Talk:Abortion

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Misuse and improper definitions of the words "therapeutic" and "elective"

For anyone who spends five minutes candidly researching, this article's use and definition of the word "therapeutic" is laughably POV. Anyone serious about the article's content would fix that. I refuse to register on principle, so I cannot make the change. The article purports that abortions are "either therapeutic or elective" and then imporerly defines those terms (therapeutic, therapeutic abortion, elective, and elective abortion) as used in common parlance and by healthcare professionals. Someone with some fairminded common sense please fix!

You would need to provide refs and stipulate where the problem is.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:49, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Been there, done that. You folks don't care, though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.233.18.28 (talk) 16:58, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I think it is correct to say that the term therapeutic with regard to abortion is not uniformly used, or accepted. Induced in contrast to Spontaneous Abortion (Miscarriage) also is refered to as Direct abortion, Artificial abortion. The reason that direct abortion is still a valid term is that it describes the opposite of indirect abortion. Indirect abortion occurs when treatment to save the life of the mother results in the death of her fetus. A pregnant woman with cancer for instance - treatment of the cancer may result in the death of the fetus, however theraputic treatment of her condition is not intended to result in termination of pregnancy. This needs to be made clearer in the section on induced abortion.DMSBel (talk) 18:37, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

"Indirect abortion" is not a medical term; rather, it's something made up by Catholic philosophers and refers to the removal of the Fallopian tube to end an ectopic pregnancy. "Therapeutic abortion" is the correct medical term. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:44, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I have to disagree, both terms are in use. Indirect abortion may be synonomous with therapeutic abortion in regard to an ectopic pregnancy. But apart from the case of an ectopic pregnancy, when treatment indirectly results in the death of a fetus, the former is the more correct term. Is it not possible that there are conditions treatable, that do not inevitably result in indirect abortion? That is to say one woman might receive cancer treatment when pregnant and lose her fetus, in another case she might not, the fetus might survive to be born. If this is possible then in the first case termination of pregnancy was neither intended nor therapeutic. The cancer treatment was therapeutic, the indirect abortion of the fetus would have had nothing to do with a cancer going into remission. DMSBel (talk) 19:03, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I realise that the use of the term is linked to double effect. But in the case of cancer treatment double effect does not mean double intended effect. Please don't get me wrong here. I spell this out only to make the matter clear. In an ectopic pregnancy the double effect of removing the fallopian tube is that the embyro will be removed too (this is intentional only in the sense that it is unavoidable), the same with a hysterectomy with the fetus in situ. And this article does overlap both philosophic and medical fields (and not those alone). Currently it does not cover the whole subject adequately. DMSBel (talk) 19:31, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

And lest someone accuse me of saying that a woman with an ectopic pregnancy doesn't want her baby, that is not what I am saying at all. That is not what I mean by "double intended effect" I am simply trying to explain that indirect abortion is a valid term. The issue of treatment indirectly resulting in fetal death arises for non-catholics as much as for catholics. Forgive me if I have not been articulate enough in my explanation. DMSBel (talk) 19:37, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

The first linked to source (Roche, Natalie E. (2004). Elective Abortion. Retrieved 2006-03-08) states the following: Most providers consider all terminations to be elective, or a voluntary decision made by the patient herself. There are medical factors both maternal and fetal that contribute to the decision. These factors have been termed therapeutic abortion, defined as the termination of pregnancy for medical indications... (bold mine)

Same source is not about "therapeutic abortion" per se, but Elective Abortion (that is the title of the source article). It also states that: The ability to define therapeutic abortion performed for maternal indications is difficult because of the subjective nature of decisions made about potential morbidity and mortality in pregnant women. A variety of medical conditions in pregnant women have the potential to affect health and cause complications that may be life threatening." (bold mine)

Nowhere does it say to my knowledge that "therapeutic" abortion may be performed to preserve the physical or mental health of the mother, rather it states:

The guidelines [prior to roe v wade] allowed therapeutic abortion if (1) pregnancy would "gravely impair the physical and mental health of the mother," (2) the child born was likely to have "grave physical and mental defects," or (3) the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest. (bold mine)

Medical indications are: Medical illness in the mother in which continuation of the pregnancy has the potential to threaten the life or health of the mother is a factor. Consider the present medical condition and a reasonable prediction of future circumstances, as well as the consequences of the pregnancy as it progresses... Rape or incest and fetal anomalies when pregnancy outcome is likely to be birth of a child with significant mental or physical defects or high likelihood of intrauterine or neonatal death are also considered.

What we have is a section that does not appear to accurately summarise its own sources. The sources also seem to contradict each other, for instance the Medscape source subsumes therapeutic abortion under elective abortion, whereas the Britannica source seems to separate the two. It would seem that it might be more proper to distinguish elective abortion in view of medical indications, and elective abortion on grounds other than medical.

These issues make tagging this section necessary.User:DMSBel 62.254.133.139 (talk) 06:11, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Amen!!! This has been a problem in this article for over 5 years (and I did complain about it back then), and most recently I suggested this be changed here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abortion/Archive_41#Misuse_of_the_words_.22elective.22_and_.22therapeutic.22_2 but to no avail. Thanks for taking this seriously. In the developed world, almost all abortions are elective (meaning they are non-emergency procedures that are not medically necessary). A very small percentage of them may also actually be therapeutic. And certainly no one can argue that killing a diseased or disordered fetus is therapeutic to that fetus (such an argument considers the fetus to be a patient that is receiving therapy, but intentionally killing a patient is never therapeutic). An extremely small percentage of abortions are medically necessary to preserve the woman's life. As to preserving the woman's health, destroying a healthy pregnancy by inducing abortion does not preserve a woman's health. Rather it destroys and undermines her healthy reproductive system. It may be what she wants, but it is not therapy. Much like amputation is not therapy for the person who has a psychological need to have his healthy hand amputated. If therapy is "the treatment of disorders or disease" http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Medical+treatment http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/therapy (and that is a mainstream definition), we would only be able to label abortion as therapeutic if we agree that pregnancy is ALWAYS a disease or disorder if the woman does not wish the pregnancy to continue. While some times a pregnancy is diseased or disordered, most pregnancies are not diseased or disordered, and most pregnancies that are diseased or disordered end up as spontaneous abortions (natural miscarriages) that are usually very early in the pregnancy and often go unnoticed by the gravid woman. But candor forces us to admit that the gravid woman's desire to NOT be pregnant does NOT turn a healthy pregnancy into a disease or disorder. This article should reflect medical, physical and metaphysical reality, not talking points for a large lobbying group. Finally, if we want to focus on the psychological reasons that a woman might want an abortion, if it is psychologically therapeutic to induce an abortion, then this is an admission that the woman has a psychological disease or disorder (much like the man who wants his healthy hand amputated) for which she is seeking an abortion as a therapy. It seems that most people would not want to acknowledge this reality, but in all candor if a healthy pregnancy is aborted for psychological reasons, then the disease or disorder that is treated by inducing abortion is a mental one. Are we really saying that most women have abortions to treat their psychological diseases or disorders? I don't think so. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.3.237.145 (talk) 13:22, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

---

These are prior comments from earlier this year (2011) that were ignored: ----

1. Wikipedia Elective surgery states: "Elective surgery is surgery that is scheduled in advance because it does not involve a medical emergency. Semi-elective surgery is a surgery that must be done to preserve the patient's life, but does not need to be performed immediately."

2. Medicinenet.com defines the term Elective surgery as follows: "Surgery that is subject to choice (election)...As opposed to urgent or emergency surgery." [[1]]

3. Medicinenet.com defines the term Elective as follows: "In medicine, something chosen (elected). An elective procedure is one that is chosen (elected) by the patient or physician that is advantageous to the patient but is not urgent. Elective surgery is decided by the patient or their doctor. The procedure is seen as beneficial but not absolutely essential at that time." [[2]]

4. Wikipedia Surgery states: "Types of surgery: Surgical procedures are the commonly categorized by urgency, type of procedure, body system involved, degree of invasiveness, and special instrumentation. Based on timing: Elective surgery is done to correct a non-life-threatening condition, and is carried out at the patient's request, subject to the surgeon's and the surgical facility's availability. Emergency surgery is surgery which must be done promptly to save life, limb, or functional capacity. A semi-elective surgery is one that must be done to avoid permanent disability or death, but can be postponed for a short time. Based on purpose: Exploratory surgery is performed to aid or confirm a diagnosis. Therapeutic surgery treats a previously diagnosed condition."

Thus a reasonable person would conclude that non-emergency therapeutic surgery is a subcategory of elective surgery. Nearly all surgical abortions are NOT emergency procedures (in other words, they are scheduled procedures and are not medical emergencies).

It seems that this Abortion article's inartful use of the terms "elective" and "therapeutic" confuses the reader rather than clarifying important distinctions. One would use "elective" to describe a procedure based on the timing of the surgery. One would use the term "therapeutic" to describe a procedure based on whether there has been a diagnosis. The 2 terms are not mutually exclusive.

If the terms "elective" and "therapeutic" are to be applied consistently (with no politically correct definitions for procedures performed on pregnant women), then virtually all therapeutic abortions are also elective procedures. Practically speaking, in nearly all modern situataions the 2 terms will be mutually inclusive because modern medicine considers the satisfaction of any woman's desire to no longer be pregnant (regardless of the reason why she no longer wants to be pregnant) as "therapeutic", and abortion is virtually NEVER performed under emergency conditions (in other words: there are virtually no occurences in which an abortion must be done immediately to avoid a serious health risk).

The current section of this article called "Induced" [[3]] contains a false dichotomy when it states: "Reasons for procuring induced abortions are typically characterized as either therapeutic or elective. An abortion is medically referred to as a therapeutic abortion when it is performed to: ... An abortion is referred to as elective when it is performed at the request of the woman "for reasons other than maternal health or fetal disease.".

This false dichotomy should be corrected by helping the reader understand that the 2 terms therapeutic and elective are virtually synonymous, rather than leading the reader to incorrectly think that an abortion is EITHER elective OR therapeutic. Rarely will any therapeutic abortion not also be elective.

Finally, using the term "therapeutic" also implies that the condition of being pregnant is a disease or a health defect, when in reality, absent any political use of medical terminology, pregnancy is a sign of a healthy reproductive system and is never a disease. There are extremely rare occassions when organs of or near the reproductive tract are diseased and an abortion could thus be therepeutic to the gravid woman (though fatal to the fetus).

Perhaps this wording would address these concerns:

An induced abortion is almost always both elective and therapeutic, meaning that it is a non-emergency surgery performed based on a prior diagnosis. Induced abortions are performed for various reasons, including:

• birth control (postpone or stop childbearing); ^
• socioeconomic concerns; ^
• health risk to pregnant woman;
• health risk to fetal siblings;
• prevent further development and birth of disabled or diseased fetus;

^ source: [[4]] (Findings from 32 studies in 27 countries were used to examine the reasons that women give for having an abortion... Worldwide, the most commonly reported reason women cite for having an abortion is to postpone or stop childbearing. The second most common reason—socioeconomic concerns—includes disruption of education or employment; lack of support from the father; desire to provide schooling for existing children; and poverty, unemployment or inability to afford additional children. In addition, relationship problems with a husband or partner and a woman's perception that she is too young constitute other important categories of reasons.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.233.18.28 (talk) 21:37, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I am not saying this section is ok as it stands or that there should be no discussion what terms to use, there could certainly be improvement, however your suggestion to describe all induced abortions as both elective and therapeutic would I think confuse things further because while any elective abortion requires consent and intention, not every elective abortion is "therapeutic" as that term is defined in the article (being to preserve the life or health of the mother etc.)

I strongly agree that pregnancy in itself is the sign of a healthy reproductive system and that we should preserve that understanding and avoid language which "implies that the condition of being pregnant is a disease or a health defect". However your proposed change does not actually address all your own objections regarding the use of the term "therapeutic", and introduces the word "diagnosis" which might actually re-inforce the impression of pregnancy being a disease. DMSBel (talk) 00:22, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

You are missing a very key thing here. Sourcing. I see you cite AGI, but that article says nothing about "elective" or "therapeutic", and find original synthesis in your proposed wording. That said, the source we are currently citing says this "Most providers consider all terminations to be elective", so I think we are presenting a false dichotomy. The point that emedicine article is making is abortions performed for medical reasons are called "therapeutic abortion". You may personally disagree with this, or find it somehow confusing, but without further sourcing, we have to accept this usage of the term, and not try to redefine it based on how other fields use similar terminology. It appears perhaps the Encyclopedia Britannica is the source using the dichotomy (which may or may not actually be 'false'). I don't have the full text, so I cannot judge. I do think we need to consider our other source which says Most providers consider all terminations to be elective, or a voluntary decision made by the patient herself. There are medical factors both maternal and fetal that contribute to the decision. These factors have been termed therapeutic abortion, defined as the termination of pregnancy for medical indications, including the following.. and see if we are misrepresenting it, and what we can do to bring out text more in line with the meaning of our source. -Andrew c ^[talk] 00:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I expect you'll find different sources that define the terms differently. "Elective" can be contrasted with "therapeutic," which would presumably mean abortions performed due to health threats or not, but it can also be contrasted with "spontaneous," ie. even "therapeutic" abortions are "elective" because they are not miscarriages. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:15, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

You have both possibly not carefully digested my entire original comments. Item #4 in the original comment quotes wikipedia's own general explanation for when a surgical procedure is called "therapeutic". I am simply advocating that the use of terminology in the abortion article be consistent with the terminology used in the surgery article (which accurateluy uses the term therapeutic). The term therapeutic" does NOT mean "to preserve the life or health of the mother", and the abortion article should not use it or define it in such a way.

With regard to pregnancy, a "diagnosis" is actually a determiniation of the cause of a deviation from homeostasis [see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_diagnosis#Diagnosis_in_medical_practice] or of a "medical condition" [see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease#Medical_condition], so I wouldn't avoid that word "diagnosis".

I do not think the word "therapeutic" is helpful to the abortion article, but I have presumed that people will not want to eliminate the word from the article. My proposed language is certainly sourced and is not original research.

Also, there is no need for the AGI source article to mention the two words (elective or therapeutic) as the article is referenced for the REASONS women choose to have an INDUCED abortion, which is the very subheading (Induced) of the abortion article content we are discussing.

The main reality that the article should elucidate is that virtually all induced abortions are "elective" (meaning they can be scheduled a day or a week out without any harm to the gravid female's health), and virtually all induced abortions are therapeutic (meaning they come after a diagnosis). Barring the very rare (almost unheard of) exception, induced abortions are always elective and therapeutic.

The article as it appears now contains a confusing and imprecise and inaccurate discussion of the terms "elective" and "therepeutic". The artcle as it appears now contains an inaccurate conflation of the term "therapeutic" (inaccurately defined as non-elective) with a list of reasons a woman might have an elective abortion, and a false conclusion that other reasons would make it a non-therapeutic elective abortion. The article contains false information now that appears geared toward convincing the reader that abortions are most often "therapeutic" (with accompanying langauge that implies a therapeutic abortion is medically necessary) and that abortions are not very often elective. But the research (the most comprehensive of which was commissioned by and is propagated by abortion advocacy group AGI) comes hands down against that conclusion.

I have revised the suggested NEW wording:

An induced abortion is almost always both elective (a non-emergency procedure) and therapeutic (scheduled after a diagnosis of pregnancy). Induced abortions are performed for various reasons, including:

• birth control (postpone or stop childbearing); ^
• socioeconomic concerns; ^
• health risk to pregnant woman;
• health risk to fetal siblings;
• avoid birth of a disabled or diseased neonate;

67.233.18.28 (talk) 18:32, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that the term therapeutic abortion is not uniformly used in the sense of "scheduled after a diagnosis of pregancy" but quite often with reference to medical indications other than the pregnancy, or in addition to the pregnancy, or in the unborn baby. That seems to be the sense in which it is being used here viz the last three reasons on the list. Elective is being used in the sense of voluntary but without medical indications. Is this not generally the usage in the literature? We should go by more general sources rather than political advocacy groups. While it is not in wikipedia's scope to advance any new nomenclature, we should make sure there is necessary clarification when there is the potential for confusion. DMSBel (talk) 23:27, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

The MedTerms.com definition for "therapeutic abortion" at [5] is "An abortion that is brought about intentionally," which comports with the general definition of the word "therapeutic" (related to a treatment after diagnosis of a medical condition).

The American Heritage dictonary [6] defines "therapeutic abortion" as

• 1. Any of various procedures resulting in the termination of a pregnancy by a qualified physician.
• 2. Any of various procedures resulting in the termination of a pregnancy in order to save the life or preserve the health of the mother.

The Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine [7] defines therapeutic abortion as "the intentional termination of a pregnancy before the fetus can live independently". This definition comports with the language I am suggesting because the term is independent of any serious medical threat to the mother's health (although this definition is also problematic because in practice there are medical doctors in good standing who will induce fetal demise of a fetus that is capable of living independently, and there are laws that protect such abortions).

The wikipedia article for therapeutic abortion is likewise poorly written and inaccurate in that it ascribes a colloquial meaning to a medical term, when there is no evidence that the term "therapeutic abortion" is even used colloquially. That article avoids any mention of the actual medical term of art, when that is the most common and rational starting point for an article about that term. "Therapeutic abortion" seems to be a term that is most often used incorrectly by abortion advocates in an effort to paint most abortions as medically neccessary, when the bulk of research and testimony confirms that abortion is almost never medically necessary. But wikipedia should not propagate such usage when the definition for the medical term can so easily and readily be confirmed.

In any event, the scholarly article at this link [8] asserts that "Most providers consider all terminations to be elective, or a voluntary decision made by the patient herself." This assertion supports my suggestion that the wikpedia main article convey to the reader that most typically, an abortion is elective, and that because the termination of any unwanted pregnancy is de facto deemed to be "therapeutic", therefore all abortions are both elective and therapeutic. The only exceptions are the very rare cases when a pregnancy actually threatens a woman's life.

Here is yet another revision of the suggested NEW wording:

An induced abortion is almost always both elective (a non-emergency procedure) and therapeutic (scheduled after a diagnosis). Induced abortions are performed for various reasons, including:

• birth control (postpone or stop childbearing); ^
• socioeconomic concerns; ^
• health risk to pregnant woman;
• health risk to fetal siblings;
• avoid birth of a disabled or diseased neonate;

76.2.124.88 (talk) 18:21, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I still don't support your original synthesis: "An induced abortion is almost always both elective (a non-emergency procedure) and therapeutic (scheduled after a diagnosis)." The term "therapeutic abortion" has never once been associated with "scheduled after a diagnosis". This is some novel idea you are promoting, not supported by a single source (but instead, you are mixing definition A with definition B to come up with C, something original, not found anywhere else). The exact same thing applies to "elective abortion" and "non-emergency procedure". The term and the meaning are not found in conjunction with each other in any one source. You are changing the meanings of terms based on your own understanding of how similar terms are used in completely unrelated fields. It's not OK. Sorry.-Andrew c ^[talk] 02:06, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

What is there now in this "Induced" section of the article is terrible. As it stands, it is a mish-mash admixture conflation that needs to be fixed if readers are to actually benefit from the section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.3.237.145 (talk) 01:33, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I can't figure out from the last comment what the IP thinks needs fixed and what doesn't! I find the term "therapeutic" something of a misnomer when it is not being used to distinguish between abortions performed because of medical indications and those for other reasons, and don't object to it being changed or removed. All abortions that are not coerced are elective whether or not they are done to preserve the life of the mother or unborn fetal siblings. The term was useful when it differentiated between therapeutic reasons (ie when there are medical indications) and non-therpeutic. I agree that the birth control and socio-economic concerns constitute the reasons for the majority of abortions. DMSBel (talk) 22:10, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

The very first paragraph and it contains misleading and inaccurate information: "In the context of human pregnancies, an abortion induced to preserve the health of the gravida (pregnant female) is termed a therapeutic abortion, while an abortion induced for any other reason is termed an elective abortion."

This sentence falsely represents what a therapeutic abortion is. Most therapeutic abortions are NOT performed because there is a risk to the gravid woman's health. Virtually all therapeutic abortions are also ELECTIVE (i.e. "non-emergency"). The current language in the article skews these facts. 67.233.18.28 (talk) 21:53, 21 March 2011 (UTC) --- copy paste from earlier discussion ends here ---

I recall this earlier discussion, I disagreed with the proposed solution, but not that there was then (and still is now) a serious issue with the use of the terms in the lead and in the section on Induced abortion. I prefer to differentiate Induced abortion (synonymous with Artificial abortion and Direct abortion) into two classes of Elective:

(1) Elective (volitional and non-emergency) and therapeutic (scheduled after diagnosis) in view of medical indications either maternal or fetal.

(2) Elective for reasons other than medical (ie. birth control/socio-economic etc...)

Thoughts?DMSBel (talk) 22:22, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

I have tagged the intro due to the same definitions and usage of these terms in it. DMSBel (talk) 10:02, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

At the very least we should correct the misleading aspects (the use of the terms theraputic and elective) of this section and the lead. This should not be incredibily difficult. It only requires that we cite the sources already used in the article, but a little more comprehensively. To that end we need to make clear at least three qualifying remarks.

• 1. Most providers (of abortion) consider all terminations to be elective (voluntary). (Roche, Natalie E. (2004). Elective Abortion. Retrieved 2006-03-08)
• 2. Therapeutic abortion is difficult to define. From Roche(2004): "The ability to define therapeutic abortion performed for maternal indications is difficult because of the subjective nature of decisions made about potential morbidity and mortality in pregnant women. A variety of medical conditions in pregnant women have the potential to affect health and cause complications that may be life threatening."
• 3. The term "therapeutic" abortion is not universally accepted or used.

Another matter for discussion is the use of the terms elective in the sense of (non-emergency surgery) and therapeutic (surgery performed after diagnosis). Through lack of clarification the section does not currently differentiate elective in a surgical sense, and in a volitional sense. DMSBel (talk) 13:33, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

There is another aspect to this which also needs to be made clear if the article is to be of encyclopedic quality. Therapeutic treatment may be given in the case of diagnosis during pregnancy of an unrelated medical condition. In the case of cancer when pregnant for instance there are treatments which may indirectly harm the fetus, and others which may not. "Some cancer treatments are safe during pregnancy, while others can harm the fetus (unborn baby)."[[9]]. In this case if the cancer treatment has the result of fetal demise, the term "therapeutic abortion" is incorrect. And as editors we should seek to avoid any conflation of theraputic treatment during pregnancy with abortion.DMSBel (talk) 14:22, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Massive walls of text aside, you're just plain wrong here, and you're attempting to misuse a medical source to push religious terminology. The Roche source doesn't say that all terminations are elective and none are therapeutic, it says that all terminations are elective and none are spontaneous, with some of the elective ones being therapeutic. We can discuss this distinction as well, but the dispute you're claiming, whether about the use of the term "therapeutic abortion" or the incidence of the procedure, just doesn't exist. I ask myself whether you even bothered to do the most cursory search for the term on PubMed to see if the term was in use, or if you thought that by overwhelming people with text, you would get them to believe you even though you have no evidence and indeed the case is quite the opposite. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:06, 8 June 2011 (UTC) (edit conflict)

I've just updated the citation for Roche, Natalie E. (2004). Elective Abortion, (ref 7 currently). The old content was based on an eMedicine article at a deadlink, recovered via archive.org. The equivalent current eMedicine article is now also linked. The terms "elective abortion" and "theraputic abortion" are both discussed. So far as I can tell, the term "direct abortion" derives from Vatican publications, (esp. the catechism) and not from medicine. In any case, this is wp, not wikt. The nomenclatural diversion is hardly worth this much attention. Can we focus on building an encyclopedia? LeadSongDog come howl! 17:09, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me Roscelese if you'd like to remember WP:AGF. I did not cut and paste the old discussion back to this page. What you say in your reply regarding therapeutic and elective is exactly what other editors have been pointing out. I did mention the issue of direct versus indirect abortion earlier. But you will have to find a way of refering to unintended fetal demise, consequent to theraputic treatment for medical indications unrelated to the pregnancy using terminology that avoids giving the impression that the treatment was in any way intended to bring about fetal demise. Please tell me what would be religious about refering to this as "indirect abortion"? Where is the religious connotation in the term "indirect"? Granted it is used by Catholic physicians. Is that it? Well please lets hear your suggestions for how to improve the clarity of the article? Should we not at least give proper coverage of the source we are using by quoting it when it states the reasons that "theraputic abortion" is difficult to define? User:DMSBel 62.254.133.139 (talk) 18:53, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I should have done a PubMed search, you are right. My reason for not doing so was that it simply had not occured to me and I was working off the main source in this section (ie. Roche). I thought improved and more accurate summarising of that source would suffice. Nevertheless I have now done a PubMed search, though I am not registered with the site and therefore can only view the abstracts. There is at least one article there which uses the terminology of direct and indirect abortion unapologetically. [[10]]. But I can only view the abstract of it. Clearly the nomenclature is not uniform across all areas of medical practice, and catholic medical services are part of that. I am not saying we should use their terminology throughtout the article. I have thought about what you have said and it seems to me that the best way to tackle this would be to address the variations in nomenclature within a separate part of the article? Thoughts?DMSBel (talk) 19:16, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

To whoever removed the tags (I havn't checked yet). DO NOT do so again until the dispute is resolved. It states that explicitly on the tag so you should not have to be told. DMSBel (talk) 19:36, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

POV tags have to be based on actionable issues. "I want this article on a medical procedure to reflect a non-medical viewpoint instead of a medical one" is obviously not actionable. "Indirect abortion" is simply not a term used in the medical community. It's a theological term that we have no business including in a section of medical definitions. The PubMed source you're using to justify this quibble is an anti-abortion article by a Dominican whose other works include "Human Difficulties and Clarifications of the Church's Magisterium on Conjugal Life" and "The Christian view of love, marriage and the family," not a medical article by a scientist or doctor.

I certainly don't "have to" find a way of referring to "unintended fetal demise" etc. etc. If it's not an issue that MEDRS care about, why should I? Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:53, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Look Roscelese, sooner or later if you work on this article you are going to have to stop side-stepping issues raised with it. You can jump from PubMed to MEDRS to... The issue is actionable. The article is not solely a medical article either. Let's get that straight, if in doubt look at the list of projects that it covers. If you want to flog the dead horse of "this is just a medical article", that is up to you. I won't be wasting anymore time trying to persuade you. I'll just engage with the editors who want to improve the article and make appropriate corrections. DMSBel (talk) 20:04, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I suggest you cut out the incivility and stop cherry-picking sources to support your predetermined conclusions. One solitary article by a non-scientist with a religious agenda does not become the bible of our article just because it's archived in PubMed. It wouldn't do so anyway, but particularly because so many other articles disprove your claim that the real distinction is elective-indirect and not elective-therapeutic or elective-spontaneous, there's even less reason to pay it any attention. You should know better than that. We have plenty of articles on religion and abortion, including Catholicism and abortion, where you can prate on about "indirect abortion" to your heart's content. But this article is based on reliable sources, which, in sections about medical aspects, such as the section under discussion, have to conform to MEDRS standards. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:13, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Well I'll apologise if there was incivility in my post. But you are the one who brought up PubMed. There is no point accusing me, after you brought it up, for doing the search there and finding an article. You seem to be going to extremes here saying that I want to use a single PubMed article as "the Bible" for this article. I don't. Let's calm it down. We can leave that source aside, if you object to it. Let's focus on the source we are using and get it properly summarised.DMSBel (talk) 20:27, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Also there is a 1RR on this article so I'd be careful about removing the tags again, before the dispute is resolved.DMSBel (talk) 20:35, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

See how you said "one article"? And, since you claim to have searched the database, did you also see how many articles by actual experts use the terms you're claiming are not in use, while approximately five, including this one by someone with no expertise at all, use the term you wish to insert? I accept wholeheartedly your oh-so-generous offer not to use the article in question, but that just leaves us in the same place: you're trying to make changes to a section on medical terminology using theological terminology + your personal opinion.

I'm well aware of the 1RR on this article, but thanks for making clear your intent to game the system in the hope of inserting a non-medical POV into the medical sections of the article. That's very helpful.

If you have any real proposals for improving this article, such as clarifying the "elective (with subset therapeutic) vs spontaneous" vs "elective vs therapeutic" distinction, kindly lay them out. "But the medical section doesn't reflect religious views!" is a silly complaint when the article already mentions religion and when there are entire articles devoted to religious views. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:08, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Please refrain from making up remarks and then quoting them as though I had made them. I did lay out some provisional thoughts on clarifying the sections above. DMSBel (talk) 21:38, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't see where you've made a suggestion that isn't based on your own idiosyncratic language use at best (an abortion performed for health reasons is "elective" and not "therapeutic" if it isn't an emergency, for example), a gross misrepresentation at middling (Roche's "all terminations are elective," for example), and blatantly false at worst (the term "therapeutic abortion" is not generally used, for example). Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:49, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I said I had offered some provisional thoughts. I also requested further input, ending my post "Thoughts?". Three times in your last post you misrepresent what I said, and that after you made up statements that (in your mind) seemed to sum up my position and then quoted them as if I was saying that. With regard to your claim that I was saying the term "therapeutic abortion" is not generally used, I never said that at all. What I did say was that the term was not universally accepted or used. There is a considerable difference in meaning between "generally" (a word I did not use) and "universally" (the word I did use). A term might be in general use but not universally (ie. by all people without exception) accepted. All this I was and still am prepared to civilly discuss with other editors, even you Roscelese when you stop misrepresenting me and going to extremes.DMSBel (talk) 14:06, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Here is the proposed revision of the current wording:

An induced abortion is almost always both elective (a non-emergency procedure) and therapeutic (scheduled after a diagnosis). Induced abortions are performed for various reasons, including:

birth control (postpone or stop childbearing);

socioeconomic concerns;

health risk to pregnant woman;

health risk to fetal siblings;

avoid birth of a disabled or diseased neonate;

67.233.18.28 (talk) 20:40, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I notice that no one wants to engage this comment:

Amen!!! This has been a problem in this article for over 5 years (and I did complain about it back then), and most recently I suggested this be changed here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abortion/Archive_41#Misuse_of_the_words_.22elective.22_and_.22therapeutic.22_2 but to no avail. Thanks for taking this seriously.

In the developed world, almost all abortions are elective (meaning they are non-emergency procedures that are not medically necessary). A very small percentage of them may also actually be therapeutic. And certainly no one can argue that killing a diseased or disordered fetus is therapeutic to that fetus (such an argument considers the fetus to be a patient that is receiving therapy, but intentionally killing a patient is never therapeutic).

An extremely small percentage of abortions are medically necessary to preserve the woman's life.

As to preserving the woman's health, destroying a healthy pregnancy by inducing abortion does not preserve a woman's health. Rather it destroys and undermines her healthy reproductive system. It may be what she wants, but it is not therapy. Much like amputation is not therapy for the person who has a psychological need to have his healthy hand amputated.

If therapy is "the treatment of disorders or disease" http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Medical+treatment http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/therapy (and that is a mainstream definition), we would only be able to label abortion as therapeutic if we agree that pregnancy is ALWAYS a disease or disorder if the woman does not wish the pregnancy to continue.

While some times a pregnancy is diseased or disordered, most pregnancies are not diseased or disordered, and most pregnancies that are diseased or disordered end up as spontaneous abortions (natural miscarriages) that are usually very early in the pregnancy and often go unnoticed by the gravid woman. But candor forces us to admit that the gravid woman's desire to NOT be pregnant does NOT turn a healthy pregnancy into a disease or disorder.

This article should reflect medical, physical and metaphysical reality, not talking points for a large lobbying group.

Finally, if we want to focus on the psychological reasons that a woman might want an abortion, if it is psychologically therapeutic to induce an abortion, then this is an admission that the woman has a psychological disease or disorder (much like the man who wants his healthy hand amputated) for which she is seeking an abortion as a therapy. It seems that most people would not want to acknowledge this reality, but in all candor if a healthy pregnancy is aborted for psychological reasons, then the disease or disorder that is treated by inducing abortion is a mental one. Are we really saying that most women have abortions to treat their psychological diseases or disorders? I don't think so.

67.233.18.28 (talk) 20:39, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I thought I'd already responded to your proposed wording, but I guess I hadn't. No, it is not suitable, because your definitions of elective and therapeutic are both incorrect. The rest of your comment is anti-abortion, anti-woman soapboxing that does not merit a response and may indeed merit redaction. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 04:24, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I did respond, in fact I tagged the section in question. There was a cut and paste of old discussion back to the talk page which did not help the flow of the debate. The issue of the terms Elective and Therapeutic can be resolved as I said by summarising more comprehensively what the medical source we are using states. When abortions are performed surgically then surgical categories do come into it and therefore the section needs to make more clear the sense in which Elective and Therapeutic are being used. DMSBel (talk) 21:47, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

User:DMSBel

DMSBel, from what I see here[11], you are "topic banned from the topic of human sexuality, interpreted broadly, including talk pages and Wikipedia space pages, for an indefinite period", for what the community perceived as longterm disruptive editing. Your posting here might well be in violation of that ban. (I wasn't able to find anything at ArbCom altering it; my apologies if I missed something.) PhGustaf (talk) 21:22, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

You may not have noticed (as I think it is in the archive) that I asked about this article and the interpretation of the scope of my ban. The Admin who had placed the ban was asked and he at that time said that he had no concerns about my editing on this page at that time. I actually had been going to ask aforementioned Admin, to review my actions (tagging two sections of the article) here. He may be already watching the page, in any event I'll send him a message to look in again.DMSBel (talk) 21:31, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

I apologise, seemed like a long time ago and I thought the section was probably archived. The question of whether this article comes under the scope of my ban was brought up in the section (Picture of abortion) at the top of this talk page by User: Killerchihuahua. He summarised the enacting editor's reply. I had asked for clarification here : [[12]]DMSBel (talk) 13:40, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

POV tag

Usually I don't agree with a topic-banned editor, but this article is POV. Abortion does not cause death. Seriously, how can something not living die? That wording was placed there years ago by anti-abortion editors. Time for a new consensus actually based on science, not the wishes of the right wing. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 16:09, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

OM, you say a lot of stupid things, but this beats them all! -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 19:58, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd just like to say again that this sort of derisive comment isn't at all helpful. JJL (talk) 05:24, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

By that token, is your comment helpful? -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 07:48, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm generally against tagging this article. There are always going to be people who think some aspect of it is non-neutral, but it doesn't make sense for this highly-viewed article to constantly be tagged. I've found that this article tends to attract people who edit heavily and obsessively over short periods of time in service of a specific agenda, so when they're especially active it might make sense to have a temporary tag until things quiet down. Overall, the quality of this article has declined steadily over the past year or so, largely because spurts of activity by such editors have overwhelmed any slow-but-steady improvement by people with less of an axe to grind. But I digress.

I don't have a strong feeling about the wording re: "death" in the lead. Or rather, I don't think it's worth litigating under current conditions. The article suffers from more substantial flaws which should probably be the focus of our effort. Fighting over the word "death" should be a bone that we throw to agenda-driven editors while we work on improving the actual substance of the article. MastCell ^Talk 16:28, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Editor MastCell wrote: "Fighting over the word "death" should be a bone that we throw to agenda driven editors..." I must say I am stunned to see someone come out and say something so inflamatory. It can't really go without a remark. Such a comment reflects an attitude that is completely at odds with WP:AGF. It reflects a desire to turn a page which is already under general sanctions into a battleground. [[13]]. It is quite unacceptable behaviour at any time, but especially pernicious on this page and seemingly calculated. Given tendency for things to become heated, and for misunderstanding to occur. I would like to hear other editors thoughts on this, what can only seem to be incitement. I am not going to take the bait (what else is a bone) to get involved in an edit war. I hope other editors will, in spite of the deliberately inflamatory comments and edits made above by these two editors refuse to likewise become involved in an edit war, but rather wait to see the views of Admins on this. This behaviour is quite appalling. If either editor wants to explain or retract the remarks they should do so quickly.DMSBel (talk) 17:13, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Since you asked... I find MastCell's post appropriate for a talk page. It did not make me feel incited, inflamed, or appalled. I do not feel he was trying to encourage an edit war or attempt to heat things up. Gandydancer (talk) 17:26, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Obviously, abortion causes "death", of the fetus in almost all cases, and on some rare occasions, of the mother. This is not "POV", just biological facts. I haven't noticed many editors claiming that antibacterial is "POV" because it states that "bactericidal agents kill bacteria". Words such as "kill" or "death" simply imply the cessation of life, so much as even single celled organisms such as bacteria are deemed to have. If we stated, in Wikipedia's voice, that abortion "murdered" the fetus, that would be POV, because it would be taking a definitive position on a very hotly contested moral issue. It should certainly be noted that abortion opponents believe that the killing of a fetus is "murder", and that proponents believe that it isn't, because they don't regard the fetus as sentient or human, notwithstanding the presence of "life" in purely biological terms. Lastly, no surgical procedure is perfectly safe for the patient. Any major intervention presents some risk of death or severe injury. Like it or not, abortion is no exception. It's not at all likely that the mother would die, but it has happened. There's sufficient published data regarding safety records that this risk can be stated with some reasonable level of precision. Chester Markel (talk) 18:14, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

"Seriously, how can something not living die?" That's a joke, right Orangemarlin? According to biological science, even a single human skin cell is "living". No sane society would be prepared to accord that single skin cell human rights, but that's a moral judgement, not a scientific one. Obviously, if bacteria "live", so too must a human fetus, or even a single sperm or egg cell, in biological terms. I prefer a neutral, scientific description of what abortion is all about in the introduction. The moral dispute, i.e. what arrangement of human cells is necessary constitute a person, what's sentient and what isn't, should be described later, without Wikipedia endorsing any particular position, per WP:NPOV. Chester Markel (talk) 18:26, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Either the POV tag should be removed or we have to admit that for subjects that are hot-button political issues in the U.S. it can never be removed. It's not apparent to me that either side has 'won' on this page; appropriately for WP style, it reflects things pro-choicers both would and would not want here and things pro-lifers both would and would not want here. That's pretty much NPOV overall, even if there are segments that may need to be further neutered of opinion. On 'death', surely we can agree that that is a contentious word to use here. I don't know of evidence to support the view that a blastocyst is alive, or that it would be usual to speak of one 'dying'. For those who feel that 'life begins at conception' this may be true but the fact of the matter is the very abortion debate shows that many don't feel that way. I surely don't think there's a crisp, well-defined point at which a fertilized ovum crosses from living tissue to alive in the usual sense. If we agree that mainstream opinions on this issue vary then WP policy is to either report both sides or neither. Highlighting the link to Beginning of pregnancy controversy (and possibly adding material on the 'death' argument there) may be the best approach. JJL (talk) 20:41, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately for you, we don't determine the content of science articles on the basis of what political activist groups want. We use reliable sources instead. The termination of a fetus is very clearly described in the medical literature as "death"[14]. The moral and political debate over abortion is not characterized by pro-choicers disputing basic medical and biological facts, but instead contending that a fetus is not "human", a "person", "sentient", or entitled to rights. Whitewashing basic scientific facts established by WP:MEDRS to serve a politically activist agenda is deplorable. Chester Markel (talk) 20:53, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

The ovum is already alive. A cell can be alive. You're talking about when it possesses rights (or a soul) or something, which is a moral or legal question. Life is a biological (i.e. scientific) issue. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 20:47, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

First, did you mean to revert both changes I made, or just the one on death? Second, something can be living tissue without being 'alive' as the term is usually understood. If I lose an arm in a thresher accident, would you say my arm has 'died'? If those ova had been removed in a surgery, would we say that each egg had died? The cells in the arm or ova have experienced cellular death but that's not how one phrases such things. Saying the embryo has 'died' is POV. Surely it's apparent that this is something about which sizeable segments of the population disagree, in any event, so I don't see how a case can be made for having it in the first sentence of the lede. JJL (talk) 21:01, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I meant just to revert your edit about death.

Your arm would be alive for a short while and a bit later it would be dead, with a fuzzy transition period inbetween. As for frozen ova, I would say they are alive, but your mileage may vary on this (see deanimation for a laugh)- it doesn't affect the issue here, though. I think you are wrong about the POV aspect - what people disagree about (as has already been explained by another poster) is whether the death is "murder" or not, not whether the death has occured. Germs die, but it ain't murder. The question is whether the embryo's death is murder. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 21:07, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

The question is in fact whether or not this is an appropriate and commonly employed definition of abortion, and it isn't. JJL (talk) 23:13, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

The issue isn't how editors subjectively believe "one phrases such things" or whether it can be asserted without evidence that "sizeable segments of the population disagree". We simply use the terminology most commonly employed in WP:MEDRS. There are over 65,000 Google Scholar citations[15] for the phrase "fetal death" being used to describe the termination of a fetus. This compares to only 169[16] results for "fetal termination".Chester Markel (talk) 21:27, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Look at those hits, though--they are not what you claim them to be. Just from the first page alone, every single one of them refers to intrauterine fetal death not caused by medical intervention (due to the woman's smoking, obesity, etc.). I don't see any evidence that the term is being widely used as you claim (referring to planned abortion). Searching on "abortion" shows the same--termination of pregnancy is being used in medical articles, not 'death' (unless it's of the mother). You're arguing against yourself with the Google Scholar database. JJL (talk) 23:13, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia. We use reliable sources to build articles. We don't determine NPOV based on whether it has a little to annoy and a little to keep happy, we decide if it reflects the content of it's sources, and if those sources are reliable and properly cited. DMSBel (talk) 20:56, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

JJL if you are in doubt just go by the medical literature. DMSBel (talk) 21:30, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I am. It says things like this: "Abortion is defined as the interruption of pregnancy between conception and the 28th week of gestation." (DM Potts - British Medical Bulletin, 1970 - British Council). [17]; An abortion is defined as the termination of an intra- uterine pregnancy before the fetus is viable outside the uterus. (D Warburton… - American Journal of Human Genetics, 1964 - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) [18]; "In this paper, equine abortion is defined as pregnancy loss prior to 300 days gestation; it remains an important source of wastage to equine breeding enterprises". (KC Smith, AS Blunden, KE Whitwell… - Equine veterinary …, 2003 - Wiley Online Library) [19]; "Abortion is defined medically as the expulsion of a nonviable foetus—that is, one not yet sufficiently developed to live outside the uterus—from the uterus." (M Trout - Temp. LQ, 1963 - HeinOnline) [20]; "In the Netherlands spontaneous abortion is defined as the spontaneous expulsion of a fetus before 16 weeks of gestation". (G Christiaens… - The Lancet, 1984 - igitur-archive.library.uu.nl) [21]; "Unexplained recurrent spontaneous abortion is defined as three or more consecutive first trimester pregnancy losses with the same partner in the absence of anticardiolipin antibodies or genetic, hormonal or uterine anatomical problems." (JB Smith… - Journal of reproductive immunology, 1988 - Elsevier) [22]; In Italy, a spontaneous abortion is defined as a prod- uct of conception that is delivered spontaneously before 180 days (ie, 25 weeks and 5 days), without reference to the absence of life. (JF Osborn, MS Cattaruzza… - American journal of Epidemiology, 2000 - Oxford Univ Press) [23]. These are from the first three pages of Google Scholar hits for "abortion is defined". I found none that included the word "death" or "dead" or "deceased" etc. in the definition. It's POV to add 'death' here when it isn't commonly used in defining abortion in the actual literature. JJL (talk) 23:13, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:VER and WP:NOR restricts editors to the meaning of sources, not their exact words. It's very clear, from the medical literature you just cited, that the fetus does die - otherwise you'd have a viable birth, which isn't what abortion is all about. Your proposal that Wikipedia refrain from describing fetal death as death, in the context of abortion only, is directly contrary to WP:NPOV, because it involves recourse to euphemisms to advance a political position. Over 65,000 Google Scholar citations[24] clearly show that the death of a fetus is normally described as just that in the medical literature. Per WP:NOT#CENSORED, Wikipedia does not use euphemisms to dance around what some apparently regard as unpleasant facts. Chester Markel (talk) 01:43, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

You're advocating WP:SYNTH because it's "clear" to you that it means what you' believe it to mean. Nobody says it that way, so there's no reason to add it. What's wrong with the actual language used--terminate a pregnancy, expulsion of the fetus? It's not at all obvious to me that this results in a death--quite the contrary. Adding that adds something contentious and unsupported without clarifying anything. Do you have comparable sources to those cited that clearly indicate a medical opinion that the fetus or embryo dies? JJL (talk) 04:20, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately for you, WP:NOR has been amended to warn against the precise misrepresentation of the policy that you are now advancing: "Despite the need to attribute content to reliable sources, you must not plagiarize them. Articles should be written in your own words while substantially retaining the meaning of the source material." Ergo, restatement of the facts contained in sources in new language is acceptable, encouraged, sometimes necessary to avoid copyright violations, and isn't original research, synthesis, or any other breach of content policies. If it's not at all obvious to you that expulsion of the fetus results in a death, then perhaps you should improve your skills in interpreting sources. Your argument that anything other than the actual language used by sources is original research, would result in massive copyright violations and an inability to write free content. We are stuck with the information contained in sources, not their words. Chester Markel (talk) 04:45, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Anyway, you ask whether I "have comparable sources to those cited that clearly indicate a medical opinion that the fetus or embryo dies?" Although you're probably going to move the goalposts, there are 689 Google Scholar results[25] for the exact phrase "fetus dies" being used in the context of discussing abortion. Since your argument has been scuttled on its own terms, I expect to hear no more of it. Chester Markel (talk) 04:56, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

To provide one specific example out of the many available sources in the search results, [26] states that "If the termination of pregnancy occurs before this period, and the fetus dies, it can be inferred that the infant had not yet reached viability." Chester Markel (talk) 05:05, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

[27] also uses the exact words "fetus dies" in discussing the outcome of an abortion procedure. Chester Markel (talk) 05:23, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

And there are 2,500 Google Scholar results[28] for the exact phrase "death of the fetus" in the context of abortion. [29], for instance, describes a specific manner of inducing abortion: "The first method involves injecting saline solution or urea into the amniotic fluid, which causes the death of the fetus." [30] also describes "death of the fetus" as an abortion outcome. Of course, you probably already knew this... Chester Markel (talk) 05:44, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

It gets better, though. According to RS such as [31], the precise chronology of the death of the fetus is an essential element of a completed, legal abortion in the United States. If the fetus doesn't die before detachment from the mother's body, then the result is considered a birth, not an abortion, such that customary medical assistance for the grossly premature delivery must be provided, lest the involved physician risk criminal charges being pressed. Now what was this Orangemarlin was saying about "Abortion does not cause death"? Chester Markel (talk) 06:17, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Even members of the United States Supreme Court, in writing the majority holding in Stenberg v. Carhart which invalidated an anti-abortion law, plainly recognized[32] that

Our earlier discussion of the D&E procedure, supra, at 5-7, shows that it falls within the statutory prohibition. The statute forbids "deliberately and intentionally delivering into the vagina a living unborn child, or a substantial portion thereof, for the purpose of performing a procedure that the person performing such procedure knows will kill the unborn child." Neb. Rev. Stat. Ann. §28-326(9) (Supp. 1999). We do not understand how one could distinguish, using this language, between D&E (where a foot or arm is drawn through the cervix) and D&X (where the body up to the head is drawn through the cervix). Evidence before the trial court makes clear that D&E will often involve a physician pulling a "substantial portion" of a still living fetus, say, an arm or leg, into the vagina prior to the death of the fetus.

If even justices repudiating a law restricting abortion have no quarrel with the obvious fact that abortion produces "death of the fetus", then what's the motivation for certain editors to continually deny this well-cited aspect of the procedure? Chester Markel (talk) 06:35, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

And here's what an uninvolved editor had to say[33] about the position you're taking, JJL:

Yes. The issue of whether an embryo or a fetus is a "person" legally is what the abortion debate has been about. No one with a lick of sense on either side of the issue argues that abortion doesn't kill. That would be asinine. If an editor actually makes that statement, they should be topic-banned, as they are obviously not competent to be editing that subject. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:56, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

You're saying that there exists an editor who isn't following the discussion on the Talk page who disagrees with me, so I'm wrong? JJL (talk) 04:20, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I'll support JJL's topic ban, if it comes to that. He's just not listening. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 04:28, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Oh my, so now we should start banning editors for a talk page statement that obviously shows them to be not only incompetent but even asinine by someone who has not even been involved in this difficult article. If one looks at the biological requirements for life, it certainly could be argued that an abortion can not cause a death since the issue did not fulfill the biological definition of life. In my opinion this is a reasonable statement for a talk page and far from anything that would suggest that it constitutes a reason to ban an editor. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with OrangeMarlin's statement, but if I did agree would I too be judged not competent to edit this article? Gandydancer (talk) 10:50, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I did say if it comes to that. - which I doubt it will since s/he is engaging in debate. BTW one of quotes JJL cites says: Abortion is defined medically as the expulsion of a nonviable foetus—that is, one not yet sufficiently developed to live outside the uterus—from the uterus. which clearly implies that it is alive inside the uterus. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 11:43, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

No, that doesn't follow. It might be able to breathe outside the uterus--does that imply it can breath inside it? Also, talk of a ban when I have made two edits--one of which was to fix a reversion error, and hence not a substantive new edit--is clearly an attempt to intimidate. This is a significant violation of both WP:AGF and WP:OWN, let alone WP:CONS (including most notably that consensus can change). This, combined with an interpretation of WP:NOR that would ban any use of quoted material under any circumstances in a patent attempt to gut WP:SYNTH of its force--despite the fact that I was only suggesting a paraphrase based on the commonly-occurring terms in definitions of the procedure--is just page-guarding. I'll be frank: You (plural) are probably tenacious enough to outlast me with your uncollegial and uncooperative efforts to maintain a contentious point in the lede. Wikipedia's administrative structure is broken and I can't fix that. Meanwhile, the new sources adduced all use the word 'death' (and/or its variants) near the word 'abortion'. But using the very method suggested by Chester Markel clearly bolsters the point that it's not usual to see that term used in defining abortion in a medical context. (As noted in the following section, it also conflicts with the commonly-used language that refers to "survivors of abortion": If a live birth is the result, there was in fact no abortion by the defn. in this article. Since abortion refers to the medical procedure itself, this isn't useful. The surgery is the same regardless of the result. Today in the news it is reported that a hand transplant failed--but it was still a hand transplant operation despite that fact.) Adding 'death' is at best synthesis and at worst POV-pushing. Threatening to seek and support bans against new editors of a page, and alleging 'Lack of competency' (below) rather than failure to agree, is not in keeping with policy or with the best interests of a freely-edited encyclopedia. JJL (talk) 18:51, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Your claim that "the new sources adduced all use the word 'death' (and/or its variants) near the word 'abortion'" is simply an example of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. I have cited sources that use the term "death" in defining abortion itself. For example, "The first method involves injecting saline solution or urea into the amniotic fluid, which causes the death of the fetus." [34] United States Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer, certainly no opponent of abortion, describes "death of the fetus" as an essential, defining element of an abortion procedure, based on the testimony of medical experts considered by the court: "Evidence before the trial court makes clear that D&E will often involve a physician pulling a "substantial portion" of a still living fetus, say, an arm or leg, into the vagina prior to the death of the fetus."[35]. The remainder of your argument constitutes your own original research showing you don't believe death occurs, and misinterpretation of various WP:MEDRS to claim that, because they don't happen to use the word "death" in describing abortion, they are claiming that no death occurs, or not asserting that it does, despite the plainly obvious fact that a source can describe a death without using the precise language "death". That argument, bogus as it was, has now been further refuted by the fact that some RS do use "death of the fetus" or similar direct variants of "death" in describing the fate of a fetus as a result of an abortion procedure. Your claim that my interpretation of WP:NOR "would ban any use of quoted material under any circumstances" is also a misrepresentation, since I merely argued that WP:NOR does not require direct quotations. The implication that not using exact quotes or close paraphrase would "gut WP:SYNTH of its force" is not in keeping with Wikipedia policy.

The issue of topic bans arises when editors approach a subject with outrageous misstatements of fact, misreadings of sources, or misrepresentations of policy. For example, Orangemarlin claims[36] that "Abortion does not cause death. Seriously, how can something not living die? That wording was placed there years ago by anti-abortion editors. Time for a new consensus actually based on science, not the wishes of the right wing." Does Orangemarlin include medical journals and Stephen Breyer, quoted above, within the ranks of "the right wing"? The assertion borders on ridiculousness. Similarly, claims that anything which isn't a verbatim quote or close paraphrase is original research/synthesis, is disruptive. Mischaracterizations of WP:MEDRS are none to pleasant, as is insistence against all odds that abortion does not cause "death of the fetus", when I've already presented sources which use those exact words to describe a specific abortion outcome. Wikipedia is not an appropriate forum for political activism supported by original research and tendentiousness. This needs to stop. Chester Markel (talk) 19:53, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

In any case, Baseball Bugs was first editor to suggest the prospect of topic bans for editors who take your position[37]. Even uninvolved editors recognize the deeply problematic nature of the "abortion doesn't cause death, WP:RS and WP:NOR be damned" claims. Chester Markel (talk) 20:35, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't see that the opinion of judges trumps that of physicians in a matter not of law but of medicine. A source has been cited that shows that someone thinks that one abortion method results in death. Where's the sourcing for the claim that a.) they all do, and b.) this is a necessary part of the defn. of abortion? Suppose your position could be shown to be true (which I don't believe possible). How does that make it so that it must be included in the first sentence of the article? Not every fact about abortion can go in sentence one. But your position has problems that run deeper. Where is a claim of embryonic death in every instance of abortion involving an embryo? The distinction between fetus and embryo is usual for humans. Is it death if implantation is prevented--perhaps not by medical means, but simply because it fails to occur? Is that an abortion? With defns. of abortion varying, and some people speaking of "abortion survivors", you have a tough hurdle to jump in showing that all abortions always result in a death. JJL (talk) 01:54, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Again, more WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. I expressly stated earlier that the opinion of justice Stephen Breyer was based on medical expert testimony, not a personal pontification. Moreover, the two sources of which I provided examples in my comment above were not the only instances in which, in prior comments, I've observed that "death of the fetus" or similar language has been used to describe abortion outcomes. The bar you're setting for establishing anything about the definition of abortion is impossibly high. If I note the 2,500 Google Scholar results[38] for the exact phrase "death of the fetus" in the context of abortion, you can say that the results are mere coincidences. If I cite specific sources, and show how they've used "death of the fetus" or similar in describing the result of an abortion, you can claim that any reference only shows that death is an outcome of a specific procedure described, or is only an element of one of many definitions of abortion. How could anything about abortion be shown to the standard you're applying? If the source is about a certain type of abortion, there are others. If the source describes abortions generally, there are other descriptions. And, as further goalpost shifting, if I somehow manage to show that a sufficient number of definitions of abortion state that "death of the fetus" is an outcome, there's the matter of the sources not expressly stating that "this is a necessary part of the defn. of abortion". Rarely do sources which define terms or describe processes actually say that certain elements are "necessary" - it's simply implied that the definition or description contains the necessary features. That "all abortions always result in a death" could never possibly be proven with any number of reliable sources, since any reference worth the paper it's printed on will recognize the possibility of exceptions sufficiently to avoid such categorical language (not all abortions "succeed", for one.)

The most irritating example of goalpost shifting, however, is your claim that, even if it (implausibly) could be shown that abortion results in the death of the fetus to your satisfaction, you would still object to the inclusion of such language in the introduction: "How does that make it so that it must be included in the first sentence of the article?" The most detailed discussion of sources is wasted time if you are steadfastly against any mention of the fact that abortion causes the fetus to die, WP:RS be damned. If you believed that fetal death simply wasn't important enough to describe, you should have admitted this from the beginning, rather than starting a debate about references of which no possible outcome could change your mind.

Although only facts themselves, and not their importance, needs to be established via reliable sources, I did describe a source above which notes the significance of fetal death to abortion. Consistent with your WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT pattern of commentary, you've ignored it. To reiterate, [39] describes how the exact chronology of the fetus' death is essential to a completed legal abortion. Chester Markel (talk) 03:48, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

And your fetus/embryo distinction goalpost shift is no more helpful than any preceding it. There are 759 Google Scholar results[40] for the exact phrase "death of the embryo" in the context of discussing abortion. If I use the entire search result as evidence, you can claim that none of it is relevant, or only specific sources should be examined. If I cite particular references, you can knock each of them down as too specific. You state that establishing my position is something that you "don't believe possible". That, in a nutshell, is precisely the problem: no evidence will ever be considered sufficient. Chester Markel (talk) 04:18, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

You rely heavily on Wikipedia:GOOGLEHITS for your arguments. You want to have something like "...resulting in death of the fetus" in the defn. Most clearly stated defns. in the medical literature don't appear to include that. That's why your position is so untenable. The commonly used defns. employ "termination of pregnancy" or "expulsion", not "death" (or variants thereof). As you seem to concede above, there are exceptions to what you perceive as the rule that a death must occur. Hence, including "death" isn't going to make for a very good defn. Would you disagree that abortions always terminate pregnancies even though they may not always results in deaths? If so, we're getting closer to reaching consensus. JJL (talk) 22:30, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

JJL, would you agree that it is the intent of an abortion to kill the fetus? -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 22:50, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

No. I'd say that the purpose of performing an abortion is to terminate a pregnancy. In most cases that means a living birth will not occur. In the case of an embryo I wouldn't refer to that as the 'death' of an organism. (Of course the individual cells that constitute the embryo die.) No death certificate is produced; even the Catholic Church considers a funeral optional for miscarriages. It's not viewed as the death of a separate individual. It does involve the death of cells in the women's body, but not a 'death' overall. JJL (talk) 15:02, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

No, the intent is still to kill, albeit sometimes with regret (e.g. in an ectopic pregnancy). Death certificates record the death of people, not organisms or cell, and are therefore red herrings to the biological facts. I see you are still claiming otherwise. Show us a source that says the fetus/baby doesn't die in a miscarriage. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 15:46, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

There's no need for me to do that. You're the one who wants it in. The WP:BURDEN is upon you to show that it's a standard, defining part of 'abortion' (it isn't) and occurs every time. As to 'life', there's living tissue and then there's an independent living organism. If it's stating that removed tissue experiences cellular death, I don't see the point. If it's claiming an organism dies, that's highly contentious. Also, it's probably time for an outdent or new section. JJL (talk) 17:44, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

That is evasive; you are the one claiming that fetuses are not living and thereby advocating the removal from the lead. Demonstrate the claim or shut up about it. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 18:59, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

There's nothing evasive about it. You've asserted that the intent of an abortion is to kill, which presumes an entity that can be killed (and hence experience death). That's highly contentious. As we are working through Wikipedia:CONS#Process, presumably, the WP:BURDEN does not fall on me to disprove your claim: "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. " Whomever restored 'death' bears the burden of showing it is a defining aspect of abortion. That still leaves the issue of whether it merits inclusion at this early point, but that's then a stylistic issue. I've seen lots of cites showing some credible sources think some forms of abortion result in 'fetal death'. But as has been pointed out, the article covers a broad swath of abortions--including early spontaneous abortions. If a morula fails to cavitate and is miscarried, has a 'death' truly occurred? I don't see the evidence for that. JJL (talk) 04:47, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

JJL: The burden is actually on you to defend your swtich to a new definition such as "termination of pregnancy" which has been very carefully rejected for years by consensus. Pregnancy terminates all the time with the birth of a baby. Successfull surgical abortions are also performed regularly without the pregnancy terminating (this happens in a selective reduction abortion). Viable fetuses are also from time to time intentionally aborted, so any mention of viability is also not proper in any basic definition of abortion. This is all knowable from secular medical and non-medical literature. Why do you pretend otherwise?71.3.237.145 (talk) 23:07, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

It's unclear to me why so many editors who wish to retain 'death' in the lede make pejorative comments such as "Why do you pretend otherwise?" so frequently. Disagreeing with you shows I lack good faith? That hardly seems a reasonable conclusion given the comments here that this was a difficult compromise to reach the first time around. In any event, I understand your points about exceptional circumstances. It is a difficult matter, esp. as some things that one thinks of as miscarriages rather than abortions are, strictly speaking, spontaneous abortions, and we have discussed the medical procedure so much here. Looking at your list of special circumstances: Would you consider a so-called 'botched abortion' in which the pregnancy is terminated by delivery of a live baby an example of an abortion? JJL (talk) 04:47, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

According to this article's limited view of pregnancy which I will adopt for the sake of this argument:

• medically speaking there is no abortion unless there is a pregnancy.
• a pregnancy begins when a living embryo implants
• a pregnancy can only end by live birth or abortion (natural or induced)
• there is no pregnancy if there is no living conceptus in the mother
• abortion includes any ending of pregnancy (natural or induced) that is not due to live birth
• the key difference between the two general categories of how pregnancies end (live birth or abortion) is the life or death of the conceptus
• all forms of abortion are associated with the biological death of the organism known as the embryo or fetus

Any suppression of the word "death" is simply due to a desire to tiptoe around an issue that is painful to many. But this article is about facts, not making everyone comfortable. To discuss the biological medical fact of the embryo's biological death is different than referring to abortionists in an editorial fashion as "baby killers". I ask for a source that confirms that the embryo or fetus does not always die as part of the process of an induced or spontaneous abortion (in fact, you won't find any). 71.3.237.145 (talk) 16:41, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Lack of competency is not the same as vandalism, or deliberately disruptive editing. Nevertheless if an editor won't listen, it does waste other editors time (more time than correcting hit and run vandalism). Not that we should not at times have thorough discussions, but I prefer constructive discussions. Chester Markel and Michael C. Price among others have however shown a good degree of patience in explaining to JJL that conveying the meaning of sources is what is important. To quote Christopher Lasch: "Bad academic writing avoids concrete (literally solid or coalesced) words and phrases as assiduously as it avoids active voice, and for the same reason: it seeks to convey an impression of scientific precision, of painfully acquired learning and scholarship, of Olympian detachment from the commonplace facts of everyday life." (Plain Style: A Guide to Written English, Characteristics of Bad Writing p.78) The quote is now going on to my own user page. 62.254.133.139 (talk) 12:09, 10 June 2011 (UTC) DMSBel (talk) 12:44, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

While the word "death" was initially suggested by right-wingers, in the end it achieved the Wiki-consensus as it was short (summary style) and accurate. The alternatives are longer, technical, and ultimately seemed unnecessary. I became comfortable with the word, recognizing "termination" and the like were left-wingish, what turned me personally was recalling Wikipedia is not a medical text. The abortion article makes extensive use of medical terminology for accuracy and neutrality. Death notes why this subject is controversial, I don't see anything in the above which is new (except for a banned editor being involved). In the end, "termination" frames the entire abortion article as a medical procedure. It is a bit more than that, as an encyclopedia we should -- in good faith -- acknowledge that reality. Of course that doesn't necessitate it being in the first sentence... but might as well tackle it sooner rather than later. - RoyBoy 03:16, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

This perspective is helpful--thanks. JJL (talk) 04:47, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

You are welcome, bare in mind it is a synopsis of months of editing on an issue years in the making; an issue I see not only as resolved, but showing the Wiki-process at its imperfect best. - RoyBoy 04:06, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I might mention that of the 8 dictionaries cited here (several of them specialized), only one uses 'death', and only in one of its meanings. Using 'death' in this context certainly isn't mainstream. While I understand that Wikipedia serves a broader purposes, the lead sentence here purports to define 'abortion' and seems to overstretch to do so. JJL (talk) 05:39, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is also not a dictionary. You acknowledge this immediately after; then blindly reverse by contending it falsely defines abortion; despite clarifications otherwise. Not liking something doesn't make it incorrect. Your overarching "mainstream" point is of some interest, I believe that equates to political correctness, which again is not Wikipedia's primary concern. But that's a discussion for elsewhere, this is a very inanimate equine. - RoyBoy 04:06, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

JJL That dog won't hunt. Working on a version of the lede that includes "death" and improves the quality of the article will. I think using it in the first line is a bit sterile and not very inviting but I don't have anything better. Write for the enemy if you must. Just make it better. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 10:56, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Time to move forward

It's time to move on from this. We have one editor, JJL, who claims that the description "death" is contentious (he is the only one who makes it contentious), who argues endlessly, shifting his position yet admits that even if he accepts the standard definitions of life/death (which he doesn't, of course) he would still object to the restoration of years-old text. JJL continually shifts back and forth, muddling cellular and organism death as it suits him, yet all these definitions agree that the developing embryo/morula/fetus is alive.

JJL, in a presumption of bad faith, has explicitlyimplicitly rejected mediation; that leaves us with ANI. Thoughts? -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 08:11, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

In what should come as a surprise to no one, it's a simple lie that I rejected mediation. JJL (talk) 15:27, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

It's bad faith to claim this is a lie.71.3.237.145 (talk) 15:38, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

• Webster's Medical dictionary: abortion = "1. the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus, :::a spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus during the first 12 weeks of gestation, b, induced expulsion of a human fetus"
• Webster's Medical Dictionary: alive = "having life : not dead or inanimate"
• Webster's Medical Dictionary: stillbirth = "the birth of a dead fetus - compare live birth"
• Webster's Medical Dictionary: fetus = "a developing human"
• Webster's Medical Dictionary: embryo = "the developing human individual from the time of implantation to the end of the eighth week after conception"
• Webster's Medical Dictionary: unborn = "not yet born: existing in utero <unborn children>"

— Preceding :::unsigned comment added by 71.3.237.145(talk) 15:32, 13 June 2011(UTC)

Do it....sigh... ArtifexMayhem (talk) 16:06, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Time to finish the subject fork?

It seems that much of the ongoing problems here stem from the nasty admixture of medicine, law, religion, and politics. Further, there is far too much emphasis on US aspects, ignoring wp:WORLDWIDE. Perhaps we need to push out as much as possible of the content to the respective sub-pages, leaving a bare minimum of non-controversial content here. LeadSongDog come howl! 16:50, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm generally a fan of that sort of thing--a more global perspective in the default article--but I suspect it wouldn't alleviate the current hot problem of the wording of the lede sentence that defines the subject. JJL (talk) 18:56, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

It's an article that is of high interest to multiple projects, you'd need to consult those projects first. That the subject is not solely or primarily medical, legal, religious, political or philosophical is not necessarily the source of the problems. Reducing it to a medical article would not solve the issue. Good will and good faith and a acceptance on the part of a few editors, of the straightforward meaning of medical sources would however go a lot further to reducing the controversy on this page. DMSBel (talk) 20:08, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Definitions

I daresay there may be different definitions of abortion, just as there are different definitions of Palestine and Palestinian.

• The term Palestine and the related term Palestinian have several overlapping (and occasionally contradictory) definitions.

I am absolutely neutral about this, and as an amateur linguist I am sensitive to the different ways people can use the same word (see definitions of fascism, definitions of terrorism, and other "definitions" articles at Wikipedia).

Here is one viewpoint or POV:

• Abortion is defined medically as the expulsion of a nonviable foetus—that is, one not yet sufficiently developed to live outside the uterus—from the uterus." (M Trout - Temp. LQ, 1963 - HeinOnline)

But in other usages of the word, we find that even a viable fetus can be aborted (see Abortion#Induced). Much of the liberal-conservative dispute in the US is over the need / desirability / morality / ethics of this. (Oddly enough, I actually have no personal position in this, for reasons that are far too long to go into.)

I hope none of the contributors to this article will try to score points by choosing a particular definition of abortion and then drawing conclusions from it. It will be more productive to describe the various definitions that published authors use.

We can describe the laws of various countries (or divisions within a country like a Canadian province or a US state, when this differs from national policy). Law is usually pretty clear (well, maybe).

We can also describe medical practices and policies in various places and at various times (see the History of abortion article).

As for the morality or ethics of abortion, this should be the easiest thing to describe. Since we know that Wikipedia takes no sides on ethical and moral issues, all we have to do is identify and describe the significant ones. As we all probably know, the main split is between the "pro-life" (or anti-abortion) movement and the "pro-choice" movement. A major sticking point here, of course, is the idea that human life has sanctity, and there is a closely related argument about the propriety of "ending a human life", which relates directly to the question of what a human life is and specifically when it begins.

I used to be an active member of the Mediation Committee, so I'm wondering whether I should try to 'mediate' or just jump in and contribute after the article is unlocked. --Uncle Ed (talk) 17:43, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

This is helpful, thanks. I've grown pessimistic about WP's dispute resolution methods so I don't know what to say in answer to your question. Ordinarily I'd say it seems a bit soon but the incivility on this page does make discussion difficult and perhaps a referee could help. My experience with this has been that the losing side will simply ignore the results of mediation, though, and that seems ever so likely here, so it's hard for me to be enthusiastic about the suggestion, I'm afraid. JJL (talk) 18:54, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

There are only two editors in disagreement with the use of the term "death" in the lede. Other editors have frankly said what they think about that. If medical literature uses the term "fetal death" then why should not we? We are not doing original research, we are not trying to establish when life begins. Thats not within scope of an encyclopedia. Some editors either don't know, don't care what an encyclopedia is. Let's not get drawn into a protracted debate by a couple of editors who won't listen and won't accept basic biological facts.

• Use of "Fetal Life" in medical literature: Study of the records of 5,878 pregnancies made it possible to construct a life table (mortality table, attrition table) for the fetal period of human existence, analogous to the life tables in general use for the postnatal period. Birth is an event in life, not the beginning of it. For each week of gestation completed by the fetus, the table states the probability that the fetus will be born alive and will survive the neonatal period. [[41]]
• Use of "Fetal Death" in medical literature: [[42]] DMSBel (talk) 20:40, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

JJL I am assuming that since you quoted some medical sources in an earlier post you are genuinely confused on the issue and wish to debate it and reach a conclusion. In the light of the above links (from Journal of the American Medical Association and PubMed) are you still in doubt about whether the term "death" is appropriate in the lede?DMSBel (talk) 21:30, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like there's much point in having a discussion with you when you begin by stating that I am "genuinely confused on the issue" rather than merely in disagreement with you. With you having declared your position objectively correct, there can't be any useful attempt to gain consensus. Fortunately, I agree with you about this: "There are only two editors in disagreement with the use of the term "death" in the lede. Other editors have frankly said what they think about that." I concur. At least in recent days--since this particular attempt at achieving consensus has been tried--I only see you and Chester Markel advocating the position that the word 'death' must occur in the lede. The rest don't feel that way--me, OrangeMarlin, and Ed Poor. If you are suggesting that majority rules then once again you lose by your own rules. Ordinarily when the numbers are against someone it's incumbent upon that person to better support his position, not merely cite his own belief in hisabsolute correctness. You continue to show that the phrase 'fetal death' has meaning but not that it's a mandatory part of a defn. of 'abortion'. You cite one source saying one method of abortion proceeds in that way--but you need to make the case that every abortion, whether caused by medical intervention or no, of fetus or embryo (or blastocyst?), always results in a death. You need to clearly reject the concept of a "survivor of an abortion" as well. You've set a tall order for yourself and aren't anywhere near meeting the goal of being able to make such a sweeping statement. The paucity of medical defns. of abortion--the subject of this article--that include the term 'death' and the near-universal prevalence of defns. that do not include this word (or its derivatives and synonyms) seems to indicate that it's not a part of the defn. of abortion, regardless how obvious it is to you. You're too settled in your position and unwilling to consider evidence or views that don't match it. That isn't how this works. Regardless of whether or not this was the old consensus, consensus can change. You're simply stonewalling by hiding behind intentional misinterpretations of policy pages. You've suggested majority rules as a way to settle this, which is not Wikipedia policy--and are you really prepared to live with the results of your position? JJL (talk) 01:40, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

• Reply to JJL: I thought I would ask the question directly regarding medical sources in view of Ed Poor's offer of mediation, and to let you clarify were you stood. Firstly I don't think you initially have approached this in the attitude of "let's discuss this." Removing the term without initially discussing it on the talk page, so that other editors could reply, comes across as an attempted fait accompli. Most of us have made hasty edits when we felt strongly about the incorrectness of an aspect of an article so perhaps it was not intended to be that, but you would have been wiser to do some research first and cite your reasons, and evidence on the talk page beforehand, rather than after your edit was challenged. With regard to your brief reasoning in your edit summary you said that death was not a medical term here, as your reason for removing it from the lede. When I said to you "if you are in doubt go by the medical literature" earlier in the discussion, you replied "I am..." and cited several sources. I took from that that you were not just here to push your point of view but to look at the medical sources regarding the medical use of the term "death" in regard to the fetus. Recall this was your initial objection - that it was not a medical term here. Definitions of abortion aside (for the time being). Either you now accept that it is a medical (and biological) term or you don't. Would you care to state where you stand on that aspect? 62.254.133.139 (talk) 11:48, 11 June 2011 (UTC) DMSBel (talk) 12:06, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

• I appreciate your asking for clarification of my position. It is now apparent in retrospect that this is indeed even more contentious than I expected--I anticipated the article would be guarded by both sides but not that the issue of this word in the first sentence would be so charged. I took 'death' as organismal death, which based on further discussion here ("fetal death") seems to be the intention, rather than cellular death of the component cells. I grant that terms such as "fetal death" occur in the medical literature but not that that commonly occurs in the defn. of abortion, or that it's clear that a death occurs in every abortion; and I still feel that the current language ("resulting in...its death") comes across to me as advocacy for personhood. After all, it doesn't occur in most defns., and so it's something extra added in; and "it" in "its death" sounds to me like an attempt to describe the embryo as a living being rather than mere living tissue. It may well read differently to you. I simply don't see the case for adding something like this to the commonly employed terms used in describing the procedure. JJL (talk) 23:11, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

• There may be some clarification, or qualification needed in the lede (and there are other aspects of it I believe need further discussion) but I don't think that the term death is advocacy.DMSBel (talk) 12:38, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

• Also the first sentence of the lede is not specifically about induced abortion. Use of "death" in that sentence therefore could not be anti-abortion advocacy. DMSBel (talk) 12:55, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

That's a blatant misrepresentation of consensus. Ed Poor hasn't expressed an opinion regarding the appearance of "death" in the introduction. Michael C Price clearly believes that it should be included[43]. As Orangemarlin's claim[44] that "Abortion does not cause death. Seriously, how can something not living die?" has been so resoundingly refuted, and exposed as a basic misunderstanding of high school level biology (over 65,000 Google Scholar results[45] for the phrase "fetal death"), I doubt he will be showing his face here again. In the above discussion, I've provided many examples of sources which describe "death of the fetus" and similar expressions as abortion outcomes. There are 2,500 Google Scholar results[46] for the exact phrase "death of the fetus" in the context of abortion. I've analyzed characteristic examples of these, and similar search results, and explained how the cited articles specifically claim that abortion results in the "death of the fetus", or similar. Having sources which use the exact words "death" or "dies" certainly isn't required, as it's possible to describe fetal death in alternate language. Nonetheless, many WP:MEDRS do meet your ridiculous exact words standard. Naturally, you've shifted the goalposts so that no references could ever establish fetal death as a result of abortion to your satisfaction, since any source will necessarily be describing some specific abortion procedure, or someone's conception of abortion overall. But how many references have you provided to show that abortion doesn't cause the fetus to die? None, zero, zilch. Chester Markel (talk) 05:11, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

I plainly said it wasn't consensus. I wasn't the one who suggested that numbers count. I certainly can't speak for Ed Poor but it seemed clear from what he wrote that he didn't see 'death' as a necessary term in the lede, which was the matter at issue. I certainly don't agree that Orangemarlin's point has been refuted, and I am largely in agreement with it. (I may be drawing a distinction between organismal vs. cellular death that isn't clearly reflected by a simple Google search on a term like "fetal death"--much more so in the case of 'death' of an embryo.) By the way, the WP:BURDEN is on you to support your claim that death occurs in every abortion--a sweeping generality that you chose to try to make. It seems to me as it does to you that your position will be hard to back up. That isn't moving goalposts; it's the nature of the universal qualifier vs. the existential qualifier. All integers are real numbers can be shown, but in the world of biology things are rarely so simple. JJL (talk) 23:11, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

As for your claim that

you need to make the case that every abortion, whether caused by medical intervention or no, of fetus or embryo (or blastocyst?), always results in a death. You need to clearly reject the concept of a "survivor of an abortion" as well.

you're presenting original research that the "survivor of an abortion" concept, normally articulated in relation to the mother, would negate descriptions of fetal death and a mischaracterization of the language currently in the article. The article presently claims that "Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion of a fetus or embryo from the uterus, resulting in or caused by its death." Quantifiers such as "every" and "always" aren't present, nor should they be, since the medical literature likewise avoids such ridiculously broad and sweeping language, recognizing the obvious existence of exceptions to general principles. Chester Markel (talk) 05:19, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

The scientific case that abortions kill the fetus is water-tight. As for the relevance in the lead, this is also clear, since abortions are conducted with the intention of killing the fetus; indeed it is this intent that distinguishes them from induced births. Since this is an article about abortions, and not induced births, then the lead should mention the fatal intent/objective. If the abortion doesn't kill the fetus then that is a failed abortion, just as a heart operation that kills is a failed operation. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 08:14, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

In fact the medical literature makes it clear that the intention is to terminate the pregnancy and to expel the contents of the womb. Your biases are showing. Pregnant women have abortions so that they'll no longer be pregnant. That's the objective of performing the operation, and that's what the WP:MEDRS indicate. JJL (talk) 23:11, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

In fact it is your biases showing, since the intent of the abortion to prevent the birth of a (living) child. The expulsion of the dead, or soon-to-be-dead, fetus and termination of the pregnancy is just the means to this end. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 23:26, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, here we come to a clear point of disagreement. I accept the definition of abortion that it terminates a pregnancy, as sourced copiously above, and believe that medical intervention for abortion serves the purpose of, and is requested for, ending the pregnancy because the woman no longer wishes to be pregnant. You believe it serves the purpose of, and is requested for, ending the pregnancy because the woman wishes to "prevent the birth of a (living) child". For an early-term pregnancy, terminating the pregnancy is biologically inconsistent with the birth of a living child because of lack of viability. Couldn't someone want to end the pregnancy but not necessarily want to kill anything? E.g., a women who wishes to give birth but has a dangerous ectopic pregnancy? The procedure does prevent a live birth but surely that's not the intent in such a case? JJL (talk) 02:45, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

When an embryo/fetus which has not yet reached viability is removed from the uterus, death is an inevitable outcome, wanted or not. That's why we have so many MEDRS describing how abortion produces "death of the embryo", "death of the fetus", or similar language. When I have the time at a university library, I suppose I will have to go through hundreds of the Google Scholar results and produce individualized descriptions about how each study affirms this fact. Chester Markel (talk) 03:56, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

This might seem very cold. That is not my intent.

• Once you have a cell you have life.
• The cell in question is a human cell.
• Death is the permanent termination of all vital functions or life processes in an organism or cell.
• The biological definition of life is science.
• It cannot be argued that abortion does not result biological death.
• Using "death" in the lead is required by definition.
• Yes. Some will use the word as proof their position is correct.
• No. Not using it will not change anyone's position on the subject.
• What people do with the information they find on Wikipedia cannot be judged.
• Wikipedia cannot "couch" or obfuscate reliable information.
• Understanding, respect and patience are frustrating by definition.

We are all in this together. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 11:19, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

The biological definition of life is complicated and no single defn. is universally accepted. As this is a talk page I'll take the risk of citing Wikipedia and say that Definition_of_life#Biology might provide a start for reading on this matter. JJL (talk) 23:11, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

The definition of life/death is complicated and fuzzy, but that is a red herring since they all agree that the developing fetus is alive. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 15:39, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Reply to ArtifexMayhem's comment: That's very helpful and thankyou for stating things the way you have, it hopefully will bring clarity to the debate.DMSBel (talk) 12:47, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

JJL, as you've made several replies, the last just above I'll attempt to reply to most of the things you have said here, rather than posting individual replies back inbetween which you might miss. I am not sure whether to go over every comment you have made, or to start with the last. Firstly I am reading you posts and endeavouring to understand your position, in fact I often re-read them more than once to make sure I am grasping what you are saying. May I ask if are you extending the same courtesy to other editors who have replied to you? For instance Ed Poor above said in his reply: "I hope none of the contributors to this article will try to score points by choosing a particular definition of abortion and then drawing conclusions from it." That obviously was not directed at you alone, but at all editors discussing this civilly and intelligently. Granted that the biological definitions of life are indeed complicated. Would you not agree that however it is defined death is the cessation of life? Readers will bring to the article some degree of pre-understanding. It may be true, false, muddled. It is not our job to correct that pre-understanding here otherwise we'd be a long time getting to the actual subject of the article. We normally link key terms in the article, such as Fetus, Embryo etc so that readers have the option to acquire a fuller understanding. As regard to the lede, and in particular the first sentence (btw I have already said this but you don't seem to have taken notice of it.) The article is not primarily or solely about a medical "procedure" (btw should in your view that term be dropped also because it is not universally accepted. Here we are back to the distinction between "generally" and "universally" and it's all good discussion, provided we are not using this just as a forum WP:NOT#FORUM, but with the goal of improving the article.) I believe that other editors have already answered you regarding "every" and "always". It is not the responsibility those editors to keep repeating themselves, but rather your responsibility to read what they have written. OrangeMarlin's unsubtantiated comment has been refuted. Are you saying that the Journal of the American Medical Association is in error when it states Birth is an event in life, not the beginning of it.?[[47]] If so I must ask for your own qualifications to challenge them. If you review the comments made in reply to your own you should see that editors have made considerable effort to listen to you and respond to your concerns.User:DMSBel 62.254.133.139 (talk) 13:52, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I'm reading all responses, though like you I am sometimes consolidating my replies. I'm not sure what value there would be to me listing my "qualifications" unless you're prepared to use my personal opinion as a source. I will say that your comment about what JAMA states (vs. the stated opinion of an author of an article it published) speaks to your qualifications. Not everything that JAMA publishes is the official opinion of its editorial board--in fact, very little of it is. On most topics of current research interest you'll find conflicting reports as science progresses from ignorance to knowledge. This is a common feature of the scientific literature that those educated in science will know very well. Also, it's true that other editors have already answered regarding "every" and "always"--it appears that they agree that death does not occur every time but nonetheless want to retain the term, which I find contradictory. It's true that other editors have responded--though hardly in a manner consistent with WP:AGF, WP:OWN, or WP:CONS--but there's been littleattempt at a discussion to reach consensus. Instead you and another editor have simply labeled me 'confused' or 'Orangemarlin 'refuted' or the like and declared victory for your side. This is not how the consensus process is intended to work. If you're unable to conceive of the possibility that you might be wrong, you may be too strident for editing the article. JJL (talk) 14:57, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

JJL, there's only you here claiming the developing fetus isn't alive. OM has not defended his asinine statement, so he isn't part of the consensus. Unless you can find a good source that says the developing fetus is not alive, there is nothing to debate. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 15:52, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

JJL I am sure you are well aware that being unable to conceive of the possibility of being wrong, is also something that you need to be mindful of too. Let us try therefore to procede humbly and to understand one another. Let me try therefore to understand what your actual objection to the use of the the phrase "resulting in or caused by it's death" is. Firstly according to your initial removal of this phrase from the article you said it was "advocacy". By that I assume you meant "anti-abortion" advocacy. You defended this after being challenged by saying that definitions of abortion do not generally use the term death. I believe that you are basing that on definitions of abortion as a procedure. The article does cover abortion in its "procedural" aspects, but the lede itself seeks to introduce the whole subject of abortion in brief. It does not therefore refer to "induced abortion" until the second sentence. Even before that it mentions spontaneous abortion (or miscarriage). Any sense of advocacy would only be possible in direct connection with induced abortion (I am not saying that refering to "fetal demise" or "fetal death" in reference to induced abortion would always constitute advocacy, only that what you are claiming regarding the term death is not possible apart that sense of the term abortion (ie. induced) and the first sentence is not defining the procedure of abortion).DMSBel (talk) 16:02, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

You may be correct that we have shifted into a discussion focused too heavily on just the medically induced aspect of abortion. (Or did you mean by 'whole subject' something more than that?) I ask: Is a spontaneous abortion always caused by a death (as opposed to a deformity or abnormality of the developing embryo, or an issue in the womb)? Does the expulsion of such an early stage represent the death of something? JJL (talk) 05:29, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

JJL I did not enter the conversation without knowledge on the topic. Regardless, you suggested I start with the definition provided in Life. OK.

How does Life:Definitions support your claim? I can find nothing in the cited sources that would....

• Defining Life
• Defining Life, Explaining Emergence
• Can we define 'life'?
• What Is Life—and How Do We Search for It in Other Worlds?
• Life: past, present and future

What am I missing? Do you have other sources that I could use to support your claim? ArtifexMayhem (talk) 20:24, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

My claim is that the definitions of 'Life' and 'Death' are not as sharp or simple as some would believe, making the use of 'death' in the lede a problematic matter. I think that the multitude of defns. of 'Life' go to that point. It's unlcear to me that a blastocyst possesses 'Life' despite being composed of living tissue. That's what I'm getting at. JJL (talk) 05:46, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Consider ref 1 to Life, here. "So living systems, at least the ones we know, use a clever trick to perfect the regeneration process—that is, they start over. Starting over can be a cell dividing, in the case of Escherichia coli, or the birth of an infant for Homo sapiens. By beginning a new generation, the infant starts from scratch, and all the chemical ingredients, programs, and other constituents go back to the beginning to correct the inevitable decline of a continuously functioning metabolizing system." Face it, "viable" means just that. Until then the embryo or foetus is dependent on precisely one means of survival. After that, there is no such unique dependence. We all have ancestors whose mothers died at birth - it once was very common. None survived the mothers death prior to birth until the advent of the caesarean section. Birth means the infant is capable of regeneration, a key defining characteristic of life.LeadSongDog come howl! 03:21, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

• LeadSongDog wrote: "We all have ancestors whose mothers died at birth - it was once very common. None survived the mothers death prior to birth, until the advent of caesarean section." How then would they be our ancestors if they did not survive the mother's death? DMSBel (talk) 11:36, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Regeneration? Doesn't compute. A person isn't a "living system" until they in turn can reproduce? Would take a while. What is pertinent, is a fetus has the assumed ability to procreate. Further, if a fetus / person is shown to be infertile... does that invalidate it / them? Course not. Viability to reproduce does not a "life" make. - RoyBoy 03:50, 13 June 2011 (UTC) A living "system" yes, but we are being more specific here. - RoyBoy 03:58, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

This is probably a discussion better held at talk:life, but the term was regenerate, not reproduce, and in any case viability also pertains to the ability to metabolize and to complete at least one energy cycle. We're not here to define life, we adopt and reflect the definitions in use in the best quality sources available. Generations of lawyers have haggled over this, but laws still establish "life" begins at birth (even later in some countries). LeadSongDog come howl! 04:08, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

• I must agree with RoyBoy. Considering the talk history of this article...yikes...removing "death" from the current definition requires something more specific. Are you suggesting that a legal definition of "life" might be more appropriate?...Viability perhaps? ArtifexMayhem (talk) 05:12, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

• To my mind the distinction is between living tissue, as opposed to inorganic matter, say, and a discrete living entity. While the embryo has its own genetic code it's not in possession of life in either the biological/medical or legal sense, to my mind. This more-or-less coincides with viability to some extent and birth to another extent, I think. In any event, it's a pretty sticky wicket; opinions will vary; the use can be seen as advocacy; and I think it's better discussed further down the article rather than stated blithely in the lede. JJL (talk) 05:32, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

There is no firm, WP:RS citable definition of life in the legal sense - a rabbit is obviously alive, but it doesn't have the legal rights accorded to humans. What matters under the law is personhood, humanity, and where this begins. So we're left with the biological definition, about which there's some dispute here. It was just this sort of debate that WP:NOR was created to resolve. No longer do we have to waste time applying varying definitions of life, and arguing over whether a fetus meets it. We simply use the best available WP:MEDRS to tell us directly whether the fetus is biologically living, and, if so, what abortion does to it. As previously mentioned, there are 66,000 Google Scholar results[48] for the phrase "fetal death", 2,500 Google Scholar results[49] for the exact phrase "death of the fetus" in the context of abortion, and 759 Google Scholar results[50] for the exact phrase "death of the embryo" in relation to abortion. Reviewing these sources should quickly satisfy editors that, according to the MEDRS,

1. The fetus/embryo is alive.
2. Abortion kills it.

Definitions of abortion in MEDRS which don't use the word "death" are certainly available. But not claiming that the fetus dies (it's doubtful the absence of the word "death actually establishes this) is not the same thing as asserting that the fetus doesn't die. No MEDRS have been cited to support the claims that the fetus isn't alive, or isn't killed by abortion. I'm open to being persuaded otherwise, by an appropriate quantity of MEDRS to establish these claims. Chester Markel (talk) 06:18, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to remind editors that, according to Wikipedia:Verifiability, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." We basically have three RS citable views about the embryo/fetus:

1. The embryo/fetus is alive and abortion kills it, but we don't concern ourselves with moral issues (scientific POV, described by MEDRS)
2. The embryo/fetus isn't a person, and doesn't have human rights, so whether it's biologically living isn't important, because removal prior to viability has no more moral significance than an appendectomy (pro-choice POV)
3. The embryo/fetus is a person, does have human rights, and killing it is murder (pro-life POV)

It's notable that neither 2 and 3 actually conflict with 1, as both are simply differing moral interpretations of the same underlying data. The science should be discussed front and center, with both sides of the moral debate covered later in the article. Chester Markel (talk) 06:39, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:GHITS has been previously raised as an objection to my arguments about what reliable sources say. That portion of an essay, however, deals with AFD, and Google hits for general searches, few of which may be RS. Google Scholar results normally consist of articles in journals that Wikipedia considers to be reliable. A representative sample of the articles can easily be examined, showing that the occurrence of language such as "death of the fetus" in the abortion context is descriptive of abortion outcomes, not mere happenstance. Chester Markel (talk) 07:06, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Regarding 'other editors have already answered regarding "every" and "always"--it appears that they agree that death does not occur every time but nonetheless want to retain the term': the article doesn't claim "always" or "every". We shouldn't be reading quantifiers that aren't actually there into the current text, then requiring sources that would support the content if so quantified. Chester Markel (talk) 07:24, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Interestingly, the article is currently claiming that "The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has recommended that an injection be used to stop the fetal heart during the first phase of the surgical abortion procedure to ensure that the fetus is not born alive." Nuffield Council on Bioethics (June 22, 2007). "Dilemmas in Current Practice: The Fetus". Critical Case Decisions in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine: Ethical Issues. Nuffield Council on Bioethics. ISBN 978-1-904384-14-4. OCLC 85782378. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help) The suggested procedure would be pretty pointless when performed on a non-living fetus, or if abortion weren't intended to produce "death of the fetus". Chester Markel (talk) 07:33, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

That isn't at all clear to me--we know that "life begins at birth" is one possible viewpoint. You're making an inference...synthesizing. Further, the term 'fetal death' is clearly used in the literature but is absent from virtually every definition of 'abortion' in the WP:MEDRS. The case has not been made to include such a term in the defn. here. Even if it were not contentious--which it is, esp. given the multiple defns. of life/death in use, and at play in this context--not every point about abortion can be made in the first sentence. Others have indicated that it was originally added by "right-wingers"--as advocacy--but that they came to think this compromise was acceptable despite that. However, it's far from clear to me--despite the large number of WP:GOOGLEHITS you've found for the phrase--that we improve on the defn. by adding something almost never seen in the definition, rather than expanding on the issue below in the nobody of the article. Here's what I don't get: What is so important to you about having this particular point in the lede? How does it suffer if it's discussed in its fullness later on instead? It's easy for me to understand why you think it's true (though I don't) but not its salience to you. JJL (talk) 15:35, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Sources on medical ethics, like this one, would also indicate any wiggle room that could allow for anything less than "death". I can't find any that even try. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 10:58, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I found these references:

• "Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm (spermatozoo developmentn) unites with a female gamete or oocyte (ovum) to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual." "A zygote is the beginning of a new human being (i.e., an embryo)." Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2003. pp. 16, 2.

• "[The zygote], formed by the union of an oocyte and a sperm, is the beginning of a new human being." Keith L. Moore, Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2008. p. 2.

• "It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoan and resultant mingling of the nuclear material each brings to the union that constitues the culmination of the process of fertilization and marks the initiation of the life of a new individual." Clark Edward Corliss, Patten's Human Embryology: Elements of Clinical Development. New York: McGraw Hill, 1976. p. 30.

• "The term conception refers to the union of the male and female pronuclear elements of procreation from which a new living being develops." "The zygote thus formed represents the beginning of a new life." J.P. Greenhill and E.A. Friedman, Biological Principles and Modern Practice of Obstetrics. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1974. pp. 17, 23.

• "Every time a sperm cell and ovum unite a new being is created which is alive and will continue to live unless its death is brought about by some specific condition." E.L. Potter and J.M. Craig, Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant, 3rd edition. Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1975. p. vii.

• "When fertilization is complete, a unique genetic human entity exists." C. Christopher Hook, M.D.Oncologist, Mayo Clinic, Director of Ethics Education, Mayo Graduate School of Medicine

• "Science has a very simple conception of man; as soon as he has been conceived, a man is a man." Jerome Lejeune, M.D., Ph.D.

• "It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive...It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth Harvard University

Medical School

• "After fertilization has taken place a new human being has come into being. [It] is no longer a matter of taste or opinion...it is plain experimental evidence. Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception." Dr. Jerome LeJeune Professor of Genetics, University of Descartes DMSBel (talk) 16:44, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

• Third one down is no good. I don't think we can require penetration by a nuclear missile. Dr. McGraw Hill cannot be trusted. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 17:03, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I don't understand? DMSBel (talk) 17:31, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

My mistake. I read penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoan and resultant mingling of the nuclear material totally wrong. Must be a smug on my monitor. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 18:02, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

According to this article's limited view of pregnancy (which I will adopt only for the sake of this argument):

• medically speaking there is no abortion unless there is a pregnancy
• a pregnancy begins when a living embryo implants
• a pregnancy can only end by live birth or abortion (natural or induced)
• there is no pregnancy if there is no living conceptus in the mother
• abortion includes any ending of pregnancy (natural or induced) that is not due to live birth
• the key difference between the two general categories of how pregnancies end (live birth or abortion) is the life or death of the conceptus
• all forms of abortion are associated with the biological death of the organism known as the embryo or fetus

Any suppression of the word "death" is simply due to a desire to tiptoe around an issue that is painful to many. But this article is about facts, not making everyone comfortable. To discuss the biological medical fact of the embryo's biological death is different than referring to abortionists in an editorial fashion as "baby killers". I ask for a source that confirms that the embryo or fetus does not always die as part of the process of an induced or spontaneous abortion (in fact, you won't find any).71.3.237.145 (talk) 17:08, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the kicker is to realize that abortion is any ending of pregnancy that is not due to live birth.71.3.237.145 (talk) 17:08, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) But clearly these references were found by looking for sources supporting your viewpoint. Think about your list of sources. You have a bunch of 40-year-old textbooks - are these lying around on your shelf? do you really think they're the best available scholarly sources for this article? do more recent editions exist, and if so, do they contain similar language? Then you cite a group of pro-life scientists. I would bet money that this list of sources was culled from a pro-life website, although I suppose that's neither here nor there. It's not actually representative of existing scholarly sources - it's carefully selected to push one viewpoint. That's exactly the kind of thing that plagues this page: people game the verifiability and reliable-source requirements by presenting cherry-picked sources. MastCell ^Talk 17:12, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Sorry did you not look at the references? First two are 2003, and 2008. Some of the sources used to cite definitions for abortion were 40 years old and more. First one JJL cited was from International Planned Parenthood Assoc! in 1970. Your right it's neither here not there who cites these sources, they are general embryological texts. Ignore them all but the first two most recent ones if you want.DMSBel (talk) 17:31, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Also if previous generations of embryologists knew when life began, and stated so in their references works why all the ambiguity now? Science does move from ignorance to knowledge when it is unhampered by pressures to conform to political agendas. All I see here is an attempt to obfuscate what is known and champion ignorance. DMSBel (talk) 17:45, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

That really isn't how science progresses. Many things 'known' by earlier generations of scientists are now known to be false. JJL (talk) 20:33, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

• Please show me in an embryology text from the last 50 years a copernican change in the understanding of when life begins? DMSBel (talk) 00:24, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

• There is not a clear definition of life. As with viability, it isn't easily specified in a one-size-fits all manner. When it's reasonable to call a fetus 'alive' is a matter of disagreement and of a fuzzy line. There is no agreement as to when life begins--in fact, there isn't even agreement that the question makes sense. 'Life' in this context doesn't have a crisp, clear beginning. It's a version of the Sorites paradox, of the fuzziness of language. I simply don't agree that 'Life' has a clear and unambiguous beginning. I'm far from alone. This isn't a 'Copernican change'--it's standard science. JJL (talk) 02:36, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

• It's your original research, actually. You've taken some sources which, interpreted charitably, do not claim the fetus dies, and used them to argue that the fetus does not die, in an attempt to negate references which assert that the fetus dies from abortion. This is a textbook logical fallacy described as an argument from silence. Chester Markel (talk) 03:09, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Cherry-picking can/is/will always be a problem. But you will never get a consensus on the definition of life/live/dead in this context. Regardless of the sources. Does this mean the right-wing/pro-life/anti-choice/anti-abortion/other -ers have the advantage ? Maybe. Sure. Absolutely. Is it throwing them a bone ? No. The 'abortion is murder' claim is different matter. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 17:57, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

But if we can "never get a consensus on the definition of life/live/dead in this context" then surely there can't be a meaningful consensus to use it here (without considerable discussion of the nuances and differing meanings)? That strikes me as going to my point. JJL (talk) 20:33, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Nah, we should simply use the best available MEDRS on the subject of whether the fetus is alive, and whether abortion kills it, rather than arguing over our favorite definitions of life, and how they apply. That's what WP:NOR is all about. Chester Markel (talk) 20:43, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Mastcell is right. These quotes are taken from prolife advocacy sites and even the way each quote is cited is the same. abort73.com/abortion/medical_testimonyclinicquotes.com/site/story.php?id=28 Friend of the Facts (talk) 19:21, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Gosh, that's unfortunate. But it surely doesn't negate my Google Scholar results, which indicate an overall position of quite a few reliable sources, and certainly aren't copied from pro-life websites. I have yet to see thousands of reliable sources to support the contention that abortion doesn't kill the fetus, probably because MEDRS rarely publish misstatements of obvious biological facts. Chester Markel (talk) 19:40, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

If an advocacy webpage properly cites scientific literature to bolster its arguments, then we should all applaud. The fact remains that the scientific literature evidences that abortion ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS involves fetal death (except when an abortion goes wrong and the fetus survives). The fact that a failed abortion is one that does not kill the fetus is also evidence of the definition of abortion, but it is so hard to convince those with an agenda to abandon it and hop on the Objective Medical Facts Express.71.3.237.145 (talk) 19:47, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Let's do some cherry-picking of sources that support abortion rights:

• "My intent in every abortion I have ever done is to kill the fetus and terminate the pregnancy." - Leroy Carhart, testifying under oath in 1997 about what he does to facilitate abortion, Asheville Tribune

• "One of the facts of abortion is that women enter abortion clinics to kill their fetuses. It is a form of killing, you're ending a life." - Ron Fitzsimmons, Executive Director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, "An Abortion Rights Advocate Says He Lied About Procedure", New York Times, (February 26, 1997).

• "The third party killing of a fetus with malice aforethought is murder . . . as long as the state can show that the fetus has progressed beyond the embryonic stage of seven to eight weeks." - Supreme Court of California in People v. Davis, 7 Cal. 4th 797, 814, 30 Cal. Rptr. 2d 50, 61, 872 P.2d 591, 602 (1994).

• "Is birth control an abortion? Definitely not; an abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun." - Planned Parenthood pamphlet, (August, 1963)

• "[It is] the most barbaric method [of family planning], the killing of babies — infanticide — abortion." - Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, in My Fight for Birth Control, 1931

• "The pro-life groups were right about one thing, the location of the baby inside or outside the womb cannot make much of a moral difference. We cannot coherently hold it is alright to kill a fetus a week before birth, but as soon as the baby is born everything must be done to keep it alive. The solution, however, is not to accept the pro-life view that the fetus is a human being with the same moral status as yours or mine. The solution is the very opposite, to abandon the idea that all human life is of equal worth." - Peter Singer, Princeton ethicist, "Bioethics: The Case of the Fetus", in the New York Review of Books (August 5, 1976).

• "Is abortion murder? All killing isn't murder. A cop shoots a teenager who appeared to be going for a gun, and we call it justifiable homicide - a tragedy for all concerned, but not murder. And then there's war..." - Don Sloan, abortion provider, Tamara L. Roleff. Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints (Greenhaven Press: San Diego) 1997 p 25

• "I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say 'yes, it kills a fetus, but it is the women's body, and therefore ultimately her choice.'"- Faye Wattleton, former president of Planned Parenthood, as quoted in Salon Magazine, (June 27, 1997)

• "We – in the states – have dealt heavily, up to now, in euphemism. I think one of the reasons why the 'good guys' – the people in favor of abortion rights – lost a lot of ground is that we have been unwilling to talk to women about what it means to abort a baby. We don't ever talk about babies, we don't ever talk about what is being decided in abortion. We never talk about responsibility. The word 'choice' is the biggest euphemism. Some use the phrases 'products of conception' and ‘contents of the uterus,’ or exchange the word ‘pregnancy’ for the word ‘fetus.’ I think this is a mistake tactically and strategically, and I think it’s wrong.. And indeed, it has not worked – we have lost the high ground we had when Roe was decided. My objection here is not only that we have lost ground, but also that our tactics are not good ones; they may even constitute bad faith. It is morally and ethically wrong to do abortions without acknowledging what it means to do them. I performed abortions, I have had an abortion and I am in favor of women having abortions when we choose to do so. But we should never disregard the fact that being pregnant means there is a baby growing inside of a woman, a baby whose life is ended. We ought not to pretend this is not happening." - Judith Arcana, abortion activist, at a London seminar, October 1999

71.3.237.145 (talk) 18:15, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

50 years ago most people knew when life began. DMSBel (talk) 18:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

See, this is why the article and environment here suck. If someone was looking to accurately and honestly summarize current scholarly thought on the topic, they would never come up with a list of sources like this. On the other hand, if someone were looking to cherry-pick sources on ideological grounds to provide a superficially authoritative gloss to their personal agenda, these are exactly the sort of lists they'd come up with. Let me know when you guys are done cut&pasting from pro-life websites, and maybe we can take a shot at writing something encyclopedic. MastCell ^Talk 18:56, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

No. It doesn't matter where the sources are cited or by whom. There is nothing that has been discovered in the field of embryology since any of those works have been published to refute the basic statements they make.DMSBel (talk) 21:52, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree, MastCell, that small lists of sources present issues of potential cherry picking. That also applies to the few definitions of abortion provided by JJL, which happen not to include the word "death". That's why the 2,500 Google Scholar results[51] for the exact phrase "death of the fetus" in the context of abortion, and 760 Google Scholar results[52] for the exact phrase "death of the embryo" in relation to abortion are so important. These clearly indicate broad-based support in WP:MEDRS for the proposition that the fetus/embryo is alive, and abortion kills it. The only arguments I've heard against these RS is that the use of the phrases in discussing abortion is mere coincidence (already shown to be false), and WP:GHITS, an essay about AFD arguments concerning general Google searches of everything on the web it indexes. Therefore, it's time for editors who support the removal of the "death" language to provide evidence of thousands of MEDRS showing that the fetus isn't alive, or abortion doesn't kill it. Until such time as references of this nature are produced, I will continue to support the inclusion of the MEDRS sourced fact that abortion kills the fetus. Chester Markel (talk) 19:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

My lists were from the first several pages of hits for "abortion is defined" on Google Scholar. None used 'death' or its variants and synonyms. That's as close to a random sample as I know how to get. They were not cherry-picked; tun the experiment yourself and see. This is strong evidence that it's not usual to include 'death' in the defn. Again, the WP:BURDEN does not lie on me to show that you're wrong...it lies on you to support it. I see no support that that word generally appears in a defn. of 'abortion', which is what the lead sentence purports to give. That's regardless of whether or not it's true. I also haven't heard from you an argument that it must be in the lead beyond your claim that it's true. Not all true statements about this topic can fit in the first sentence. Why should this contentious matter be placed so prominently when most authoritative sources do not do so? JJL (talk) 20:39, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Whatever. Like I said, I don't care if the lead says "death" or not. I'm just really tired of this bullshit, ideologically driven, cherry-picking approach to sourcing. People who regurgitate excerpts from a pro-life website and pretend they're the result of a serious search for the best available sources don't have any place here. Except, of course, that they're the dominant force on this talk page. MastCell ^Talk 19:51, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Ultimately, it doesn't matter where short lists of sources come from - picking one's own cherries is little better than using some else's. We also can't easily show that the pro-life sites are cherry-picking, though they would have every reason to. In any abbreviated list, the possibility of cherry-picking cannot be ruled out. That's why my Google Scholar search results are so valuable. It would really be nice if there were high quality, neutral review studies on the topic of whether abortion causes the "death of the fetus". But until we find any, we need to make do with the next best thing. Chester Markel (talk) 20:19, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

These quotes are from wiktiquote which is filled with a bunch of obscure and apparently cherry picked quotes. Someone should look it over and clean out the stuff that isn't notable. http://en.wiktiquote.org/wiki/Abortion Friend of the Facts (talk) 19:55, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikiquote has a cross section of quotes from various sources that are notable for various reasons. I culled a few quotes from among those listed there - you know, quotes that are relevant to our dicussion about death here - and you claim that they were cherry picked. I have to tell you, even people who favor abortion rights understand that abortion involves fetal death when it is properly done. Can you provide some quotes about abortion and death that would demonstrate that people hold a scientific or medical view that there is no fetal death in a completed abortion? I'd be curious to see even one such quote. And any such quotes would be a great addition to the abortion quotes page. 71.3.237.145 (talk) 20:41, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

BTW, "fetal demise" is an absolutely medical term meaning "fetal death" - a euphemism of sorts that doctors have longed used to gently discuss a spontaneous abortion with parents who did not want the uborn child to die. 71.3.237.145 (talk) 20:44, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Why are we debating this? We know that the fetus is alive. Everybody with basic 101 biology knows this. That JJL doesn't accept this is the clearest evidence we need that they have a massive POV or cognitive bias problem. -- cheers, Michael C. Price ^talk 20:46, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

This parrot is dead. No. It's just resting ArtifexMayhem (talk) 20:56, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Those Google Scholar results don't show if dictionaries and other encyclopedias like Wikipedia use "death" to define abortion. Rather they show "death of the fetus" is used in some journal articles. Based on just the first page of those results most hits for that phrase don't seem to refer to induced abortion, but missed abortion which is an incomplete miscarriage. Frankly this way of looking for sources doesn't seem very effective because it doesn't account for the context of what you need to find. It'd seem better to look at other references like Wikipedia and see how many use "death" in their abortion definitions. If most of them do then that's the standard and Wikipedia should follow suit, but if it's only one or two out of dozens then it's nonstandard and Wikipedia shouldn't marginalize itself by doing it. And since the definition on this Wikipedia page deals with both induced abortions and miscarriages we can't only work with sources that just deal with miscarriage. Friend of the Facts (talk) 21:59, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Britannica:

abortion, the expulsion of a fetus from the uterus before it has reached the stage of viability (in human beings, usually about the 20th week of gestation). An abortion may occur spontaneously, in which case it is also called a miscarriage, or it may be brought on purposefully, in which case it is often called an induced abortion.

Spontaneous abortions, or miscarriages, occur for many reasons, including disease, trauma, genetic defect, or biochemical incompatibility of mother and fetus. Occasionally a fetus dies in the uterus but fails to be expelled, a condition termed a missed abortion.

Induced abortions may be performed for reasons that fall into four general categories: to preserve the life or physical or mental well-being of the mother; to prevent the completion of a pregnancy that has resulted from rape or incest; to prevent the birth of a child with serious deformity, mental deficiency, or genetic abnormality; or to prevent a birth for social or economic reasons (such as the extreme youth of the pregnant female or the sorely strained resources of the family unit). By some definitions, abortions that are performed to preserve the well-being of the female or in cases of rape or incest are therapeutic, or justifiable, abortions.

Numerous medical techniques exist for performing abortions. During the first trimester (up to about 12 weeks after conception), endometrial aspiration, suction, or curettage may be used to remove the contents of the uterus. In endometrial aspiration, a thin, flexible tube is inserted up the cervical canal (the neck of the womb) and then sucks out the lining of the uterus (the endometrium) by means of an electric pump.

ArtifexMayhem (talk) 22:25, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Britannica's definition of abortion is blatantly flawed because it falsely asserts that abortion only occurs when a fetus is not viable. Yet it is quite certain from medical and legal sources that viability is certainly no bar to induced abortion. Perhaps Britannica's initial text was based on what used to be the universal legal and ethical framework (that an abortion performed on a viable fetus was illegal and unethical), and it has not been corrected to reflect the current state of medical ethics and abortion law. Nevertheless, Britannica is simply unreliable because it's text runs contrary to uncontrovertable verifiable facts. Late-term abortion practitioners in the UK and the USA are on record with facts that expose the false claim in Britannica's definition. Dr. Stuart Campbell, former professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at London's St. George’s hospital, commented on the UK government's Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health (CEMACH) report that 50 babies a year are born alive in the UK after botched National Health Service abortions (as reported by London's The Sunday Times, November 27, 2005) as follows: "They can be born breathing and crying at 19 weeks’ gestation. . . I am not anti-abortion, but as far as I am concerned this is sub-standard medicine. . . If viability is the basis on which they set the 24-week limit for abortion, then the simplest answer is to change the law and reduce the upper limit to 18 weeks." In a speech to the National Abortion Federation in April 1995 in New Orleans, abortionist George Tiller noted: "We have some experience with late terminations; about 10,000 patients between 24 and 36 weeks and something like 800 fetal anomalies between 26 and 36 weeks in the past 5 years." These are abortion practitioners, not pro-life advocates.71.3.237.145 (talk) 23:33, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Trying to refute the Encyclopedia Brittanica by picking more quotes from the Wikiquote abortion page isn't going to help find the best way to define abortion here. Let's look for more encyclopedias and textbooks to see what their definitions are like and then use that as our guide on what to do. Friend of the Facts (talk) 00:15, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Whether abortion causes death

I was taken aback to see my name linked with another contributor, who I didn't think agreed with me on anything at all:

• At least in recent days--since this particular attempt at achieving consensus has been tried--I only see you and Chester Markel advocating the position that the word 'death' must occur in the lede. The rest don't feel that way--me, OrangeMarlin, and Ed Poor.

Actually I think that "death" is a good word to describe what happens to the living tissue of the fetus when it comes out of the womb but does not go on to become a living human. This is based on commonsense ideas of life and death, but I hope we'll take a look at medical, legal and religious sources for the ultimate answers: I'm not a source, just an ordinary writer here.

The cells which make up the organs in the fetus are (I am told) generally considered to be "alive". I don't think anyone quotable by Wikipedia would say that "non-living cells" come to life upon birth of the fetus. However, there is the legal definition of human life to consider here, and this may be the main issue. While in the womb, the fetus is often considered not to be a human being in the sense of "a being having the rights of a citizen".

I don't think anyone is arguing that the fetus isn't alive, or even that it is "non-human tissue". But the essence of the split between the two major factions is whether it is merely "a chunk of living tissue" (with no more rights than, say, a tumor) or a self-aware, rights-possessing person. --Uncle Ed (talk) 02:29, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Well, that's been a problem with discussion here for a while: misrepresentations of fact, logical fallacies such as the assertion that not claiming the fetus dies is equivalent to claiming that it does not die, etc. Let's hope for some more truthful, well-reasoned participation. Chester Markel (talk) 02:39, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Dictionary survey

The American Heritage Stedman's Medical Dictionary:[53] 1.The expulsion of an embryo or fetus before it is viable. 2. A miscarriage.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary:[54] 1. Induced termination of pregnancy, involving destruction of the embryo or fetus. 2. Any of various procedures that result in such termination. 3. Spontaneous abortion; miscarriage.

Collins English Dictionary:[55] 1. an operation or other procedure to terminate pregnancy before the fetus is viable 2. the premature termination of pregnancy by spontaneous or induced expulsion of a nonviable fetus from the uterus

Dictionary.com Unabridged (Based on the Random House Dictionary):[56] 1. Also called voluntary abortion. the removal of an embryo or fetus from the uterus in order to end a pregnancy. 2. any of various surgical methods for terminating a pregnancy, especially during the first six months. 3. Also called spontaneous abortion. miscarriage ( def. 1 ) .

Encarta:[57] 1. operation to end pregnancy: an operation or other intervention to end a pregnancy by removing an embryo or fetus from the womb 2. medicine ( technical ) Same as miscarriage (sense 1)

Merriam Webster:[58] 1. the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus: as a : spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus during the first 12 weeks of gestation — compare miscarriage b : induced expulsion of a human fetus c : expulsion of a fetus by a domestic animal often due to infection at any time before completion of pregnancy — compare contagious abortion

Oxford English Dictionary:[59] 1 [mass noun] the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks: concerns such as abortion and euthanasia [count noun] : illegal abortions -the expulsion of a fetus from the womb by natural causes before it is able to survive independently. -Biology the arrest of the development of a seed, fruit, or other organ.

Only Merriam Webster uses "death" to define abortion in general. Brittanica uses "dies" but that's only to describe missed abortion. So it looks like it's not really common for dictionaries to use that kind of wording in their definions of abortion. Friend of the Facts (talk) 23:56, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

You are mistaken in your approach. If other sources were adequate, then wikipedia would not exist. The whole point is not to duplicate what already exists. There are flaws in all those definitions. Wikipedia editors' goal is to create excellent verifiable content. Repeating verifiably false or flawed content is NOT wikipedia's purpose.71.3.237.145 (talk) 00:45, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

"Only Merriam Websters" - as if it were an insignificant publication that can be ignored. 71.3.237.145 (talk) 00:54, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Here are some interesting abortion and death references:

• MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia: Miscarriage: "The cause of most spontaneous abortions is fetal death due to fetal genetic abnormalities, usually unrelated to the mother."
• University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine - Canine Abortion article: "Death of embryos during this period.....these could result in early embryonic death and infertility.....Abnormal development of organ systems may not be compatible with fetal survival, leading to death and resorption or abortion....."
• Encarta: "termination of a pregnancy before birth, resulting in the death of the fetus"
• Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary: "the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus"
• U.S. Center for Disease Control: "Third, statistics regarding the number of pregnancies ending in abortion are used in conjunction with birth data and fetal death computations to estimate pregnancy rates (e.g., pregnancy rates among adolescents)"

"Before 18 weeks a dead baby is usually aborted without his mother knowing that he is dead. Occasionally however, the abortion is delayed for several weeks (a missed abortion). When this happens the only sign of fetal death is that her uterus fails to grow." [[60]]

"An abortion (i) terminates a pregnancy, ending the physical dependency relationship the fetus has to the mother, and (ii) terminates the life of the fetus, ending both its present functions as an organism and its ongoing development into a more complex one. Now performing (ii) will guarantee (i) in any state of affairs, as one cannot (logically) be pregnant unless one is keeping a fetus alive. And in current practice, we cannot perform (i) without simultaneously performing (ii)" from Abortion and the death of the fetus - Steven L Ross. [[61]] DMSBel (talk) 01:16, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Deja vu: Talk:Abortion/Archive_18#Medical.2C_Reliable.2C_.26_Reputable_Sources_WP:RS. -Andrew c ^[talk] 01:32, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

1. That's only the MedLine's definition of miscarriage. The definition on this Wikipedia page covers both miscarriages and induced abortions so we can't only look at definions of one or the other in our survey of sources. That's why above I made sure to post both the induced abortion and miscarriage definions for all the dictionaries. The MedLine definition of induced abortion doesn't have "death:"

An abortion is a procedure to end a pregnancy. It uses medicine or surgery to remove the embryo or fetus and placenta from the uterus. The procedure is done by a licensed physician or someone acting under the supervision of a licensed physician.

2. That's not a definition of abortion and veterinarian articles probably aren't where we should be looking for answers to how to define abortion.

3. I posted a link to Encarta above and the definition on their website doesn't include the word "death".

4. I already posted this exact same Merriam Webster definition above.

5. Not a definition.

6. Not a definition.

7. Not a definition in an encyclopedia or textbook etc. but someone laying out an argument in a philosophy journal.

The goal here is supposed to be to compare different reference sources like Wikipedia and see if it's common for them to have " death". That can't happen if all that's going to be done is to actively search out stuff that has "death" and ignore everything that doesn't. Friend of the Facts (talk) 02:07, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

A definition which doesn't use the word "death" isn't thereby claiming that death doesn't occur. So descriptions of abortion which claim that the fetus dies aren't actually in conflict with those that make no explicit claim (or those that describe death in other language.) We have at least one dictionary, Merriam-Webster's, which claims that the fetus dies, 2,500 Google Scholar results, etc, all discussed above. Now exactly where are all of the WP:MEDRS which assert that the fetus doesn't die as a result of an abortion? I've seen nothing to establish this claim. Every single reference discussed here so far is either

1. Explicitly claiming that abortion kills the fetus.
2. Simply agnostic on the question of whether fetal death is produced by abortion, making no claims either way.

The collective weight of the current reliable sources, then, indicates that abortion kills the fetus, until such time as equivalent MEDRS are produced to refute this assertion. Chester Markel (talk) 02:23, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with this. The cherry-picked sources are not representative. In any event, there is a reason why so many sources are, as you say, "Simply agnostic on the question of whether fetal death is produced by abortion, making no claims either way": It's because this is a complicated issue that doesn't lend itself to a short description. JJL (talk) 03:30, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

That's an argument from silence fallacy. If some sources don't bother to claim "death of the fetus", but don't assert that it doesn't occur either, they are taking no position on the issue. We use references that explicitly make claims, not those which provide no relevant information. And the 2,500 Google Scholar results[62] for "death of the fetus" in the abortion context are hardly cherry-picking. Chester Markel (talk) 03:50, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Death isn't just a biological thing. Not when it comes to how humans look at it at least. There's philosophical and religious and cultural sides too. Obviously abortion is a very sticky issue on those levels because there's so much disagreement over it. Lots of people look at the abortion issue and go "human life begins at conception, abortion destroys a human life" but an equal number go "fetuses don't meet the person criteria because they aren't sentient/viable/etc., they don't count as human lives." So it's not clearcut and uncontroversial to define abortion as "resulting in or caused by [a fetus's] death" on a Wikipedia page because people aren't going to read that and think it only means death in a strictly biological sense. It doesn't say something like "resulting in or caused by the complete cessation of metabolic activity (death) in a fetus." It's just "death" without any qualification. That leaves it open to being taken to mean "death" in a sense that also includes philosophical and religious views on the subject. Obviously on a philosophical level most prolifers think abortion is killing a human person and most prochoicers don't. I think it's just going in circles to go about trying to define abortion in the lead by debating whether abortion "results in or is caused by a fetus's death." From the standpoint of trying to objectively define abortion in this Wikipedia article it's a chicken or egg kind of question with no easy answer and arguing over it just creates lots of heat but very little light. That's why I suggested we compare other references like Wikipedia to see how they define abortion because it's something we can do that can actually be constructive. Friend of the Facts (talk) 03:08, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps the term "death" requires qualification. Instead of saying "resulting in or caused by its death", we could use "resulting in, or caused by its biological death." It should be absolutely clear, then, that we're describing death in terms of the life sciences, not morally, sociologically, politically, or philosophically. I'll update the article appropriately. Chester Markel (talk) 03:16, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Update the article? Are you declaring consensus unilaterally? JJL (talk) 03:28, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Consider it being WP:BOLD as an attempt at compromise, to address concerns that unqualified "death" is implying something other than biological death. It's a more constructive action than the recent pure reversions, in any case. Chester Markel (talk) 03:40, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Of course, many people do believe that abortion causes the death of a human. But that, like the contrary pro-choice POV, should only be described, not asserted as scientific fact. Chester Markel (talk) 03:24, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I concur that attempting to use 'death ' here is "going in circles" for the reasons you indicate: It's not a simple matter of lack of metabolic activity in the fetus (or what I have been describing as 'cellular death' of the fetus). It's too complicated an issue for a single-word treatment--and all the more so for an article that tries to explore the topic from social/legal/cultural/religious angles as well as the medical angle. If 'death' is to be treated it must be done at greater length further down in the article. JJL (talk) 03:28, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the phrase "biological death" quite nicely describes the conclusion of MEDRS concerning what happens to the fetus, and avoids insinuations of Wikipedia endorsing a particular POV on the related, hotly contested moral issue. Chester Markel (talk) 03:40, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Of course the article explores "the topic from social/legal/cultural/religious angles as well as the medical angle". But the first sentence is purely a description of the life sciences aspects. Discussion of whether or not "death of a person" occurs according to various POVs comes later. Chester Markel (talk) 03:44, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

If you are going to use "biological death" it must first be biologically alive. Does a fetus exhibit the following phenomena?

Biology

Since there is no unequivocal definition of life, the current understanding is descriptive, where life is a characteristic of organisms that exhibit all or most of the following phenomena:

1. Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature.
2. Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.
3. Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
4. Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter.
5. Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.
6. Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism) and by chemotaxis.
7. Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent organisms. Gandydancer (talk) 04:01, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

WP:NOR, my friend. The 66,000 Google Scholar results[63] for the phrase "fetal death", and the 2,500 Google Scholar results[64] for the exact language "death of the fetus" in the abortion context disagree with you. Per WP:VER, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." The best available WP:MEDRS clearly tell us that the fetus is alive, and abortion kills it. Biologically speaking, of course. Chester Markel (talk) 04:09, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

I've been following the discussion and I believe that both sides have presented good arguments. I think that Friend of the Facts brought some good insight into the discussion when s/he suggested that there is no one correct answer to the debate because some people feel on way while some feel another. Imagine if you will a woman coming to the extremely difficult decision to abort after speaking with her spiritual adviser who had shown her the above list and suggested that the fetus, according to the above list, was no more "alive" than the placenta. Or that the fetus is not "alive" until the soul enters the body. Or whatever. We are not a panel of experts here to decide this matter for once and for all. I don't remember which editor suggested that it is reasonable to use the word "death" in the article, but it would be better to not use the word death in the opening in the lede. I'd go along with that suggestion. Gandydancer (talk) 10:43, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Reboot: Definition

As MastCell noted above, our sourcing guidelines tell us to use the best possible scholarship in writing articles. If that is the case, why are people cherrypicking references and doing their own original research on the matter? Here's my proposal: I'll pick five references that I haven't read before—UpToDate, Williams and/or Gabbe (the two definitive OB books, from my understanding), Abortion Practice (never heard of it or the author before today, but the reviews sound encouraging), and something from the Cochrane Collaboration(?). I promise I have never read any of the articles or chapters these sources have to offer about abortion; I'm including them because they are the best possible medical sources I can think of this early in the morning. I will have access to some of these books later in the week, and I'm sure that several of the other editors here (Doc James, MastCell) do as well. I or other editors will write down the official definition of abortion as these works put it. As they are the highest quality on the subject matter, we should feel comfortable in using them as the primary basis for the definition of abortion in our article. Does that sound acceptable to everyone? NW (Talk) 11:45, 14 June 2011 (UTC)