in any kind of a rush here. The introduction is as stable as it is because people were willing to take the time to cooperate toward finding a solution. Perhaps we can take a page from last year's debate and build a list of proposals on which users can vote. Personally, I would like to know what some of the users who participated in last year's discussion think. - Severa ( !!!) 08:27, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Do you bother to check things? Goodandevil ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been blocked 7 times for edit warring on Abortion articles to promote a POV, and has not edited since 5 August 2006 - probably a good thing since that's the last person I'd think would help us to reach any kind of consensus; Pro-Lick ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is banned permanently, which surely you saw on his page, why are you inviting banned users?; WikiCats has not edited since 9 December 2006. Why wasn't User:Spaully, User:SOPHIA, or User:SlimVirgin invited? All were active in previous discussions, and all are editing now. KillerChihuahua ?!? 21:10, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
If the medical definition of abortion is only an abortion before 20 weeks, what's the medical definition for the common understanding of abortion after 20 weeks? Also, I (almost) hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the entire lead as a whole seems too short for, say, FA status if that's the ultimate goal, in particular, the health effects sections seem too long for there to be no apparent mention of it at all in the lead. Homestarmy 22:09, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
<uindent> I'm not advocating any radical changes just yet - just throwing out ideas. What it seems to be coming to is a confusion of an event and a procedure all mixed up with the differences in medical, legal and common use definitions. Sophia 10:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
This comment is referring to FL's statement A "late-term abortion" is still an abortion. Under that logic, I submit that the lead is inaccurate by saying an abortion is the removal or expulsion because we have "incomplete abortions" and "threatened abortions", both cases of "abortion" where the embryo may not have been removed nor expelled. However, that said, I disagree with the logic. A word is specifically modified by these terms "late-term" or "incomplete" or "threatened" because they do not meet the standard definition of the term "abortion". I also question FL's assertions that Likewise, numerous medical articles use the term "abortion" after 20 weeks. and the medical literature is full of references to late term abortions that occur after twenty weeks. Anyone can do this, do a pubmed search for "abortion". I just got 62577 hits. Then do a search for ("late-term abortions" or "late-term abortion"), and you get 53 hits. That's .085% I wouldn't call that "full of" or even "numerous". But it gets worse. Start reading through the results. 7 of them are popular newspaper articles from places like the New York Times (not part of the "medical literature" by any means). At least 5 are from legal journals, again not part of the medical literature. At least 6 are from partisan publications such as Reproductive freedom news "from the Center for Reproductive Law & Policy", and Conscience which is put out by "Catholics for a Free Choice". So that takes us down from 53 hits to 35. Let's look at these results. The vast majority of the results deal with animals (cows, pigs, horses, sheep, nilgais). And when you look at many of those articles, they make a distinction between a LTA and a stillbirth. (quotes like Two were late-term abortions, two neonates died 1 or 2 days after birth, and one calf survived. No stillbirths or perinatal deaths were observed in other bovids in the zoo that year. [12]) How many of the results deal with humans? and how many of those deal with abortion procedures? I think it's clear how prevalent this usage of "late-term abotion" is in the medical literature.
However, here are two interesting quote from the results:
So what is all this getting at? I believe the most common medical use of the term "abortion" in the medical literature has a cut off point. They make a distinction between abortion (miscarriage) and stillbirth. The medical literature does not deal with abortion procedures in humans nearly as often. And this is the stumbling block. We are all used to hearing the word "abortion" and thinking of medical procedures that humans use to end their pregnancy. And in our rational minds, we think "the procedure doesn't change just because the fetus is a little older, so why on earth does it stop being an abortion procedure? Those medical definitions must be wrong, and we shouldn't even mention them." However, that's simply disregarding our sources because we don't like what they say. NPOV says we should present all sides, if notable. Sophia brings up a great point that there is a distinction between a medical procedure attached to the word "abortion" and an event. The medical literature that uses the word "abortion" in this manner is rarely talking about the medical procedures that humans use to end their pregnancies. And even some articles dealing with humans keep to the medical usage of the term "abortion" (i.e. this deals with what wikipedia calls late-term abortion, but the word "abortion" isn't used to describe the procedure). Granted, there are also journal articles dealing with humans that do use LTA in the wikipedia sense. But, as noted above, I also contend that the term "late-term abortion" is simply not filling the medical literature by any means. And a last issue to consider is the variations in definitions between different countries. According to the article cited above, and Severa's cited Canadian reference, not all countries agree on the definition of "abortion". To be completely accurate for every case (which I think shouldn't be our goal, but..), we may need some refining. However, completely removing a mention of viability is not an option because we would be ignoring significant POVs.
And finally, I'm going to throw this out here again. It seems like the reason why we are concerned over saying an abortion is medically defined as being before viability, is because not all medical sources say those exact words. Going through the definitions, a good majority of them don't even mention "death" (more mention viability or 20 weeks than mention "death"). I propose removing the ending clause in the lead, and using a definition similar to the one Sophia cited: An abortion is the premature exit of the products of conception from the uterus. I have always thought "products of conception" is more accurate than "embryo or fetus" because more than just the embryo or fetus is removed during an abortion procedure. If a doctor only removed the embryo, and left everything else, the patient would become ill. In the past, a few users were concerned that POC was a euphemism, but I contend that it is a technical term, and that it's meaning is obvious to the lay reader. It also avoids any of the pronoun issues that revolve around calling an embryo an "it".- Andrew c 15:29, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Sorry to write even more. The whole issue that started this back in the day is that there are many definitions that mention viability, or a specific week. According to NPOV, we should include all views. It isn't our place to judge our sources. By removing mention of viability, we are in essence, saying we know more than our sources, that our sources are wrong. Our solution in the past was to include multiple definitions, the common and the medical. Maybe it was too simplistic to think that there were just two definitions of the word "abortion" (false dichotomy), but it was a generalization that worked for the time being. I feel that these discussions are being too nitpicky, and that if we tried to accurately describe every possible scenario, the lead would turn into something quite outrageous. My proposal a few days ago was to temper the phrase "medically, it is defined" with "it is sometimes medically defined". This was an attempt to address FL's concern that "abortion" wasn't ALWAYS medically defined as this. I personally feel that for a lead, we can only be so precise, and that the medical literature uses abortion in this manner more than it uses abortion in the common manner. Others may disagree with this, so hence the "sometimes". But like I said, I could live without the sometimes. It seems like there is enough people concerned about the precision that "sometimes" may be a good solution. (I think we could look at most of the words in the lead and find some instance where the word is inaccurate. "spontaneous" implies something impulsive, or fast, or "without apparent external cause", but some miscarriages take weeks to complete, and some are caused by something external, like a direct blow or injury to the lower abdomen. and "artificially" may not cover someone who takes natural abortifacients to induce abortion. the phrasing "an induced procedure" may imply something who having labor induced because they are post-term, and that results in a livebirth, etc) I'm not bringing up these small inaccuracies to say the lead is poor. I'm bring them up to mention that there is an acceptable level of accuracy in generalized statements for a lead, and efforts to be too precise will only lead to a bloated, verbose lead (which is the opposite purpose of a lead). To sum up, could we all agree on FL's proposal that was introduced and reverted here, and move on to writing a few more paragraphs for the lead?- Andrew c 16:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
With respect to the intense debate and discussion with regards to this introduction, I feel it necessary to say that I believe the first paragraph carries with it a certain undertone, or connotation in describing what an abortion is. I believe that the first sentience of the paragraph makes an assumption, or rather places a certain point of view on the nature of what is and what is not life, which is at the center of the "Choice/Life" debate. My basis for this belief is the use of the word "death".
"An abortion is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death."
The section above in bold is specifically what I'm referring to. What I propose is to change the wording, such that it states what is certain rather than what is possible. By this I mean to say that a potential better way of stating it is:
"An abortion is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by the unnatural termination of a naturally occurring biological process."
For lack of a better analogy, (and I do feel quite a bit of distaste in using it, but I feel it's never-the-less the best analogy available to me), when a tumor is surgically removed it is not referred to as "resulting in the death of....the tumor".
Rather than getting deeper into the debate about what constitutes life or death, since the terms are arguably wholly subjective and in many cases applied inconsistently See: Afterlife I humbly suggest that we sidestep the entire issue by referring to it with better defined, less subjective, and more widely accepted language. While a great many would argue that a embryo/fetus is either Living or not Living at the time an abortion is performed, I do not see any argument against that it is a "naturally occurring biological process".
While one may further break that statement down such that the word "naturally" need not apply since in the case of Artificial insemination then abortion, I believe that with respect to abortion itself, that is the most neutral way of stating what it is, without taking sides in the great debate.
Edit: After spending some more time reading through the paragraphs above, I've come to realize the my proposed change relies primarily on exchanging the word death for termination, which seems to be less universally accepted than I anticipated when I decided to add this section.
So I'd like to further examine the reasoning behind using death in place of termination. It seemed to me from my reading above that the word death was chosen, because not to include it was perceived as dehumanizing. Well then isn't including it "humanizing" it and thus taking a side? The definition of termination isn't in dispute, but the definition of what is alive (and by proxy what then has a death) is in dispute. Anyone seeking to establish the state of the embryo/fetus as either alive/not is in fact taking a side, since the debate centers around this very issue. The entire discussion above is riddled with contradictions from many users. Use wiki precendent for example: Look up any other medical procedures in WP and point to one that refers to a part as having a "death" after it's been surgically removed.
To say the embryo/fetus has a "death" is directly implicating that it is in fact a separate entity, and thus clearly takes a side on the issue To make the claim that "medically speaking cells have a death after they have been removed" goes against not defining the abortion medically. It's just one example of contradiction after contradiction that has completely sapped any neutrality from the definition of what abortion is. To say it has a "death" for the sake of humanizing the definition is also clearly taking a side.
"Death" is not taken as an absolute (again see: After life), has considerable emotion attached to it, and as such should not be used to clearly define the result. Termination or ended defines the result of the procedure without the emotion or nuance attached to "death".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial#Bias_in_attribution:_Mind_your_nuances
Toastysoul 09:16, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
In medicine, an abortion is the premature exit of the products of conception (the fetus, fetal membranes, and placenta) from the uterus. It is the loss of a pregnancy and does not refer to why that pregnancy was lost.
abortion /abor·tion/ (ah-bor´shun) 1. expulsion from the uterus of the products of conception before the fetus is viable. 2. premature stoppage of a natural or a pathological process.
There was extensive discussion previuosly about the word "death" and I support keeping it in there, the way it has been for quite a while. It is technically accurate. If a malformed fetus is born naturally with only a week to live, we ordinarily say it "dies" when it expires. When a bug is swatted with a fly swatter, we ordinarily say it "dies." When a microbe ceases to have biological activity, we ordinarily say it "dies."
If this lede is to be changed from the prior consensus by altering the word "death", then I would urge that the people who particpated in the prior consensus be invited here.
Additionally, I believe that altering the word "death" will open up a can of worms. For example, there has been a consistent and deliberate effort to eliminate the word " mother" from all abortion-related articles, even though that word is technically accurate. Ferrylodge 21:23, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Brisvegas, I'm amazed. I really think you couched the issue in the correct light. No one will ever be satisfied about an article on such a controversial topic, and I think that the article itself has come a very long way. I said before that if a previous compromise had been made on the lede, then I think we should stick with it. While I don't want to discourage discussion on this point (for certainly anyone can disagree with the compromise), I don't see how a new discussion is going to bring new results. No matter upon what compromise is agreed, some will always dislike it. Stanselmdoc 14:09, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Whatever we do, we have to watch out to avoid WP:CANVASS. Contacting contributors who voted in the past to support the current version could be seen as stacking the vote in favor of one position. I was involved in those discussion and I have this page on my watch list. If other old editors care enough, we can leave a message at the main Talk:Abortion page. Contacting them individually could be seen as negative canvassing. If we honestly need more opinions, why not start a RfC? However, it doesn't seem like there is momentum for change, so we may not even need to go that far. - Andrew c [talk] 14:17, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
I wish to respond to the above user:
Ferrylodge about a previous section, but I am not certain where to place it so I'll start a new paragraph. I again want to point out that the technical accuracy of the word death is not in question. Just as
Stanselmdoc believes
Ferrylodge has couched the issue for him, I believe
Sophia has embodied the issue for me with the following statement: The personification implied by referring to "its death" is an expression of a strong, if subtly expressed, POV. It has nothing to do with my experiences or interrpretation - it's basic grammar.
With respect to the assertion that termination is a "coldly clinical" term, I completely disagree. Something along the lines of "ceasing to continue biological function" is coldly clinical. The word termination conveys the idea that whatever it was that your were talking about has stopped what it was doing without (not so subtly) hinting that it was also considered "alive". Further, I completely disagree that the use of the word "fetus" instead of unborn baby somehow balances out using the word "death". If you were to represent the POV of P/C (versus P/L) then you would say something along the lines of "collection or mass of cells" or "Developing Organism" instead of fetus. The use of the word fetus is itself a compromise. As in all cases (save molar pregnancy) the clearly accurate technical term is in fact fetus, which STILL has an emotional attachment to it associated with PL views. The use of the word fetus clearly identifies that the object you are trying to describe is in fact a developing human being.
The term "Death" conveys a much more abstract concept than need be applied to the statement to get a basic understanding of what abortion is. That should be the purpose of the leading statement. Your assertion that it must somehow address the fact that abortion is also a social issue is completely false. There are many places in the article that can be completely devoted to the issue of describing how each party views AND defines what an abortion is. Toastysoul 19:42, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
The Oxford University Press defines Abortion as the following: Abortion means the end of a pregnancy before the fetus can survive. It may be either spontaneous — when it is also known as miscarriage — or induced, when it is a deliberate termination of pregnancy.
This definition is accurate, neutral, and inclusive of what an Abortion is. It does not cater to P/C or P/L and at least from what I comprehend completely sidesteps usage of controversial terms. Why can't we craft something like it? Toastysoul 20:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
There is no neutral definition of the word "abortion". The problem, as I understand it, is that people viewing the issue from the pro-life side see abortion as primarily a moral issue, about life and death. The pro-choice side sees abortion as primarily a medical and legal issue, about a medical procedure. If we first present a medical definition, then we say that the moral issues surrounding abortion are somehow secondary to its being a medical procedure. On the other hand, if we first present a definition in terms of life and death (as we now do), we're implying that medical considerations are somehow secondary to moral ones. Either way, we've implicitly taken a side right off the bat.
The solution I propose is to begin the article by addressing the controversy head-on. "An abortion is a type of termination of a pregnancy. Its definition is controversial, with most medical sources defining an abortion as . . ., while others characterize it as . . .".
In case there's any doubt that the medical definition is prejudicial, it's worth checking in the archives for when we looked up the proceeding of the Second International Conference on Interuterine Contraception, where some doctors got together and agreed to define pregnancy as beginning at implantation (instead of conception), for explicitly social reasons, i.e., because the moral leaders would be likely to follow their lead, and use of an IUD would then be classed as contraception, not as abortion.
This example makes it clear that the medical definitions are not necessarily as neutral as we might like them to be, and in some cases were actually crafted to distance people from their moral qualms. - GTBacchus( talk) 23:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Stanselmdoc, the simple fact that the subject is brought up again and again and again is indication that some problem exists, and simply calling it a non-issue won't actually make it go away, because people on either side feel very strongly about it. One might read the persistent re-asking of the question as an indication that we haven't yet found the best NPOV definition. Ideally, we could come up with something that everyone would agree is neutral.
My suggestion is to present two definitions from the very beginning, and to attribute them both immediately. Both can be sourced, and nobody can really deny that both are in common use, referring to the same procedure, but with entirely different assumptions and agendas. Any definition of abortion that doesn't reflect this fractured nature of the term is going to be biased, by choosing one side's notions of what's important. - GTBacchus( talk) 03:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Now, I'm well aware that there are medical sources that use the word "death" when defining abortion. My recollection from many old discussions here is that more medical sources speak in terms of termination, or simply define the term based on timing (twentieth week, for example). If I'm wrong about that, please let me know.
We can talk about wording, but I maintain my point that there is more than one definition of "abortion" in common use, that the different definitions reflect different priorities about what's important, and that the most neutral approach is not to adopt one definition or the other, but to present the controversy as well as we can document it. - GTBacchus( talk) 05:25, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I would like it if you would address my point that there are different, incompatible definitions in common use. Do you disagree? I'm not really focused on the word "death", so I feel some of your point is talking past what I'm trying to suggest. I certainly don't advocate using such an uncommon term as "fetal destruction". I simply advocate acknowledging that more than one definition is at work, and standing outside of that conflict by talking about it. Do you disagree with that approach?
Do you think that the opposing sides of the abortion debate aren't working from different assumptions, or that those assumptions don't influence their definitions of terms, or... help me out here. How is presenting a single definition the most neutral thing we can do? One more thing: is there a convenient list of sources you can point to supporting your claim that defining abortion in a way that excludes late-term procedures is the minority position? I recall it being rather common, the last time I looked at an extended list. - GTBacchus( talk) 06:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for the analysis of the list from the archives, but please don't think I'm trying to play some kind of numbers game either. I'm kind of thinking aloud, and I don't mind remembering something wrong and being corrected. It doesn't mean I'm trying to resurrect any dead horses, or use numbers to be pushy.
Now, I realize that the incompatible medical definitions are presented in the third sentence. I'm actually trying to address some deeper differences, the kind that reflect different fundamental beliefs about what's important... and I'm allowing for non-medical definitions, because I think some people really don't consider the primary definition of abortion to be a medical one, while other people realy do. I think we should identify that conflict, before speaking with the language of either side of it.
I hope I'm making sense; am I? It's kind of late here... I'll make this my last edit of the evening. - GTBacchus( talk) 06:49, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
On one hand, some sources define abortion purely in terms of some aspect of the pregnancy - whether it be timing, or the fact that the procedure is induced. On the other hand, some sources define abortion also in terms of its consequences for the embryo or fetus. Defintions specifying that an abortion is "before viability" somewhat straddle the fence.
It seems to me that medical sources - and sources preferred by the pro-choice camp - are more likely to talk about a pregnancy being terminated without really addressing the fate of the fetus. Of the three that we cite, one uses "death" and one uses "destruction", but are those representative of medical definitions in that way? They seem to be the only two medical definitions in the famous list of 21 to do so. Medical definitions are more likely to focus on the pregnancy, and possibly on "viability"; common definitions are more likely to mention the expected death or destruction of the fetus as a defining characteristic.
I don't think we can be neutral without addressing that difference. The current version makes it seem as if it's the norm in medical sources to talk about the fetus' death, which isn't really true, is it?
As to Toastysoul's and Sophia's suggestions, I haven't looked at Toastysoul's source, but I note that he claims below that he's not, in fact, arguing to use that source exclusively. Sophia's objection sounds closer to the mainstream pro-choice position - that the word "death" casts the issue in a moral light in keeping with the priorities of the pro-life side.
I wouldn't say that the fetus doesn't die, nor that a tumor or a fingernail doesn't die... however, I would maintain that using the word "death" in a definition demonstrates a set of priorities different from that of most medical sources. Most of them talk about the pregnancy without saying much about the fetus. I don't think that the sources we cite are representative in this respect. - GTBacchus( talk) 03:15, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
<unindent>I think GTBacchus may have something when he suggests we acknowledge the vast spectrum of definitions that are out there. I don't feel the one we currently use is balanced as it does have a pro-life POV with the use of "its death" since I contend that most people would not associate the emotional baggage that goes with a "death" with a potentially cancerous tumour such as a molar pregnancy (89 ghits really isn't a lot for a term and I would vote delete if it were a proposed page due to it being a neologism). If this was balanced with other definitions we can highlight the contradictory situations that are in place around the world, such as in the UK where 23 week birth can be either an abortion or a premature birth. Both can be artificially induced as a 23 week "baby" will be delivered by cesarean if it is having problems. Our current lede does not give any hint of just how subjective these definitions are - someone made the very good point above about a normal birth being an abortion by some definitions. If we have just one in the lede it needs to be as neutral as possibe and for that I prefer Andrew's suggestion as "products of conception" as he rightly points out that a lot more stuff than just a fetus or embryo are removed. We can also cover the fact that medically an abortion is defined as an "event" (ie something happens) wheras in common use most people associate it with a "procedure" (ie something is done). Sophia 08:27, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Ferrylodge, you amuse me. You use statements people make and ever so subtly alter them such that they mean a different idea than what was trying to be communicated. I will try to spell this out for you again, in clear and certain terms:
Further, arguing over the number of google results for a specific set of terms is utterly pointless. Trying to use the number of hits as a justification for anything is a bad idea for so many reasons. Now, the oxford definition is perhaps not perfect. That being said, I quoted it as an example of a definition that both specifies what and abortion is and does not slant one way or the other. Toastysoul 11:59, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
The neutral approach would be to say from the start that some define abortion primarily as a medical procedure, and others define it primarily as murder. If we don't point that out up front, then we're adopting one of those positions implicitly. The current solution is an interesting compromise - it defines it as a medical procedure, but it uses one of the minority medical definitions that actually mentions the fetus' death. That may be the best solution, but I'd prefer a version that better reflects how people in the world generally think about abortion. - GTBacchus( talk) 03:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
And to defend myself and my opinion - I have not said I'm against a change in the definition (in fact, I'm pretty sure I was the very first to respond with new suggestions), I'm saying that NO ONE in my opinion has presented an effective argument to make me believe it NEEDS to be changed. Maybe if someone could do that, I would be in favor of it. And what is this about, the very fact that this gets brought up frequently makes it a huge problem? NO, that's not it. It gets brought up frequently because people with strong beliefs on controversial issues continually look for every single little itty bitty syllable that they can take the wrong way. Stanselmdoc 13:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
The lead states, "This can occur spontaneously as a miscarriage, or be artificially induced by chemical, surgical or other means." In short, a comma is not used before a dependant clause. Therefore, the sentence should read, "This can occur spontaneously as a miscarriage or be artificially induced by chemical, surgical or other means." Any objections to this change? LCP 19:33, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
My suggestion for the lead:
Note that I added a comma to the last sentence. With this lead, the sentence "In common parlance, the term "abortion" is synonymous with induced abortion. However, in medical texts, the word 'abortion' might exclusively refer to, or may also refer to, spontaneous abortion (miscarriage)." under "Definitions" probably should be deleted, as it would be redundant. I would also add another section entitled "Birth Control Versus Abortion". It would say this:
Something that bother me a bit: if we define abortion as the cessation of a pregnancy prior to viability, isn't that problematic in the face of continuing medical progress? It's quite conceivable that a hundred years from now, doctors will be able to remove an just-implanted embryo from a uterus and raise it to term in an artificial womb. Would abortions then cease to exist, as there would no longer be such a thing as a "nonviable fetus"? Also, doesn't this definition make "late-term abortion" an oxymoron? Heqwm ( talk) 21:42, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Interesting to see much thought has gone into the content of the lead, but seemingly little into its length, or lack of. Everywhere I look I see massive articles with absurdly small leads. I have seen one sentence leads, but this is getting 'up there' with the best. I really wish people who make these assessments, especially GA (and to a lesser extent FA - they seem to have some comprehension of the issue) would take more notice of this problem. Richard001 ( talk) 02:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Looks good to me so far, except the # per year - the source is from 1999 I notice, should we hunt for newer? and should we even have that in the lead? And if we do, IMO we should specify "worldwide". Thoughts? KillerChihuahua ?!? 00:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, I changed the lead definition because it was long, unwieldy and repetitive. I'm fine with the switch back to "medical" from "medicinal" but I feel like the revert just put the definition back to the old same verbose place. Andrew, I know you just switched it back, but would you mind discussing this? Phyesalis ( talk) 01:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Note: There is related discussion at Talk:Abortion/First paragraph. -- Coppertwig ( talk) 14:58, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, going over the recommended list, the discussion centers primarily on death, and I find that a number of sources bear closer scrutiny:
To address the number of discounted examples I pulled the unique def sources from the first page search for “medical dictionary:
So, I get: 12 for no – 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25b; 4 for yes – 4, 5, 17, 21; 3 for mixed – 18, 19, 25a; and not counting 7 – 2 (not found but source site is #3), 6 (1911), 7 (1913), 10 (repeat of 9), 11 (Vet), 14 (r of 9), 15 (not a def, but argument for death, and not viability). Not much of an argument for a clear trend for viability. Thoughts? Phyesalis ( talk) 03:27, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
(undent) Yes, there is a trend. I agree, and I'm certainly up for outside input. But I think we might be able to work this out. Again, not against the word being in the lead, just don't like the way it was used globally so as to exclude forms of selective and therapeutic abortion right off the bat. I'm thinking maybe a little rewording of "Definitions" and maybe a new title like "Types"? You up for letting me take a whack at and then some friendly WP:BRD? Phyesalis ( talk) 18:59, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Please, there are surely other users watching this, could someone offer a 3rd opinion?- Andrew c [talk] 15:38, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
(undent)Okay, as I understand it, the disagreement is as follows. The lead paragraph used to have a sentence like this: "Abortion can refer to an induced procedure at any point during human pregnancy; it is sometimes medically defined as either miscarriage or induced termination before the point of viability" (emphasis added). However, it's been changed to say simply that abortion can occur "at any point during human pregnancy for therapeutic or elective reasons," without mentioning viability. The cited sources remain the same: " Merriam Webster’s Online Medical Dictionary. See also The Free Dictionary which includes definitions from Dorland's Medical Dictionary and from The American Heritage Stedman's Medical Dictionary."
Unless I'm mistaken, Phyesalis supports the current wording without "viability" whereas Andrew c thinks "viability" should go back in. It seems clear from the cited sources that "abortion" is often defined without being limited to instances before viability. But "abortion" sometimes is instead defined with that limitation; for example, Dorland's says: "expulsion from the uterus of the products of conception before the fetus is viable." And it seems that Dorland's is very clear about what the word "viability" means: "able to maintain an independent existence; able to live after birth."
So, in my opinion, this article should mention somewhere (either in the lead paragraph or in the footnote of the lead paragraph) that "abortion" is sometimes medically defined as either miscarriage or induced termination before the point of viability. And, it could also be mentioned in the footnote that "viability" means "able to maintain an independent existence; able to live after birth." [18] Sound reasonable? Ferrylodge ( talk) 20:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
I know a lot of you are going to grown, but I do not believe that the issue of using the word "death" in the first sentence was fully resolved per the previous discussions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abortion/First_paragraph#Neutrality_of_the_first_paragraph and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abortion/First_paragraph/Archive_2#medical_sources
I don't understand why we cannot resolve it now by simply having the first sentence say, "An abortion is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in the termination of a pregnancy." I mention this because the suggested terminology is taken Dictionary.com which has changed it's definition to "termination" from one that included the word "death." This seems significant to me. Also, the American Heritage dictionary never used the term "death." The American Heritage definition is: "The ending of pregnancy and expulsion of the embryo or fetus, generally before the embryo or fetus is capable of surviving on its own."
With these definitions in mind, please look at the previous inventory of definitions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abortion/First_paragraph/Archive_2#medical_sources
Because prominent sites, including the Miriam-Webster dictionary as well as the majority of medical sources use the "termination" terminology - we should probably change the first sentence. As it stands now, I believe as others have said that "death" carries too many connotations. This is 2008, our sources have changed their definitions.-- IronAngelAlice ( talk) 05:45, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Take it to the feticide article, please. Don't start that war here. KillerChihuahua ?!? 17:34, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Fishie instructed me to see the talk page in undoing my edit. I'm here, and I don't see a darn thing explaining Fishie's edit. I'm assuming Fishie just hasn't gotten around to posting it here. So Fishie, what's your reasoning? KillerChihuahua ?!? 17:34, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
hello, recently in my GCSE religious studies class i was told that the correct diffinition of abortion is "the premature expulsion of the foetus or embryo from the womb". i would have edited this my self but as the page is protected i decided to leave up to the experts. please concider changing this if you find it to be appropriate. many thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.199.209 ( talk) 18:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
At the risk of offending those who have finely tuned the meaning of abortion offered in the article, it seems to me that part of the current definition should be deprecated to a second level. The common interpretation of the term in contemporary speech and text is “induced” expulsion of the embryo or fetus. The “spontaneous or induced” meaning is archaic and specialized to the medical arts. Deprecating the “spontaneous” aspect of the definition is likely to offend one side or the other of the ongoing abortion debate. The following rewording is an attempt to retain the precision and neutrality of the current definition. Please comment.
"An abortion is the induced removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in its death. In medicine, abortion can refer to either induced or spontaneous expulsion. The spontaneous expulsion of a fetus or embryo before the 20th week is commonly known as a miscarriage.[1] The more commonly used definition, in reference to induced abortion, is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus by medical, surgical, or other means at any point during human pregnancy for therapeutic or elective reasons” Quampro ( talk) 21:48, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I've cut down the opening section considerably. My reasoning is fairly simple. We need a short and concise definition of what abortion is. The remaining sentences reference all of the major abortion subtopics (history, legality, by country, morality). Also, as a matter of precision abortion can be, and is induced in domesticated animals all the time, but as a lone term refers to human abortions
Everything else was cut because its covered in the article itself.-- Tznkai ( talk) 20:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Without putting in the comments of whether abortion is moral or amoral the whole article is put in jeapardy. Although the morality of abortion has been lightly touched upon, this subject cannot be ignored. Abortion cannot be discussed without the fact that the very act of abortion is the murder of a human being. There is no argument against the fact that life begins at conception. Distinguished physicians and scientists all agree that life can begin at no other time. With this being true, to purposely kill a baby while it is still in it's mother's womb is murder. Why abortion can be such a desirable thing has never been explained to me and most people in general. What is the difference between murdering a baby in it's mother's womb and killing your next door neighbor? Or better yet, how is it different from the government going to your city and killing off half the people? All three do the same things. They murder an innocent person that has the right to life. If anyone doubt what I am saying would you please explain how these innocents are not really being murdered. Our country and our whole world are being transformed by the almost 1 billion babies aborted in the last 50 years. Who can step up to the plate and explain why this is such a good thing? If a serial killer goes out and kills 15 people, people will unquestionably call him crazy. Do the people who condone the killing of millions of babies get a reprieve because they might have a university degree. Who dares to say that killing babies is a good and wholesome thing. By what standard of justice to these people speak out? And if they do speak out, why should one who disagrees with them not hold sway. Anathasius ( talk) 23:42, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
What are everyone's concerns with the first paragraph in regards to describing the conceptus. RoyBoy, Ferrylodge, TruthIIPower, Tznkai, and now myself have all made changes to the lead, but there hasn't been any discussion. We have multiple archives and subpages dealing with how to phrase the first paragraph... anyway, I think if we state what we find problematic with the lead and what we would like to change about the lead, we can see where the common ground is and move forward to a new consensus. - Andrew c [talk] 18:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
(undent) Yuk - multiple problems, largely by trying to do too much in the one sentance.
Can I suggest therefore: "An abortion is the loss in early pregnancy of an embryo, or later of a fetus, either caused by its death or resulting in its demise."
PS as a medic I personally find the second clause redundant and covered by the 2nd sentance, i.e. "An abortion is the loss in early pregnancy of an embryo or later of a fetus." suffices for me, for equally "loss of a limb after an accident" reads as a full-on dramatic tarumatic amputation. But I accept that the wider readership needs the second clause to prevent any implication that the word "loss" on its own is being too euphamistic - and this is not prochoice/prolife POV issue for prochoice concern for gravity of deliberate abortions is just as valid as concerns by all that the phrase is being too oblique to the very real distress following a spontaneous miscarriage. David Ruben Talk 22:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
(unindent)
Let me toss out my suggestion, then explain the thinking behind it:
"An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy prior to term by the removal or expulsion of the nonviable fetus or embryo."
1) We want to emphasize that pregnancies are what get aborted. We also want to leave room for spontaneous and induced abortions.
2) What makes it an abortion is that it's being ended before it has run its course, and that this ending is unsuccussful in terms of live issue. The key term is "viable". If you remove a viable fetus, it's an assisted birth. If you remove a nonviable one, you are necessarily killing it, which makes the process an abortion.
3) Depending on timing, either the fetus or embryo is expelled after it dies or it dies as part of the process of expulsion. There is no procedure in which a nonviable embryo or fetus is removed intact and left to die. Even the most extreme (and extremely rare) late-term abortions starts with a saline injection or the equivalent.
4) It is awkward to speak of abortion "resulting in or being caused by" this death, partially because the phrase is trying too hard to show causality, but mostly because it's long and odd. All we really need to get across is the distinction between an abortion and, say, a c-section on a viable fetus. The above does this successfully.
5) Long phrases to explain the difference between a fetus and embryo are out of place here, while putting a slash between them is just awkward. We can be brief and clear, instead.
Comments? TruthIIPower ( talk) 03:03, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Thank you GTBacchus for helping me. I'm glad you or you guys are trying to remain and stay neutral but I feel that only using the words fetus or embryo or other words like that on the Abortion page is biased because, in my opinion anyway, these words seem to favor pro-choicers. For me who so happens to be pro-life I feel insulted and offended that these words that mean "it" or "thing" is unfair and unbalanced so at least lets make the page more fair by not only using fetus or embryo but also unborn child. Thank You. I hope you at least understand. You may still not agree with me but at least try or attempt to understand where I come from and why I feel that only using fetus or embryo is not neutral. Thanks again. -- Rcatholic ( talk) 05:15, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
(undent)As Tznkai said, the phrase "life of the mother" is a well-known colloquialism that remains accepted terminology, even among pro choice advocates. The Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion uses the word "mother" 43 times with reference to a pregnant woman, and that's just in the majority opinion.
Additionally, dictionaries and other reference books often use the word "mother" prenatally, e.g.:
MedicineNet.com (defining placenta as a "temporary organ joining the mother and fetus");
American Heritage Stedman's Medical Dictionary (placenta permits "metabolic interchage between fetus and mother", and also defining quickening as "signs of fetal life felt by the mother");
Encyclopedia Britannica Concise ("nutrients and oxygen in the mother's blood pass across the placenta to the fetus");
On-Line Medical Dictionary, Department of Medical Oncology, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne ("movement of foetus in the womb perceived by the mother");
Medilexicon (defining quickening as "signs of life felt by the mother as a result of fetal movements");
Wordnet, Princeton University ("mother first feels the movements of the fetus");
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary ("motion of a fetus in the uterus felt by the mother").
The idea that perfectly normal English words should be banned from this article because they've somehow become contaminated by being used on one side or the other of a political controversy seems misguided to me. Same goes for images. Ferrylodge ( talk) 19:18, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
"Fetus" and "embryo"? Hm. Um, I still don't get it. I still don't understand how "fetus" or "embryo" are neutral then again what I may find neutral others may not. I don't think "fetus" nor "embryo" are neutral but many, many, many other people do. I think the words "fetus" and "embryo" are highly emotional and rude and offensive and insulting. For me abortion is just as equal to "baby-killing". I feel almost like I not only believe but know that a women automatically becomes a mother at the moment of conception not after the baby comes out of the mother's womb. For me people are born as soon as they are starting to be created by God and that happens in the mother's womb. I find that calling a baby a fetus or an embryo is just ugly. I think the words "fetus" and "embryo" are definitively moral, and thus non-neutral. I think calling a "fetus" or an "embryo" baby is highly accurate and more honest than "fetus" or "embryo". Besides science has proven that what's located in the mother's womb is a human being. If science is neutral than why can't we use it? I think the words fetus and embryo are issues of dishonesty. Now just because I find the abortion page to be slightly or a little off doesn't mean I can't live without the term baby being used on the Abortion article because I can. All I have to do is change the words "fetus" or "embryo" to child or baby in my mind of course. I know my beliefs and I know what I know and I'm proud of it. Just because I find a FEW mess-ups doesn't mean I'm wrong. Just because a few people don't agree with me doesn't make them wrong either. Thanks you guys and I'm deeply sorry if I offended or insulted anybody. We all have our own beliefs and our own knowledge and without out them this world would just be plane out boring. Have a nice day. -- Rcatholic ( talk) 17:30, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
The long-standing objective definition was collectively and painstakingly developed by dozens of editors (with diverse viewpoints, backgrounds, and knowledge) over a period of months; in the end, a formulation that includes reference to the death of the fetus was found to be necessary in order to be scientifically and medically accurate and objective.
Lacking this scientifically and medically necessary refence to fetal death, the recently edited version ("termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo" )is inaccurate and subjective (and thus highly un-wikipedia).
While countless hours were spent debating many substantive concerns on all angles of this specific "death of the fetus" topic, one common pregnancy situation exemplifies that there is no abortion unless expulsion or removal of the fetus causes or was caused by fetal death.
When a doctor removes a healthy baby from the mother's womb during a C-section and hands it to the father, there has been a "termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo", but no abortion. This and other examples are unassailable reasons that any accurate definition must cover fetal demise (which in plain English is death of the fetus or fetal death)
The fact that all pregnancies terminate renders the euphemism "termination of pregnancy" inadequate to describe the fetal death that is always part of abortion; we can call to mind any pregnancy that ends in a live birth, and also recall that artificially induced labor is one type of induced termination of pregnancy.
When a woman carrying twins experiences the "removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus" via abortion (selective reduction or miscarriage) of 1 of the fetuses at week 12, and 19 weeks later she delivers the other healthy twin; the continued development (aka life) of the first fetal twin was aborted at week 12, but there was certainly no "termination of pregnancy" until the healthy second twin was born at week 31.
71.52.188.76 ( talk) 15:42, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Sorry to bring up this heated debate once again, But shouldn't we euphemize the word "Death" in the first paragraph to match the article on Miscarriage? This would bring us closer to standardization and a non bias.
BFPIERCE ( talk) 04:45, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
I've reverted this edit [19] as it was made without consensus and apparently without reading either the preceding sentence or the source. Compare the edit summary with the source's summary... In recent years, more countries experienced a decline in legal abortion rates than an increase, among those for which statistics are complete and trend data are available. The most dramatic declines were in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where rates remained among the highest in the world. The highest estimated levels were in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, where surveys indicate that women will have close to three abortions each on average in their lifetimes. The U.S. abortion rate dropped by 8% between 1996 and 2003, but remained higher than rates in many Northern and Western European countries. Rates increased in the Netherlands and New Zealand. The official abortion rate declined by 21% over seven years in China, which accounted for a third of the world's legal abortions in 1996. Trends in the abortion rate differed across age-groups in some countries. I trust that this revert will meet either with consent or discussion, rather than an edit war. SHEFFIELDSTEEL TALK 15:00, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
Dylan Flaherty's recent change restored a versions which seems to have been arrived at by consensus, and on that basis was proper. He adds "we should discuss this". The top of this talk page shows where in the archive this discussion has taken place. I have not had time to review 5 whole archives' worth of discussion, but did a quick review of the opening arguments and the 2 proposals in archive 4. I am not happy with the end result.
There does seem to be consensus regarding the POV introduced by the word "death", in that it begs the question of what kind of death we're talking about, which begs the question of whether the fetus is a human being/person/human life (these three terms are not coequal). What I don't see addressed is the matter of focus. The current wording, drawn from a legal text, "expulsion of a fetus or embryo from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death" focuses on the precious, precious fetus instead of the entirely irrelevant "meat envelope" that happens to be surrounding the precious, precious fetus. Why not just drop all reminders of the meat envelope and expunge the word "uterus" as well?
An exhaustive list of alternative definitions has already been considered here: [20] Inexplicably, the definition in the lead sentence in the lead paragraph of a general article on abortion is drawn from a legal text. If we scroll down to the bottom of the article, we see that this article is categorized in medical and ethical, but not legal categories. A consensus seems to have been arrived at in the archives to the effect that no specific field, such as medicine, be considered as offering an authoritative definition of abortion in a general article. But the legal definition was chosen anyway. Why?
When I want to gain a general sense of a word's meaning, I look for consensus using a multiDictionary such as alphDictionary, which is capable of searching 1,060 English dictionaries online. A search on abortions returns 29 under General, 7 under Business (law) plus one hack, 2 under art, 11 under Medical, 2 under Science (natural abortifacients), 1 under Tech (veterniarian), 1 for Computers, and 2 under Miscellaneous (philosophy and dreams). Guess how many times the first entry is "termination of pregnancy", "end of pregnancy", "cessation of pregnancy", etc followed by "expulsion of conceptus" as the secondary meaning.
(Remarks withdrawn as they had been written under the impression that "embryo" does not cover the pre-implantation products of conception. Ermadog ( talk))
I would suggest we review these definitions from MedLine Plus (US gov't source) "A miscarriage is the spontaneous loss of a fetus before the 20th week of pregnancy. (Pregnancy losses after the 20th week are called preterm deliveries...The term miscarriage is used often in the lay language and refers to spontaneous abortion.)" See, no mention of the inconvenient meat envelope, although it is implied in the term "pregnancy". Or this "An abortion is the spontaneous or induced loss of an early pregnancy. The period of pregnancy prior to fetal viability outside of the uterus is considered early pregnancy." from eMedicine The phrases "loss of a fetus" and "prior to viability" imply that the parasitic growth is indeed dead as a doornail, has shuffled off its mortal coil, has rung up the curtain and joined the choir invisible, and is now up in heaven strumming on a harp with JHWH or Zeus or somebody and generally is a dead parrot and we should all throw a huge humungous wake and celebrate its passage to the Other Side, where it will evade a life of mortal toil on this earthly plane; and we will all one day join him/her/it in singing the eternal praises of the Cosmic Muffin, Cthulhu and the Ghost of Christmas Past. There is no more need to emphasize the death of the fetus any more than there is need to draw attention to the fact that my prize roses came about in part due to a merciless slaughter of countless slugs. If you insisted on doing that in my garden, I'd shove my cane up your nose and chuck you out.
If someone familiar with the archives could point me to the section in the archives addressing the matter of focus, I'd be much obliged.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ermadog ( talk • contribs) 06:07, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
At this point, I'm not convinced that the discussion is productive with regard to editing this article, so I'm going to remind us both that this is not a forum and let you have the last word with regard to the earlier discussion. Dylan Flaherty ( talk) 04:01, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
Pregnancy can be terminated in several ways. When it is terminated by a live birth, you don't have a successful abortion. When pregnancy terminates because a live fetus dies (naturally or because it is killed) and is then expelled from the uterus, that is an abortion. When the live fetus' is removed (spontaneously or through outside intervention) and dies in the process of removal, that is also an abortion. When one of two twin fetuses dies (naturally or because it is killed) and is expelled from the womb, that is an abortion, but the pregnancy continues. Many abortion definitions in medical dictionaries also do refer to the death of the embryo or fetus. The current line that mentions death is necessary to provide an objectively accurate definition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.233.28.25 ( talk) 19:57, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
Andrew, can we archive this in the First paragraph archive? Would help keep track of timeline on the topic cropping up. - Roy Boy 23:58, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Lead archives: 2006 -- 2007-10 -- 2011
LCP made a BOLD edit to the LEAD which was reverted. Let's discuss and propose changes to the lead. Some of LCP's concerns were basic, grammar things, others are bigger.
LCP modified the word "removal" with "surgical" and "expulsion" with "natural" and "its" with "the embryo's or fetus'" so An abortion is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death would read An abortion is the surgical removal or natural expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by the embryo's or fetus' death. About modifying "removal or expulsion". I these words were chosen to make sure to cover nearly all cases of "abortion" from induced to miscarriage. I think that meaning is conveyed. Adding the words "surgical and natural" makes it even clearer, almost to the point of being verbose. However, we have to keep in mind abortoficiences and medical abortion. These are non-surgical methods that some people would clearly not classify as "natural" that cause abortion by expulsion. Therefore, making this dichotomy doesn't account for all case of abortion and therefore I cannot support adding those two words.
Regarding the second change to this sentence, I believe one use of "embryo or fetus" is clunky, and two is even clunkier. It would be nice if there was one nice word we could use (like products of conception), but we can't just use embryo or fetus. 80% of the abortion in the use are embryonic, while fetus is a more generic, commonly used term. I think that keeping "its" is better than repeating "emrbyo or fetus".
One thing that LCP's edit did was completely remove the medical definition. I think because we had around 21 cited source ( there is a talk page link), with the majority of them mentioning a gestational age, we are not doing our sources justice by ignoring this very common definition of the word. It is giving undue weight to the non-medical definition by not mentioning something so sourced.
Finally, there was concern about the last part of the sentence being gramatically incorrect, if not awkwardly worded: which is considered nonviable. Does anyone have any suggestions for improvements on how to convey that a fetus before 20 weeks is considered non-viable (while keeping the medical definition intact)? - Andrew c 00:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
[reset indent] I disagree with your counting. I believe discounting a source because it isn't online is not valid, and I believe discounting a source because the word abortion is later modified by another word or phrase is not any more of a contradiction than defining "threatened" or "incomplete abortion" different from an unmodified "abortion".
To make it clear, the reason why I'd just like to let the lead sit and move on is because I feel that these matters were quite timely and consuming in the past and that it took a lot to build a version that most everyone could agree with and do not want to open that can of worms again. I do not feel right spending a great deal of effort going over the same matters again when there are other areas of this article needing attention. It's like, how many editors at Jesus want to argue AD vs CE again? How many editors at Roman Catholic Church want to argue RCC vs. CC again. These are all top tier articles that are not featured (but should be), but editors always find ways to argue over the same stuff instead of focusing on improving the less talked about areas of the articles. So forgive me if my past experiences makes me jaded. Maybe this discussion can be cleared up in a jiff.
Perhaps the simplest way we could address your concerns is by adding the word "sometimes" to the current version. So the last sentence would read along the lines of Commonly, "abortion" refers to an induced procedure at any point during human pregnancy; however, it is sometimes medically defined as miscarriage or induced termination before twenty weeks' gestation, which is considered nonviable.
To address LCP's concerns, maybe we could rephrase the final portion to say defined as miscarriage or induced termination before the point of viability.- Andrew c 14:28, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
"It" herein is referring to any mammalian fetus — not just human fetuses. My is point is that, although several editors have objected to "death" before, suggesting that it should be removed from the article, formulations which avoided using "death" have not passed the test. I see purposely trying to avoid the word "it" as being the same. The above proposals ("products of conception" and repetition of the phrase "embryo or fetus") remind me of some of the awkward, overly complex constructions that have been designed to sidestep using "death," namely, "An abortion is the termination of an embryo of fetus' gestation in a womb, so as not to result in a live birth." I think, in this case, going out of our way to avoid particular words only serves to decrease the clarity of the text, by making it more complicated than it needs to be.
Does everyone here agree with the idea of changing the last sentence of the first paragraph to, "medically, it is defined as miscarriage or induced termination before twenty weeks' gestation, the point at which a fetus is considered viable?" in order to address LCP's initial concerns? -
Severa (
!!!) 02:56, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi Ferrylodge.. your link doesn't prove a woman carrying a foetus should be called a mother.. that is contingent on accepting the POV that the foetus may be called a "child". Zargulon 19:14, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi.. are you saying the phrase "joining mother and fetus" in the definition of "after-birth" proves that carrying a not-just-about-to-be-born fetus makes someone a mother? This is not very a very good argument given the word under definition is *after* - *birth*.. I would at least expect to see something under the definition of "mother" or "fetus". I looked through the other dictionaries link and I couldn't find anything that supported the position that the definition of mother applies in any situation other than immediately surrounding the time of birth and thereafter. Of course many people either casually or deliberately use mother to include any carrier of a foetus, as you noticed with your Wikipedia and google search.
Zargulon 20:22, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
Severa has reverted. Take your time to think it over, Severa. Andrew c previously proposed this, and reconfirmed the proposal at 16:40 on 22 June. Then, at 15:31 on 23 June, I asked for people to explain any objections they might have to this edit. Then at 22:00 on 23 June, I said I'd go ahead and make the change. Then at 04:00 on 24 June you visited this page and made a comment on another subject. It was not until 5:58 on 24 June that I finally made the edit. Please don't say that I'm jumping the gun. Okay? Thank you for kind indulgence. Ferrylodge 06:47, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
(unindent)Sorry to have been so silent. I've been off-line. The current version resolves the main issue that I had with the previous lead. Many thanks to everyone who pitched in! LCP 18:29, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
No one replied to this post, where Ferrylodge stated, "I'll go ahead and modify the last sentence of the first paragraph" — probably because the "mother" vs. "pregnant woman" discussion expanded above it and it was easy to miss — but a lack of reply is not the same as an agreement to go ahead. There hasn't been any definitive agreement that any of the proposals put forward should be put into action in the article. I never expressed that I thought this proposal should be enacted. Nor do I interpret the following comment from Andrew c as exactly giving the green light:
Specifically, Andrew c expressed concerns over the word "sometimes," but this was still included in the intro revision. I also have an issue with the addition of the word "sometimes," which I feel is weasel wording, but also with the removal of the reference to "twenty weeks," which was agreed upon by last year's consensus. At the peak of that discussion, over 10 editors were involved, and the debate proceeded for over a month. In comparison, we have four (maybe five) editors now participating in this discussion, which has been going on for a couple of days, and none of us have agreed conclusively on a course of action. Things are still up in the air. Let's not get hasty and think that we are in any kind of a rush here. The introduction is as stable as it is because people were willing to take the time to cooperate toward finding a solution. Perhaps we can take a page from last year's debate and build a list of proposals on which users can vote. Personally, I would like to know what some of the users who participated in last year's discussion think. - Severa ( !!!) 08:27, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Do you bother to check things? Goodandevil ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been blocked 7 times for edit warring on Abortion articles to promote a POV, and has not edited since 5 August 2006 - probably a good thing since that's the last person I'd think would help us to reach any kind of consensus; Pro-Lick ( talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) is banned permanently, which surely you saw on his page, why are you inviting banned users?; WikiCats has not edited since 9 December 2006. Why wasn't User:Spaully, User:SOPHIA, or User:SlimVirgin invited? All were active in previous discussions, and all are editing now. KillerChihuahua ?!? 21:10, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
If the medical definition of abortion is only an abortion before 20 weeks, what's the medical definition for the common understanding of abortion after 20 weeks? Also, I (almost) hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the entire lead as a whole seems too short for, say, FA status if that's the ultimate goal, in particular, the health effects sections seem too long for there to be no apparent mention of it at all in the lead. Homestarmy 22:09, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
<uindent> I'm not advocating any radical changes just yet - just throwing out ideas. What it seems to be coming to is a confusion of an event and a procedure all mixed up with the differences in medical, legal and common use definitions. Sophia 10:53, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
This comment is referring to FL's statement A "late-term abortion" is still an abortion. Under that logic, I submit that the lead is inaccurate by saying an abortion is the removal or expulsion because we have "incomplete abortions" and "threatened abortions", both cases of "abortion" where the embryo may not have been removed nor expelled. However, that said, I disagree with the logic. A word is specifically modified by these terms "late-term" or "incomplete" or "threatened" because they do not meet the standard definition of the term "abortion". I also question FL's assertions that Likewise, numerous medical articles use the term "abortion" after 20 weeks. and the medical literature is full of references to late term abortions that occur after twenty weeks. Anyone can do this, do a pubmed search for "abortion". I just got 62577 hits. Then do a search for ("late-term abortions" or "late-term abortion"), and you get 53 hits. That's .085% I wouldn't call that "full of" or even "numerous". But it gets worse. Start reading through the results. 7 of them are popular newspaper articles from places like the New York Times (not part of the "medical literature" by any means). At least 5 are from legal journals, again not part of the medical literature. At least 6 are from partisan publications such as Reproductive freedom news "from the Center for Reproductive Law & Policy", and Conscience which is put out by "Catholics for a Free Choice". So that takes us down from 53 hits to 35. Let's look at these results. The vast majority of the results deal with animals (cows, pigs, horses, sheep, nilgais). And when you look at many of those articles, they make a distinction between a LTA and a stillbirth. (quotes like Two were late-term abortions, two neonates died 1 or 2 days after birth, and one calf survived. No stillbirths or perinatal deaths were observed in other bovids in the zoo that year. [12]) How many of the results deal with humans? and how many of those deal with abortion procedures? I think it's clear how prevalent this usage of "late-term abotion" is in the medical literature.
However, here are two interesting quote from the results:
So what is all this getting at? I believe the most common medical use of the term "abortion" in the medical literature has a cut off point. They make a distinction between abortion (miscarriage) and stillbirth. The medical literature does not deal with abortion procedures in humans nearly as often. And this is the stumbling block. We are all used to hearing the word "abortion" and thinking of medical procedures that humans use to end their pregnancy. And in our rational minds, we think "the procedure doesn't change just because the fetus is a little older, so why on earth does it stop being an abortion procedure? Those medical definitions must be wrong, and we shouldn't even mention them." However, that's simply disregarding our sources because we don't like what they say. NPOV says we should present all sides, if notable. Sophia brings up a great point that there is a distinction between a medical procedure attached to the word "abortion" and an event. The medical literature that uses the word "abortion" in this manner is rarely talking about the medical procedures that humans use to end their pregnancies. And even some articles dealing with humans keep to the medical usage of the term "abortion" (i.e. this deals with what wikipedia calls late-term abortion, but the word "abortion" isn't used to describe the procedure). Granted, there are also journal articles dealing with humans that do use LTA in the wikipedia sense. But, as noted above, I also contend that the term "late-term abortion" is simply not filling the medical literature by any means. And a last issue to consider is the variations in definitions between different countries. According to the article cited above, and Severa's cited Canadian reference, not all countries agree on the definition of "abortion". To be completely accurate for every case (which I think shouldn't be our goal, but..), we may need some refining. However, completely removing a mention of viability is not an option because we would be ignoring significant POVs.
And finally, I'm going to throw this out here again. It seems like the reason why we are concerned over saying an abortion is medically defined as being before viability, is because not all medical sources say those exact words. Going through the definitions, a good majority of them don't even mention "death" (more mention viability or 20 weeks than mention "death"). I propose removing the ending clause in the lead, and using a definition similar to the one Sophia cited: An abortion is the premature exit of the products of conception from the uterus. I have always thought "products of conception" is more accurate than "embryo or fetus" because more than just the embryo or fetus is removed during an abortion procedure. If a doctor only removed the embryo, and left everything else, the patient would become ill. In the past, a few users were concerned that POC was a euphemism, but I contend that it is a technical term, and that it's meaning is obvious to the lay reader. It also avoids any of the pronoun issues that revolve around calling an embryo an "it".- Andrew c 15:29, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
Sorry to write even more. The whole issue that started this back in the day is that there are many definitions that mention viability, or a specific week. According to NPOV, we should include all views. It isn't our place to judge our sources. By removing mention of viability, we are in essence, saying we know more than our sources, that our sources are wrong. Our solution in the past was to include multiple definitions, the common and the medical. Maybe it was too simplistic to think that there were just two definitions of the word "abortion" (false dichotomy), but it was a generalization that worked for the time being. I feel that these discussions are being too nitpicky, and that if we tried to accurately describe every possible scenario, the lead would turn into something quite outrageous. My proposal a few days ago was to temper the phrase "medically, it is defined" with "it is sometimes medically defined". This was an attempt to address FL's concern that "abortion" wasn't ALWAYS medically defined as this. I personally feel that for a lead, we can only be so precise, and that the medical literature uses abortion in this manner more than it uses abortion in the common manner. Others may disagree with this, so hence the "sometimes". But like I said, I could live without the sometimes. It seems like there is enough people concerned about the precision that "sometimes" may be a good solution. (I think we could look at most of the words in the lead and find some instance where the word is inaccurate. "spontaneous" implies something impulsive, or fast, or "without apparent external cause", but some miscarriages take weeks to complete, and some are caused by something external, like a direct blow or injury to the lower abdomen. and "artificially" may not cover someone who takes natural abortifacients to induce abortion. the phrasing "an induced procedure" may imply something who having labor induced because they are post-term, and that results in a livebirth, etc) I'm not bringing up these small inaccuracies to say the lead is poor. I'm bring them up to mention that there is an acceptable level of accuracy in generalized statements for a lead, and efforts to be too precise will only lead to a bloated, verbose lead (which is the opposite purpose of a lead). To sum up, could we all agree on FL's proposal that was introduced and reverted here, and move on to writing a few more paragraphs for the lead?- Andrew c 16:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
With respect to the intense debate and discussion with regards to this introduction, I feel it necessary to say that I believe the first paragraph carries with it a certain undertone, or connotation in describing what an abortion is. I believe that the first sentience of the paragraph makes an assumption, or rather places a certain point of view on the nature of what is and what is not life, which is at the center of the "Choice/Life" debate. My basis for this belief is the use of the word "death".
"An abortion is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death."
The section above in bold is specifically what I'm referring to. What I propose is to change the wording, such that it states what is certain rather than what is possible. By this I mean to say that a potential better way of stating it is:
"An abortion is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in or caused by the unnatural termination of a naturally occurring biological process."
For lack of a better analogy, (and I do feel quite a bit of distaste in using it, but I feel it's never-the-less the best analogy available to me), when a tumor is surgically removed it is not referred to as "resulting in the death of....the tumor".
Rather than getting deeper into the debate about what constitutes life or death, since the terms are arguably wholly subjective and in many cases applied inconsistently See: Afterlife I humbly suggest that we sidestep the entire issue by referring to it with better defined, less subjective, and more widely accepted language. While a great many would argue that a embryo/fetus is either Living or not Living at the time an abortion is performed, I do not see any argument against that it is a "naturally occurring biological process".
While one may further break that statement down such that the word "naturally" need not apply since in the case of Artificial insemination then abortion, I believe that with respect to abortion itself, that is the most neutral way of stating what it is, without taking sides in the great debate.
Edit: After spending some more time reading through the paragraphs above, I've come to realize the my proposed change relies primarily on exchanging the word death for termination, which seems to be less universally accepted than I anticipated when I decided to add this section.
So I'd like to further examine the reasoning behind using death in place of termination. It seemed to me from my reading above that the word death was chosen, because not to include it was perceived as dehumanizing. Well then isn't including it "humanizing" it and thus taking a side? The definition of termination isn't in dispute, but the definition of what is alive (and by proxy what then has a death) is in dispute. Anyone seeking to establish the state of the embryo/fetus as either alive/not is in fact taking a side, since the debate centers around this very issue. The entire discussion above is riddled with contradictions from many users. Use wiki precendent for example: Look up any other medical procedures in WP and point to one that refers to a part as having a "death" after it's been surgically removed.
To say the embryo/fetus has a "death" is directly implicating that it is in fact a separate entity, and thus clearly takes a side on the issue To make the claim that "medically speaking cells have a death after they have been removed" goes against not defining the abortion medically. It's just one example of contradiction after contradiction that has completely sapped any neutrality from the definition of what abortion is. To say it has a "death" for the sake of humanizing the definition is also clearly taking a side.
"Death" is not taken as an absolute (again see: After life), has considerable emotion attached to it, and as such should not be used to clearly define the result. Termination or ended defines the result of the procedure without the emotion or nuance attached to "death".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial#Bias_in_attribution:_Mind_your_nuances
Toastysoul 09:16, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
In medicine, an abortion is the premature exit of the products of conception (the fetus, fetal membranes, and placenta) from the uterus. It is the loss of a pregnancy and does not refer to why that pregnancy was lost.
abortion /abor·tion/ (ah-bor´shun) 1. expulsion from the uterus of the products of conception before the fetus is viable. 2. premature stoppage of a natural or a pathological process.
There was extensive discussion previuosly about the word "death" and I support keeping it in there, the way it has been for quite a while. It is technically accurate. If a malformed fetus is born naturally with only a week to live, we ordinarily say it "dies" when it expires. When a bug is swatted with a fly swatter, we ordinarily say it "dies." When a microbe ceases to have biological activity, we ordinarily say it "dies."
If this lede is to be changed from the prior consensus by altering the word "death", then I would urge that the people who particpated in the prior consensus be invited here.
Additionally, I believe that altering the word "death" will open up a can of worms. For example, there has been a consistent and deliberate effort to eliminate the word " mother" from all abortion-related articles, even though that word is technically accurate. Ferrylodge 21:23, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
Brisvegas, I'm amazed. I really think you couched the issue in the correct light. No one will ever be satisfied about an article on such a controversial topic, and I think that the article itself has come a very long way. I said before that if a previous compromise had been made on the lede, then I think we should stick with it. While I don't want to discourage discussion on this point (for certainly anyone can disagree with the compromise), I don't see how a new discussion is going to bring new results. No matter upon what compromise is agreed, some will always dislike it. Stanselmdoc 14:09, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Whatever we do, we have to watch out to avoid WP:CANVASS. Contacting contributors who voted in the past to support the current version could be seen as stacking the vote in favor of one position. I was involved in those discussion and I have this page on my watch list. If other old editors care enough, we can leave a message at the main Talk:Abortion page. Contacting them individually could be seen as negative canvassing. If we honestly need more opinions, why not start a RfC? However, it doesn't seem like there is momentum for change, so we may not even need to go that far. - Andrew c [talk] 14:17, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
I wish to respond to the above user:
Ferrylodge about a previous section, but I am not certain where to place it so I'll start a new paragraph. I again want to point out that the technical accuracy of the word death is not in question. Just as
Stanselmdoc believes
Ferrylodge has couched the issue for him, I believe
Sophia has embodied the issue for me with the following statement: The personification implied by referring to "its death" is an expression of a strong, if subtly expressed, POV. It has nothing to do with my experiences or interrpretation - it's basic grammar.
With respect to the assertion that termination is a "coldly clinical" term, I completely disagree. Something along the lines of "ceasing to continue biological function" is coldly clinical. The word termination conveys the idea that whatever it was that your were talking about has stopped what it was doing without (not so subtly) hinting that it was also considered "alive". Further, I completely disagree that the use of the word "fetus" instead of unborn baby somehow balances out using the word "death". If you were to represent the POV of P/C (versus P/L) then you would say something along the lines of "collection or mass of cells" or "Developing Organism" instead of fetus. The use of the word fetus is itself a compromise. As in all cases (save molar pregnancy) the clearly accurate technical term is in fact fetus, which STILL has an emotional attachment to it associated with PL views. The use of the word fetus clearly identifies that the object you are trying to describe is in fact a developing human being.
The term "Death" conveys a much more abstract concept than need be applied to the statement to get a basic understanding of what abortion is. That should be the purpose of the leading statement. Your assertion that it must somehow address the fact that abortion is also a social issue is completely false. There are many places in the article that can be completely devoted to the issue of describing how each party views AND defines what an abortion is. Toastysoul 19:42, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
The Oxford University Press defines Abortion as the following: Abortion means the end of a pregnancy before the fetus can survive. It may be either spontaneous — when it is also known as miscarriage — or induced, when it is a deliberate termination of pregnancy.
This definition is accurate, neutral, and inclusive of what an Abortion is. It does not cater to P/C or P/L and at least from what I comprehend completely sidesteps usage of controversial terms. Why can't we craft something like it? Toastysoul 20:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
There is no neutral definition of the word "abortion". The problem, as I understand it, is that people viewing the issue from the pro-life side see abortion as primarily a moral issue, about life and death. The pro-choice side sees abortion as primarily a medical and legal issue, about a medical procedure. If we first present a medical definition, then we say that the moral issues surrounding abortion are somehow secondary to its being a medical procedure. On the other hand, if we first present a definition in terms of life and death (as we now do), we're implying that medical considerations are somehow secondary to moral ones. Either way, we've implicitly taken a side right off the bat.
The solution I propose is to begin the article by addressing the controversy head-on. "An abortion is a type of termination of a pregnancy. Its definition is controversial, with most medical sources defining an abortion as . . ., while others characterize it as . . .".
In case there's any doubt that the medical definition is prejudicial, it's worth checking in the archives for when we looked up the proceeding of the Second International Conference on Interuterine Contraception, where some doctors got together and agreed to define pregnancy as beginning at implantation (instead of conception), for explicitly social reasons, i.e., because the moral leaders would be likely to follow their lead, and use of an IUD would then be classed as contraception, not as abortion.
This example makes it clear that the medical definitions are not necessarily as neutral as we might like them to be, and in some cases were actually crafted to distance people from their moral qualms. - GTBacchus( talk) 23:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Stanselmdoc, the simple fact that the subject is brought up again and again and again is indication that some problem exists, and simply calling it a non-issue won't actually make it go away, because people on either side feel very strongly about it. One might read the persistent re-asking of the question as an indication that we haven't yet found the best NPOV definition. Ideally, we could come up with something that everyone would agree is neutral.
My suggestion is to present two definitions from the very beginning, and to attribute them both immediately. Both can be sourced, and nobody can really deny that both are in common use, referring to the same procedure, but with entirely different assumptions and agendas. Any definition of abortion that doesn't reflect this fractured nature of the term is going to be biased, by choosing one side's notions of what's important. - GTBacchus( talk) 03:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Now, I'm well aware that there are medical sources that use the word "death" when defining abortion. My recollection from many old discussions here is that more medical sources speak in terms of termination, or simply define the term based on timing (twentieth week, for example). If I'm wrong about that, please let me know.
We can talk about wording, but I maintain my point that there is more than one definition of "abortion" in common use, that the different definitions reflect different priorities about what's important, and that the most neutral approach is not to adopt one definition or the other, but to present the controversy as well as we can document it. - GTBacchus( talk) 05:25, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I would like it if you would address my point that there are different, incompatible definitions in common use. Do you disagree? I'm not really focused on the word "death", so I feel some of your point is talking past what I'm trying to suggest. I certainly don't advocate using such an uncommon term as "fetal destruction". I simply advocate acknowledging that more than one definition is at work, and standing outside of that conflict by talking about it. Do you disagree with that approach?
Do you think that the opposing sides of the abortion debate aren't working from different assumptions, or that those assumptions don't influence their definitions of terms, or... help me out here. How is presenting a single definition the most neutral thing we can do? One more thing: is there a convenient list of sources you can point to supporting your claim that defining abortion in a way that excludes late-term procedures is the minority position? I recall it being rather common, the last time I looked at an extended list. - GTBacchus( talk) 06:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for the analysis of the list from the archives, but please don't think I'm trying to play some kind of numbers game either. I'm kind of thinking aloud, and I don't mind remembering something wrong and being corrected. It doesn't mean I'm trying to resurrect any dead horses, or use numbers to be pushy.
Now, I realize that the incompatible medical definitions are presented in the third sentence. I'm actually trying to address some deeper differences, the kind that reflect different fundamental beliefs about what's important... and I'm allowing for non-medical definitions, because I think some people really don't consider the primary definition of abortion to be a medical one, while other people realy do. I think we should identify that conflict, before speaking with the language of either side of it.
I hope I'm making sense; am I? It's kind of late here... I'll make this my last edit of the evening. - GTBacchus( talk) 06:49, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
On one hand, some sources define abortion purely in terms of some aspect of the pregnancy - whether it be timing, or the fact that the procedure is induced. On the other hand, some sources define abortion also in terms of its consequences for the embryo or fetus. Defintions specifying that an abortion is "before viability" somewhat straddle the fence.
It seems to me that medical sources - and sources preferred by the pro-choice camp - are more likely to talk about a pregnancy being terminated without really addressing the fate of the fetus. Of the three that we cite, one uses "death" and one uses "destruction", but are those representative of medical definitions in that way? They seem to be the only two medical definitions in the famous list of 21 to do so. Medical definitions are more likely to focus on the pregnancy, and possibly on "viability"; common definitions are more likely to mention the expected death or destruction of the fetus as a defining characteristic.
I don't think we can be neutral without addressing that difference. The current version makes it seem as if it's the norm in medical sources to talk about the fetus' death, which isn't really true, is it?
As to Toastysoul's and Sophia's suggestions, I haven't looked at Toastysoul's source, but I note that he claims below that he's not, in fact, arguing to use that source exclusively. Sophia's objection sounds closer to the mainstream pro-choice position - that the word "death" casts the issue in a moral light in keeping with the priorities of the pro-life side.
I wouldn't say that the fetus doesn't die, nor that a tumor or a fingernail doesn't die... however, I would maintain that using the word "death" in a definition demonstrates a set of priorities different from that of most medical sources. Most of them talk about the pregnancy without saying much about the fetus. I don't think that the sources we cite are representative in this respect. - GTBacchus( talk) 03:15, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
<unindent>I think GTBacchus may have something when he suggests we acknowledge the vast spectrum of definitions that are out there. I don't feel the one we currently use is balanced as it does have a pro-life POV with the use of "its death" since I contend that most people would not associate the emotional baggage that goes with a "death" with a potentially cancerous tumour such as a molar pregnancy (89 ghits really isn't a lot for a term and I would vote delete if it were a proposed page due to it being a neologism). If this was balanced with other definitions we can highlight the contradictory situations that are in place around the world, such as in the UK where 23 week birth can be either an abortion or a premature birth. Both can be artificially induced as a 23 week "baby" will be delivered by cesarean if it is having problems. Our current lede does not give any hint of just how subjective these definitions are - someone made the very good point above about a normal birth being an abortion by some definitions. If we have just one in the lede it needs to be as neutral as possibe and for that I prefer Andrew's suggestion as "products of conception" as he rightly points out that a lot more stuff than just a fetus or embryo are removed. We can also cover the fact that medically an abortion is defined as an "event" (ie something happens) wheras in common use most people associate it with a "procedure" (ie something is done). Sophia 08:27, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
Ferrylodge, you amuse me. You use statements people make and ever so subtly alter them such that they mean a different idea than what was trying to be communicated. I will try to spell this out for you again, in clear and certain terms:
Further, arguing over the number of google results for a specific set of terms is utterly pointless. Trying to use the number of hits as a justification for anything is a bad idea for so many reasons. Now, the oxford definition is perhaps not perfect. That being said, I quoted it as an example of a definition that both specifies what and abortion is and does not slant one way or the other. Toastysoul 11:59, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
The neutral approach would be to say from the start that some define abortion primarily as a medical procedure, and others define it primarily as murder. If we don't point that out up front, then we're adopting one of those positions implicitly. The current solution is an interesting compromise - it defines it as a medical procedure, but it uses one of the minority medical definitions that actually mentions the fetus' death. That may be the best solution, but I'd prefer a version that better reflects how people in the world generally think about abortion. - GTBacchus( talk) 03:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
And to defend myself and my opinion - I have not said I'm against a change in the definition (in fact, I'm pretty sure I was the very first to respond with new suggestions), I'm saying that NO ONE in my opinion has presented an effective argument to make me believe it NEEDS to be changed. Maybe if someone could do that, I would be in favor of it. And what is this about, the very fact that this gets brought up frequently makes it a huge problem? NO, that's not it. It gets brought up frequently because people with strong beliefs on controversial issues continually look for every single little itty bitty syllable that they can take the wrong way. Stanselmdoc 13:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
The lead states, "This can occur spontaneously as a miscarriage, or be artificially induced by chemical, surgical or other means." In short, a comma is not used before a dependant clause. Therefore, the sentence should read, "This can occur spontaneously as a miscarriage or be artificially induced by chemical, surgical or other means." Any objections to this change? LCP 19:33, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
My suggestion for the lead:
Note that I added a comma to the last sentence. With this lead, the sentence "In common parlance, the term "abortion" is synonymous with induced abortion. However, in medical texts, the word 'abortion' might exclusively refer to, or may also refer to, spontaneous abortion (miscarriage)." under "Definitions" probably should be deleted, as it would be redundant. I would also add another section entitled "Birth Control Versus Abortion". It would say this:
Something that bother me a bit: if we define abortion as the cessation of a pregnancy prior to viability, isn't that problematic in the face of continuing medical progress? It's quite conceivable that a hundred years from now, doctors will be able to remove an just-implanted embryo from a uterus and raise it to term in an artificial womb. Would abortions then cease to exist, as there would no longer be such a thing as a "nonviable fetus"? Also, doesn't this definition make "late-term abortion" an oxymoron? Heqwm ( talk) 21:42, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Interesting to see much thought has gone into the content of the lead, but seemingly little into its length, or lack of. Everywhere I look I see massive articles with absurdly small leads. I have seen one sentence leads, but this is getting 'up there' with the best. I really wish people who make these assessments, especially GA (and to a lesser extent FA - they seem to have some comprehension of the issue) would take more notice of this problem. Richard001 ( talk) 02:41, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Looks good to me so far, except the # per year - the source is from 1999 I notice, should we hunt for newer? and should we even have that in the lead? And if we do, IMO we should specify "worldwide". Thoughts? KillerChihuahua ?!? 00:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, I changed the lead definition because it was long, unwieldy and repetitive. I'm fine with the switch back to "medical" from "medicinal" but I feel like the revert just put the definition back to the old same verbose place. Andrew, I know you just switched it back, but would you mind discussing this? Phyesalis ( talk) 01:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Note: There is related discussion at Talk:Abortion/First paragraph. -- Coppertwig ( talk) 14:58, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
OK, going over the recommended list, the discussion centers primarily on death, and I find that a number of sources bear closer scrutiny:
To address the number of discounted examples I pulled the unique def sources from the first page search for “medical dictionary:
So, I get: 12 for no – 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 12, 13, 16, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25b; 4 for yes – 4, 5, 17, 21; 3 for mixed – 18, 19, 25a; and not counting 7 – 2 (not found but source site is #3), 6 (1911), 7 (1913), 10 (repeat of 9), 11 (Vet), 14 (r of 9), 15 (not a def, but argument for death, and not viability). Not much of an argument for a clear trend for viability. Thoughts? Phyesalis ( talk) 03:27, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
(undent) Yes, there is a trend. I agree, and I'm certainly up for outside input. But I think we might be able to work this out. Again, not against the word being in the lead, just don't like the way it was used globally so as to exclude forms of selective and therapeutic abortion right off the bat. I'm thinking maybe a little rewording of "Definitions" and maybe a new title like "Types"? You up for letting me take a whack at and then some friendly WP:BRD? Phyesalis ( talk) 18:59, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Please, there are surely other users watching this, could someone offer a 3rd opinion?- Andrew c [talk] 15:38, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
(undent)Okay, as I understand it, the disagreement is as follows. The lead paragraph used to have a sentence like this: "Abortion can refer to an induced procedure at any point during human pregnancy; it is sometimes medically defined as either miscarriage or induced termination before the point of viability" (emphasis added). However, it's been changed to say simply that abortion can occur "at any point during human pregnancy for therapeutic or elective reasons," without mentioning viability. The cited sources remain the same: " Merriam Webster’s Online Medical Dictionary. See also The Free Dictionary which includes definitions from Dorland's Medical Dictionary and from The American Heritage Stedman's Medical Dictionary."
Unless I'm mistaken, Phyesalis supports the current wording without "viability" whereas Andrew c thinks "viability" should go back in. It seems clear from the cited sources that "abortion" is often defined without being limited to instances before viability. But "abortion" sometimes is instead defined with that limitation; for example, Dorland's says: "expulsion from the uterus of the products of conception before the fetus is viable." And it seems that Dorland's is very clear about what the word "viability" means: "able to maintain an independent existence; able to live after birth."
So, in my opinion, this article should mention somewhere (either in the lead paragraph or in the footnote of the lead paragraph) that "abortion" is sometimes medically defined as either miscarriage or induced termination before the point of viability. And, it could also be mentioned in the footnote that "viability" means "able to maintain an independent existence; able to live after birth." [18] Sound reasonable? Ferrylodge ( talk) 20:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
I know a lot of you are going to grown, but I do not believe that the issue of using the word "death" in the first sentence was fully resolved per the previous discussions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abortion/First_paragraph#Neutrality_of_the_first_paragraph and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abortion/First_paragraph/Archive_2#medical_sources
I don't understand why we cannot resolve it now by simply having the first sentence say, "An abortion is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in the termination of a pregnancy." I mention this because the suggested terminology is taken Dictionary.com which has changed it's definition to "termination" from one that included the word "death." This seems significant to me. Also, the American Heritage dictionary never used the term "death." The American Heritage definition is: "The ending of pregnancy and expulsion of the embryo or fetus, generally before the embryo or fetus is capable of surviving on its own."
With these definitions in mind, please look at the previous inventory of definitions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abortion/First_paragraph/Archive_2#medical_sources
Because prominent sites, including the Miriam-Webster dictionary as well as the majority of medical sources use the "termination" terminology - we should probably change the first sentence. As it stands now, I believe as others have said that "death" carries too many connotations. This is 2008, our sources have changed their definitions.-- IronAngelAlice ( talk) 05:45, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Take it to the feticide article, please. Don't start that war here. KillerChihuahua ?!? 17:34, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Fishie instructed me to see the talk page in undoing my edit. I'm here, and I don't see a darn thing explaining Fishie's edit. I'm assuming Fishie just hasn't gotten around to posting it here. So Fishie, what's your reasoning? KillerChihuahua ?!? 17:34, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
hello, recently in my GCSE religious studies class i was told that the correct diffinition of abortion is "the premature expulsion of the foetus or embryo from the womb". i would have edited this my self but as the page is protected i decided to leave up to the experts. please concider changing this if you find it to be appropriate. many thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.199.209 ( talk) 18:01, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
At the risk of offending those who have finely tuned the meaning of abortion offered in the article, it seems to me that part of the current definition should be deprecated to a second level. The common interpretation of the term in contemporary speech and text is “induced” expulsion of the embryo or fetus. The “spontaneous or induced” meaning is archaic and specialized to the medical arts. Deprecating the “spontaneous” aspect of the definition is likely to offend one side or the other of the ongoing abortion debate. The following rewording is an attempt to retain the precision and neutrality of the current definition. Please comment.
"An abortion is the induced removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus from the uterus, resulting in its death. In medicine, abortion can refer to either induced or spontaneous expulsion. The spontaneous expulsion of a fetus or embryo before the 20th week is commonly known as a miscarriage.[1] The more commonly used definition, in reference to induced abortion, is the removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus by medical, surgical, or other means at any point during human pregnancy for therapeutic or elective reasons” Quampro ( talk) 21:48, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
I've cut down the opening section considerably. My reasoning is fairly simple. We need a short and concise definition of what abortion is. The remaining sentences reference all of the major abortion subtopics (history, legality, by country, morality). Also, as a matter of precision abortion can be, and is induced in domesticated animals all the time, but as a lone term refers to human abortions
Everything else was cut because its covered in the article itself.-- Tznkai ( talk) 20:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
Without putting in the comments of whether abortion is moral or amoral the whole article is put in jeapardy. Although the morality of abortion has been lightly touched upon, this subject cannot be ignored. Abortion cannot be discussed without the fact that the very act of abortion is the murder of a human being. There is no argument against the fact that life begins at conception. Distinguished physicians and scientists all agree that life can begin at no other time. With this being true, to purposely kill a baby while it is still in it's mother's womb is murder. Why abortion can be such a desirable thing has never been explained to me and most people in general. What is the difference between murdering a baby in it's mother's womb and killing your next door neighbor? Or better yet, how is it different from the government going to your city and killing off half the people? All three do the same things. They murder an innocent person that has the right to life. If anyone doubt what I am saying would you please explain how these innocents are not really being murdered. Our country and our whole world are being transformed by the almost 1 billion babies aborted in the last 50 years. Who can step up to the plate and explain why this is such a good thing? If a serial killer goes out and kills 15 people, people will unquestionably call him crazy. Do the people who condone the killing of millions of babies get a reprieve because they might have a university degree. Who dares to say that killing babies is a good and wholesome thing. By what standard of justice to these people speak out? And if they do speak out, why should one who disagrees with them not hold sway. Anathasius ( talk) 23:42, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
What are everyone's concerns with the first paragraph in regards to describing the conceptus. RoyBoy, Ferrylodge, TruthIIPower, Tznkai, and now myself have all made changes to the lead, but there hasn't been any discussion. We have multiple archives and subpages dealing with how to phrase the first paragraph... anyway, I think if we state what we find problematic with the lead and what we would like to change about the lead, we can see where the common ground is and move forward to a new consensus. - Andrew c [talk] 18:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
(undent) Yuk - multiple problems, largely by trying to do too much in the one sentance.
Can I suggest therefore: "An abortion is the loss in early pregnancy of an embryo, or later of a fetus, either caused by its death or resulting in its demise."
PS as a medic I personally find the second clause redundant and covered by the 2nd sentance, i.e. "An abortion is the loss in early pregnancy of an embryo or later of a fetus." suffices for me, for equally "loss of a limb after an accident" reads as a full-on dramatic tarumatic amputation. But I accept that the wider readership needs the second clause to prevent any implication that the word "loss" on its own is being too euphamistic - and this is not prochoice/prolife POV issue for prochoice concern for gravity of deliberate abortions is just as valid as concerns by all that the phrase is being too oblique to the very real distress following a spontaneous miscarriage. David Ruben Talk 22:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
(unindent)
Let me toss out my suggestion, then explain the thinking behind it:
"An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy prior to term by the removal or expulsion of the nonviable fetus or embryo."
1) We want to emphasize that pregnancies are what get aborted. We also want to leave room for spontaneous and induced abortions.
2) What makes it an abortion is that it's being ended before it has run its course, and that this ending is unsuccussful in terms of live issue. The key term is "viable". If you remove a viable fetus, it's an assisted birth. If you remove a nonviable one, you are necessarily killing it, which makes the process an abortion.
3) Depending on timing, either the fetus or embryo is expelled after it dies or it dies as part of the process of expulsion. There is no procedure in which a nonviable embryo or fetus is removed intact and left to die. Even the most extreme (and extremely rare) late-term abortions starts with a saline injection or the equivalent.
4) It is awkward to speak of abortion "resulting in or being caused by" this death, partially because the phrase is trying too hard to show causality, but mostly because it's long and odd. All we really need to get across is the distinction between an abortion and, say, a c-section on a viable fetus. The above does this successfully.
5) Long phrases to explain the difference between a fetus and embryo are out of place here, while putting a slash between them is just awkward. We can be brief and clear, instead.
Comments? TruthIIPower ( talk) 03:03, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Thank you GTBacchus for helping me. I'm glad you or you guys are trying to remain and stay neutral but I feel that only using the words fetus or embryo or other words like that on the Abortion page is biased because, in my opinion anyway, these words seem to favor pro-choicers. For me who so happens to be pro-life I feel insulted and offended that these words that mean "it" or "thing" is unfair and unbalanced so at least lets make the page more fair by not only using fetus or embryo but also unborn child. Thank You. I hope you at least understand. You may still not agree with me but at least try or attempt to understand where I come from and why I feel that only using fetus or embryo is not neutral. Thanks again. -- Rcatholic ( talk) 05:15, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
(undent)As Tznkai said, the phrase "life of the mother" is a well-known colloquialism that remains accepted terminology, even among pro choice advocates. The Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion uses the word "mother" 43 times with reference to a pregnant woman, and that's just in the majority opinion.
Additionally, dictionaries and other reference books often use the word "mother" prenatally, e.g.:
MedicineNet.com (defining placenta as a "temporary organ joining the mother and fetus");
American Heritage Stedman's Medical Dictionary (placenta permits "metabolic interchage between fetus and mother", and also defining quickening as "signs of fetal life felt by the mother");
Encyclopedia Britannica Concise ("nutrients and oxygen in the mother's blood pass across the placenta to the fetus");
On-Line Medical Dictionary, Department of Medical Oncology, University of Newcastle Upon Tyne ("movement of foetus in the womb perceived by the mother");
Medilexicon (defining quickening as "signs of life felt by the mother as a result of fetal movements");
Wordnet, Princeton University ("mother first feels the movements of the fetus");
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary ("motion of a fetus in the uterus felt by the mother").
The idea that perfectly normal English words should be banned from this article because they've somehow become contaminated by being used on one side or the other of a political controversy seems misguided to me. Same goes for images. Ferrylodge ( talk) 19:18, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
"Fetus" and "embryo"? Hm. Um, I still don't get it. I still don't understand how "fetus" or "embryo" are neutral then again what I may find neutral others may not. I don't think "fetus" nor "embryo" are neutral but many, many, many other people do. I think the words "fetus" and "embryo" are highly emotional and rude and offensive and insulting. For me abortion is just as equal to "baby-killing". I feel almost like I not only believe but know that a women automatically becomes a mother at the moment of conception not after the baby comes out of the mother's womb. For me people are born as soon as they are starting to be created by God and that happens in the mother's womb. I find that calling a baby a fetus or an embryo is just ugly. I think the words "fetus" and "embryo" are definitively moral, and thus non-neutral. I think calling a "fetus" or an "embryo" baby is highly accurate and more honest than "fetus" or "embryo". Besides science has proven that what's located in the mother's womb is a human being. If science is neutral than why can't we use it? I think the words fetus and embryo are issues of dishonesty. Now just because I find the abortion page to be slightly or a little off doesn't mean I can't live without the term baby being used on the Abortion article because I can. All I have to do is change the words "fetus" or "embryo" to child or baby in my mind of course. I know my beliefs and I know what I know and I'm proud of it. Just because I find a FEW mess-ups doesn't mean I'm wrong. Just because a few people don't agree with me doesn't make them wrong either. Thanks you guys and I'm deeply sorry if I offended or insulted anybody. We all have our own beliefs and our own knowledge and without out them this world would just be plane out boring. Have a nice day. -- Rcatholic ( talk) 17:30, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
The long-standing objective definition was collectively and painstakingly developed by dozens of editors (with diverse viewpoints, backgrounds, and knowledge) over a period of months; in the end, a formulation that includes reference to the death of the fetus was found to be necessary in order to be scientifically and medically accurate and objective.
Lacking this scientifically and medically necessary refence to fetal death, the recently edited version ("termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo" )is inaccurate and subjective (and thus highly un-wikipedia).
While countless hours were spent debating many substantive concerns on all angles of this specific "death of the fetus" topic, one common pregnancy situation exemplifies that there is no abortion unless expulsion or removal of the fetus causes or was caused by fetal death.
When a doctor removes a healthy baby from the mother's womb during a C-section and hands it to the father, there has been a "termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo", but no abortion. This and other examples are unassailable reasons that any accurate definition must cover fetal demise (which in plain English is death of the fetus or fetal death)
The fact that all pregnancies terminate renders the euphemism "termination of pregnancy" inadequate to describe the fetal death that is always part of abortion; we can call to mind any pregnancy that ends in a live birth, and also recall that artificially induced labor is one type of induced termination of pregnancy.
When a woman carrying twins experiences the "removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus" via abortion (selective reduction or miscarriage) of 1 of the fetuses at week 12, and 19 weeks later she delivers the other healthy twin; the continued development (aka life) of the first fetal twin was aborted at week 12, but there was certainly no "termination of pregnancy" until the healthy second twin was born at week 31.
71.52.188.76 ( talk) 15:42, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
Sorry to bring up this heated debate once again, But shouldn't we euphemize the word "Death" in the first paragraph to match the article on Miscarriage? This would bring us closer to standardization and a non bias.
BFPIERCE ( talk) 04:45, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
I've reverted this edit [19] as it was made without consensus and apparently without reading either the preceding sentence or the source. Compare the edit summary with the source's summary... In recent years, more countries experienced a decline in legal abortion rates than an increase, among those for which statistics are complete and trend data are available. The most dramatic declines were in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where rates remained among the highest in the world. The highest estimated levels were in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, where surveys indicate that women will have close to three abortions each on average in their lifetimes. The U.S. abortion rate dropped by 8% between 1996 and 2003, but remained higher than rates in many Northern and Western European countries. Rates increased in the Netherlands and New Zealand. The official abortion rate declined by 21% over seven years in China, which accounted for a third of the world's legal abortions in 1996. Trends in the abortion rate differed across age-groups in some countries. I trust that this revert will meet either with consent or discussion, rather than an edit war. SHEFFIELDSTEEL TALK 15:00, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
Dylan Flaherty's recent change restored a versions which seems to have been arrived at by consensus, and on that basis was proper. He adds "we should discuss this". The top of this talk page shows where in the archive this discussion has taken place. I have not had time to review 5 whole archives' worth of discussion, but did a quick review of the opening arguments and the 2 proposals in archive 4. I am not happy with the end result.
There does seem to be consensus regarding the POV introduced by the word "death", in that it begs the question of what kind of death we're talking about, which begs the question of whether the fetus is a human being/person/human life (these three terms are not coequal). What I don't see addressed is the matter of focus. The current wording, drawn from a legal text, "expulsion of a fetus or embryo from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death" focuses on the precious, precious fetus instead of the entirely irrelevant "meat envelope" that happens to be surrounding the precious, precious fetus. Why not just drop all reminders of the meat envelope and expunge the word "uterus" as well?
An exhaustive list of alternative definitions has already been considered here: [20] Inexplicably, the definition in the lead sentence in the lead paragraph of a general article on abortion is drawn from a legal text. If we scroll down to the bottom of the article, we see that this article is categorized in medical and ethical, but not legal categories. A consensus seems to have been arrived at in the archives to the effect that no specific field, such as medicine, be considered as offering an authoritative definition of abortion in a general article. But the legal definition was chosen anyway. Why?
When I want to gain a general sense of a word's meaning, I look for consensus using a multiDictionary such as alphDictionary, which is capable of searching 1,060 English dictionaries online. A search on abortions returns 29 under General, 7 under Business (law) plus one hack, 2 under art, 11 under Medical, 2 under Science (natural abortifacients), 1 under Tech (veterniarian), 1 for Computers, and 2 under Miscellaneous (philosophy and dreams). Guess how many times the first entry is "termination of pregnancy", "end of pregnancy", "cessation of pregnancy", etc followed by "expulsion of conceptus" as the secondary meaning.
(Remarks withdrawn as they had been written under the impression that "embryo" does not cover the pre-implantation products of conception. Ermadog ( talk))
I would suggest we review these definitions from MedLine Plus (US gov't source) "A miscarriage is the spontaneous loss of a fetus before the 20th week of pregnancy. (Pregnancy losses after the 20th week are called preterm deliveries...The term miscarriage is used often in the lay language and refers to spontaneous abortion.)" See, no mention of the inconvenient meat envelope, although it is implied in the term "pregnancy". Or this "An abortion is the spontaneous or induced loss of an early pregnancy. The period of pregnancy prior to fetal viability outside of the uterus is considered early pregnancy." from eMedicine The phrases "loss of a fetus" and "prior to viability" imply that the parasitic growth is indeed dead as a doornail, has shuffled off its mortal coil, has rung up the curtain and joined the choir invisible, and is now up in heaven strumming on a harp with JHWH or Zeus or somebody and generally is a dead parrot and we should all throw a huge humungous wake and celebrate its passage to the Other Side, where it will evade a life of mortal toil on this earthly plane; and we will all one day join him/her/it in singing the eternal praises of the Cosmic Muffin, Cthulhu and the Ghost of Christmas Past. There is no more need to emphasize the death of the fetus any more than there is need to draw attention to the fact that my prize roses came about in part due to a merciless slaughter of countless slugs. If you insisted on doing that in my garden, I'd shove my cane up your nose and chuck you out.
If someone familiar with the archives could point me to the section in the archives addressing the matter of focus, I'd be much obliged.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ermadog ( talk • contribs) 06:07, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
At this point, I'm not convinced that the discussion is productive with regard to editing this article, so I'm going to remind us both that this is not a forum and let you have the last word with regard to the earlier discussion. Dylan Flaherty ( talk) 04:01, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
Pregnancy can be terminated in several ways. When it is terminated by a live birth, you don't have a successful abortion. When pregnancy terminates because a live fetus dies (naturally or because it is killed) and is then expelled from the uterus, that is an abortion. When the live fetus' is removed (spontaneously or through outside intervention) and dies in the process of removal, that is also an abortion. When one of two twin fetuses dies (naturally or because it is killed) and is expelled from the womb, that is an abortion, but the pregnancy continues. Many abortion definitions in medical dictionaries also do refer to the death of the embryo or fetus. The current line that mentions death is necessary to provide an objectively accurate definition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.233.28.25 ( talk) 19:57, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
Andrew, can we archive this in the First paragraph archive? Would help keep track of timeline on the topic cropping up. - Roy Boy 23:58, 21 November 2010 (UTC)