Talk:Abortion

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Change

We had this

<blockquoteThe legality of abortion is one of the main determinants of its safety. Restrictive abortion laws are associated with a high rate of unsafe abortions.

Changed to this

Unsafe abortions sometimes occur where abortion is legal, and safe abortions sometimes occur where abortion is illegal.

The refs better support the former rather than the latter.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:03, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

You are comparing two sentences that do not correspond to each other. The material you deleted included this: "Most unsafe abortions occur where abortion is illegal,[77] or in developing countries where affordable well-trained medical practitioners are not readily available,[78][79] or where modern contraceptives are unavailable[80]....The illegality of abortion contributes to maternal mortality...."

Your edit grossly slants the article, by removing the determinants other than legality, but that's not surprising given how you jammed this material into the article in June. The article now only mentions legality as a determinant, and that's simply misleading. You've also deleted the material that MastCell and I managed to agree on with LSD in the discussion above.

Three days ago, Andrew c said, "no one gets to revert again until there is consensus".[1] You're refusing?

Doc James, I said above: "I would have no objection to removing the whole section from this article, and working here at the talk page on a much shorter consensus version. Or someone can just suggest a short consensus version, and we can talk about it." Would you go along with that? Or is this a hit and run, with no room for discussion or compromise?Anythingyouwant (talk) 07:28, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Other issues I have is this line "Unsafe abortions sometimes occur where abortion is legal, and safe abortions sometimes occur where abortion is illegal" It does not really say anything. Yes there are always exceptions in medicine and... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:27, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with mastcell that there appears to be a consistent effort to downplay the effects of legality on abortion risk. I have supported this text by excellent references ( a 2009 review article ). I disagree with removing it and changing the wording to say something it does not. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:31, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

So mentioning that anything in addition to legality can affect abortion safety is out of the question?Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:44, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

No but deleting well referenced text that refers to the connection is.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:47, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

You've got it backwards. I included (not deleted) this: "Most unsafe abortions occur where abortion is illegal....The illegality of abortion contributes to maternal mortality." You deleted everything about factors other than legality which affect abortion safety.Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:51, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

(undent) Technichally, this isn't about abortion safety, this is about a specific technical term ("unsafe abortion") that's designed to capture data about the types of abortions that are performed. We have a section in the article on safety. If the person who is performing an abortion is a badly trained doctor working in a sparsely equipped but functional hospital setting, it's not safe as safe as it should be but the operation does not meet the definition of "unsafe." Contrariwise, an operation performed at home by an excellent doctor with impeccable technique might have very low risks indeed, but it would still meet the definition of "unsafe." Pulling this in, can we remove the link "health risks of unsafe abortion" (redundant) and just call the "health risks" a "complications" section like we do for other surgeries? SDY (talk) 14:39, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't have any opinion about the rest of it, but the sentence "Unsafe abortions sometimes occur where abortion is legal, and safe abortions sometimes occur where abortion is illegal." is completely inane. Kaldari (talk) 17:14, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Would it be completely inane if accompanied by statistics? In India, for example, unsafe abortion is very common despite legality. And, in some countries where abortion is illegal but the medical care is generally high, unsafe abortion rarely leads to serious injury or death. I think this might be non-inane if confirmed by reliable statistics.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:25, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

It's inane because it has no useful semantic content. It's also inane because it assumes legality always falls on national borders. And then it's inane because it implies that illegal is the same as impossible. One might better say "Abortions occur whether or not they are available legally, affordably, and safely."LeadSongDog come howl! 22:15, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The section of this article that we're discussing is titled "Unsafe abortion". So, I don't think this would be the appropriate section for a statement that "Abortions occur whether or not they are available legally", because such a sentence does not say anything about safety, plus it incorrectly implies that legality does not affect the abortion rate.

The sentence that everyone is calling inane is this: "Unsafe abortions sometimes occur where abortion is legal, and safe abortions sometimes occur where abortion is illegal." Sure, it could be improved, I admit that. But I'm not seeing how it assumes legality "falls on national borders." The so-called inane sentence was not written without sources, and the sources contain useful information. The four cited sources say that in countries like India, for example, unsafe abortion is very common despite legality, and they say that in some countries where medical care is generally good illegal abortion rarely leads to death. Both of those points seem important to me. The four sources used for the "inane" sentence are these: (1) "Unsafe abortion: Global and regional estimates of the incidence of unsafe abortion and associated mortality in 2003" (PDF). World Health Organization. 2007. Retrieved March 7, 2011. In several countries, the legalization of abortion has not been followed by elimination of unsafe abortion.; (2) Faúndes, Aníbal and Barzelatto, José. The Human Drama of Abortion: a Global Search for Consensus, page 21 (Vanderbilt University Press 2006); (3) Blas, Erik et al. Equity, social determinants and public health programmes, pages 182-183 (World Health Organization 2010); (4) Safe Abortion: Technical and Policy Guidance for Health Systems, page 15 (World Health Organization 2003).

If people think those four cited sources are inane, then I won't bother trying to use them in this article. But I don't think they're inane; instead, they provide a significant qualification to the notion that legality determines safety, which is the present POV of this Wikipedia article. In other words, if abortion is legal but unsafe in India, then that is a very important caveat to the notion that legality determines safety. If deaths from illegal abortion would be extremely rare in an advanced country with generally good medical care, then that again is a very significant caveat to the notion that legality determines safety. Legality is an important factor affecting safety, but I don't think this Wikipedia article should omit the caveats; omitting them seems inane to me.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:25, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The cited sources do support the notion that legality is a key determinant of safety. The relationship is not completely ironclad - hence the caveat that in some areas where abortion is technically legal but access is restricted by non-legal means, it may still be unsafe. Similarly, even in areas where abortion is illegal, people with high socioeconomic status may be able to obtain a clandestine but safe abortion. But these are exceptions to the rule, and we should present them as such. Ideally, we would convey the viewpoint (espoused by high-quality sources and experts in the field) that legality is a key determinant of the safety of abortion, but it is not the sole determinant. Right?

Regarding deaths from illegal abortion, I agree that these would presumably be relatively rare in a developed country where the complications of unsafe abortion can be treated rapidly and effectively. But death is not the only variable here. Even with good medical care, unsafe abortion can result in uterine scarring, future infertility, hospital stays, increased medical spending, and all of the downstream effects of these non-fatal complications. I don't think we should convey the idea that if unsafe abortions don't outright kill women, then they're no big deal. I don't think that viewpoint is contained in reliable sources, nor does it seem to make much sense. MastCell ^Talk 17:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I pretty much agree with MastCell's comment. There are other key determinants of safety besides legality, though legality is the main one emphasized most in the literature. Incidentally, I don't think the "inane" sentence conveyed the idea that if unsafe abortions don't outright kill women, then they're no big deal. Anyway, if someone would like to draft a non-inane sentence based on the four sources mentioned, then that would be appreciated, or I could try again.Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:37, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Better map

Abortion international (2011)

This map is better. 188.118.146.242 (talk) 17:43, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

This map is not entirely accurate. However I have only been able to check it with regard to the UK. The 1967 UK abortion act has not been extended to N. Ireland. Northern Ireland should not be blue (or green either). Abortion is not legal on request in N. Ireland except in circumstance pertaining to risk to the life of the mother. It is mostly in those circumstances that abortions have been performed in hospitals in N. Ireland. There has been some debate over the numbers of abortions being performed and whether they have all been legal (ie. anything outside of risk to the life of the mother is deemed illegal), so I think another colour needs to be added to the legend, for jurisdictions where it is illegal except for risk to maternal life. DMSBel (talk) 00:46, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The map does sort of need references for verification associated with it.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:23, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I've warned you, Doc James, at your talk page. According to one of the two editors who you reverted today, "Inaccurate, no source. Lebanon is incorrect, many middle eastern states incorrect. Contradicts 'Religion and Abortion'".Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

The image has been there a long time and there is no consensus for its removal. BTW per the UN abortion is illegal except to save a woman's life in Lebanon www.un.org/esa/population/publications/abortion/doc/lebanon.doc . Thus I do not see wrt this country that it is wrong. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:50, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

(undent) again here is the ref for all countries from the UN http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/abortion/profiles.htm So please just list the countries that are incorrect per the above ref and I am sure they can be quickly fixed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:04, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

That UN link doesn't work for me on two different computers. Anyway, I highly doubt that Egypt, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Oman, Lebanon, and UAE allow abortion for "mental health" reasons, as the map currently seems to imply.[2] The current map is grossly inaccurate and should be removed, instead of edit-warred back into the article. Two editors have tried to remove it today, but one editor has violated 1RR to jam it back into the article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 23:19, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

No this is a very small problem that I have fixed by just altering the grammar. I have no problems accessing the files. Google docs will pull them up.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:26, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I replaced your bare link with a formatted link, and edited your grammar so that it's more understandable. There are still problems. For example, the map indicates that in Brazil abortion is illegal with exceptions for rape, maternal life, physical health, and/or mental health. In reality, according to the UN as of 2007, Brazil allows an exception for life of the mother, rape, or incest, but not for physical health, mental health, et cetera. So, I'll fix that. Evidently, the map cannot be removed even temporarily, so we must adjust as best we can. The map is still defective; for example, it shows illegality in the Dominican Republic with no exceptions, whereas the UN says there's an exception for the life of the mother. Also, the UN says that Ethiopia and Sudan allow abortion in cases of rape, whereas our map says otherwise. It's basically a crappy map, and I hope we can remove it until it's fixed (I don't know how to fix images like this).Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:34, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Well you could start a RfC to see if there is support for your opinion. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:56, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Nah, I already know there's support from another editor. You reverted both of us, and you're not even denying that the map has errors. Why not start an RFC to see if there's support for you being immune from sanctions at this article?Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:13, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I am only checking the UK at the moment. Both the map above and the one in the article are incorrect when compared to the above link (UN abortion policies site). Initially I had thought that it was only N. Ireland within the UK which is the wrong colour (above) but correct in the map in the article. I now see from the website DocJames linked to above that Abortion is not actually legal on request in the rest of the UK - it is only permitted on grounds ranging from socio-economic to risk to the life of the mother. It is not permitted on grounds of rape or incest. The UK should not be coloured blue.

from above site:

UK and N Ireland

Grounds on which abortion is permitted:

To save the life of the woman Yes

To preserve physical health Yes

To preserve mental health Yes

Rape or incest No

Foetal impairment Yes

Economic or social reasons Yes

Available on request No

Additional requirements:

Abortion is legal in England, Wales and Scotland when two registered medical practitioners (only one in an emergency) certify that the required medical grounds as set forth in the Abortion Act of 1967 have been met. The termination of pregnancy must be carried out (except in an emergency) in a National Health Service hospital or in a nursing home, private hospital or other approved place. Abortion is legal during the first 24 weeks of gestation. The consent of the spouse is not a prerequisite of the medical termination of pregnancy. The Abortion Act of 1967 does not apply in Northern Ireland.

With regard to the countries Anythingyouwant mentioned (Egypt, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Oman, Lebanon, and UAE) these all permit abortion only on ground of risk to life of the woman.

The section therefore should at least be tagged until this is cleared up.

Is there not a basic map with country names somewhere in WP Commons that could be edited to change colours? My geography is not great and it would help checking if the country names were on the map.

DMSBel (talk) 21:10, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I support tagging the section for the reasons described above.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:08, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Sure sounds reasonable. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:33, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

wp:WikiProject Maps can usually assist with that sort of technical detail, but they'll need to know which countries are in which group. LeadSongDog come howl! 02:30, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks LeadSongDog, I had a look in WP Commons, looking specifically for an uncoloured or grey world map but with the names of countries, does not seem to be one, unless I missed it. Unless the legend is expanded (which I would strongly favor - as we have no classification for at least half a dozen middle eastern countries) the UK (Great Britain and N.Ireland) would be better as black (varies by region).DMSBel (talk) 11:56, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Which of these tags:

or

would be best? DMSBel (talk) 12:26, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

There's no reason why a section can't have more than one tag, though one tag is sometimes sufficient. The globalize tag was inserted by the editor "NuclearWarfare" last year, apparently for reasons other than the map.[3] I inserted the disputed facts tag yesterday, regarding the map. The disputed facts tag seems appropriate, because the map is not factually accurate. It's not merely a question of omitting or emphasizing certain parts of the world, but rather it's about presenting bogus, false information.Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:47, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I am a graphics person. I'd be glad to create a new map if it will solve this dispute. Could someone give me concise, yet detailed instructions on what needs to be changed? Is there consensus on that front? If there is, it seems simple enough to just make a new map, and I'd gladly do that. Also, inline dispute tags are better than section tags if the whole section isn't what is in dispute, but instead a single image...-Andrew c ^[talk] 16:25, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

The map has a footnote attached, and the footnoted source is pretty clear. Whoever does the map just needs to make sure it matches the footnoted source. Some of the errors have been identified above in this section. If you think one of the current tags needs to be downsized, perhaps a better course would be to remove the image for now (a big image needs a big tag).Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:11, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm fairly busy, so maybe it was dumb of me to volunteer in the first place. I'm not going to read the above discussion, and I'm not going to compile sources myself. If someone can give me a list "change X country to Y color" for corrections, and other actionable suggestions, I can easily make the changes. But if it is going to force me to become involved in a content dispute and take time to do research, that's more than what I bargained for. I apologize if that makes my offer less sweet or whatever. I just don't have the time to devote to much more. -Andrew c ^[talk] 18:00, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Hey Andrew Thanks for the offer. We will need to figure out the exact changes needed. Most of the map is correct. Just a few small clarifications needed. Will let you know when we figure out what needs to be done.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:13, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

We need to find consensus on the legend first. There seems to be countries where it is only legally permitted on grounds of risk to life of the mother. Is there any problem with having a colour for that? I think that the general grounds on which abortion is legally permitted in each country is what the map should indicate. The addition of "and in some countries physical and/or mental health" to the orange and brown classification seems rather unneccessary when we are doing this on a country by country basis. 62.254.133.139 (talk) DMSBel (talk) 23:37, 11 May 2011 (UTC) 23:35, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

According to the source used in the article (World Abortion Policies 2007) the following countries only permit abortion on the ground of saving the life of the mother:

Africa: Djibouti, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Somalia, Angola, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, São Tomé and Príncipe, Egypt, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Lesotho, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal

South-Central Asia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Sri Lanka

South-Eastern Asia: Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines

Western Asia: Lebanon, Oman, Syrian Arab Republic, United Arab Emirates, Yemen

Europe: Ireland, Andorra, San Marino, Monaco

Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Haiti

Central America: Guatemala, Honduras

South America: Paraguay, Suriname

Melanesia: Solomon Islands

Micronesia: Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated States of), Palau

Polynesia: Tonga, Tuvalu

If we just take out the "...and in some countries physical and/or mental health" from the legend (refering here to the map currently in the article, not the one above) it would reduce the amount of changes needed to a minimum.62.254.133.139 (talk) 17:17, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Any objections? DMSBel (talk) 14:08, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes if someone could create a map with these changes that would be great. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:35, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Ignore my earlier comment about removing the words "...and in some countries physical/or mental health" from two of the keys in the legend. I have just been gone through the source comparing it with the map. Currently the brown and orange keys in the legend covers several grounds. Some countries that are brown (ie. all those listed above) only permit abortion on grounds of to save the life of the woman. In others this is widened to preserve physical or mental health. I had uploaded a map based on the one in the article that distinguishes those countries where abortion is permitted only to save the life of the woman. However I see some countries have passed legislation since 2007. So I will have to try and update it for that.DMSBel (talk) 00:29, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

I have uploaded a map:

but it still needs some changes. For instance Spain's abortion legislation has changed, (I had not been aware of this before uploading). Important Please Note if making changes, some previous changes to earlier maps were to change the status of countries from the de jure (legality of abortion) to the de facto (actual practice). This section is on abortion law, not abortion practice, make sure that any changes are representative of the legal status of abortion in the various countries. DMSBel (talk) 13:42, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

The countries in dark red, are those where abortion is only legally permitted on the grounds of saving the life of the woman.DMSBel (talk) 19:19, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Picture of abortion

According to the FAQ, "in the first quarter of 2009, various encyclopedic images related to abortions that show an intact embryo and fetus have been introduced to the article". As of today, those images have been completely removed. OrangeMarlin says there's no verification that the image is what the caption says it is. Well, the OB GYN who took the picture in India has stated what it is, and it sure isn't an ice cream cone or a windmill.

In the spirit of "no censorship", maybe it would be better to have an image that actually shows the blood and guts, but this image has been the compromise for years.

OrangeMarlin's edit summary is this: “Absolutely no verification that this is actually a photograph of a 10 week old fetus.” If the objection is the "10 week" figure in the caption, then the caption could have been edited without removing the image. Moreover, the "10 week" figure is attested to by the creator of the image, and it is also confirmed by looking at the size of the fetus in relation to the hand holding it. A fetus at 10 weeks LMP (i.e. 8 weeks after fertilization) has a crown to rump length of Template:Cm to in which is consistent with the image.Anythingyouwant (talk) 08:49, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

I also have some concerns about use of flickr images. However the issue of the map (discussion above) is to me of greater priority. It would be a pity if this sidetracked things from correcting the details of it.62.254.133.139 (talk) 12:39, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Further there has been substantial discussion about including the image in question during the past two years, I think an RFC would need to be held before removal. I would prefer better verifiability myself, but the fetus in the picture does appear to be developmently about 10 weeks old, by comparison with other images on the internet. I acknowledge however that I am not an expert. 62.254.133.139 (talk) 13:20, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

For some reason, something very obvious about this had eluded me until now. The picture is of a 10 week old fetus, but the surgical procedure carried out was not an abortion, but a Hysterectomy. The picture description states: A 44-years old gravid female with previous 6 children was diagnosed with carcinoma in situ of cervix (early stage cancer of womb). So total removal of uterus (womb) with fetus in situ was considered to be inevitable for future health of the lady. Removal of the womb is not a theraputic abortion. 62.254.133.139 (talk) 16:39, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

An 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. That's what the image shows, and it's sometimes called a "hysterectomy abortion". According to the Wikipedia article Hysterotomy abortion, “the rate of mortality for abortion by hysterotomy and hysterectomy reported in the United States between 1972 to 1981 was 60 per 100,000, or 0.0006%.” The term "hysterectomy abortion" can be found in Google Scholar, for example.[4]Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:47, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Pictures are intended to be representative of the subject. In this case, the hysterectomy was performed because of cervical carcinoma in situ, with abortion of the fetus as a result. The photo is poorly representative of the topic because a) vanishingly few abortions are performed by hysterectomy (it's completely unheard of as a means of therapeutic abortion in the first trimester, as far as I'm aware), and b) this particular hysterectomy was performed for a cancer (or, in this case, pre-cancerous) diagnosis.

Secondly, removing and photographing the fetus after such an operation is unusual, to say the least. Posting such a photograph on Flickr is perhaps even more unusual. Given the large number of... unusual aspects associated with this photo, I think we should not use it. I'm not personally totally comfortable trusting an anonymous Flickr user's assertions about the photo for our purposes. I doubt that any other serious, respectable reference work (e.g. Britannica) would include a photo with such poorly attested provenance. MastCell ^Talk 21:36, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you MastCell, I was meaning to come here to explain my reasoning, but real life intervened. There isn't much for me to add to what MastCell said, except that I might "guess" that the photo was indeed representative of a 10 week old fetus, but that's purely original research or synthesis. This photo is not from a reliable source at all. I have no idea if it's photoshopped, or if it's even a physician who posted it. Given that it's not reliable, we can only infer that it was placed there for POV purposes only. That fetus cannot survive, it cannot think or feel, it is not much more than a mass of cells. The photo obviously tries to make a case that it isn't. Nevertheless, I'm skeptical of the photo on so many levels. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:45, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

The use of Google Scholar and Wikipedia as sources is well....laughable. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 21:47, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Anythingyouwant. I still think an RFC should be held, as the image has been in the article for quite a while, and I have not had time to go through all the discussion that surrounded it's inclusion to see if these concerns (including my own have been discussed earlier). Anythingyouwant has been with this article much longer than me and was involved in the earlier discussion. I don't see a problem with using Google Scholar. I am going to revert - to allow further discussion. DMSBel (talk) 22:42, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

(outdent)Well if we're going for age, I believe I've been here longer than Anythingyouwant; but frankly how long you've been editing any particular article is not generally useful. We don't give points for longevity. OTH, what might be relevant is that Anythingyouwant is still under sanctions for disrupting Arbortion related articles in order to push his POV. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Ferrylodge#Ferrylodge restricted. I suggest he back off a little from trying to get another inflammatory image inserted in this article. Had I been paying attention when it was added, I would have said something at the time. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 23:26, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh good grief. Now I notice that DMSBel is under editing restriction[5] - "topic banned from the topic of human sexuality, interpreted broadly, including talk pages and Wikipedia space pages." This is not specifically a sexuality page, but it certainly seems to fits the "broad interpretation". Should y6ou even be here, DMSBel? KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 23:34, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, given that I reverted DMSBel, who is restricted from this article, do I have to self-revert, or am I good to go. Didn't know that DMSBel was topic banned. Figures. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 23:47, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

You cannot self revert at this point; two other edits have succeeded yours. You've been warned and are now aware of the 1RR; no need for anything else. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 00:05, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Is this page included in a "broad-interpretation"? As you see I am not being contentious here, in fact I have put an image back into the article that I am not completely in agreeance with because it seems that the image has been here for some time and I think there needs to be further discussion before it is removed.DMSBel (talk) 00:15, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Admittedly this is not Ejaculation or Cum shot; however in broad terms, sex is required for pregnancy which is required for abortions. This is under the "broad interpretation", but barely. It may be best to discuss this with GeorgeWilliamHerbert, who if I'm understanding the sequence correctly (I'm still reading the ANI thread) was the one who enacted the topic ban, correct? I must say I'm not terribly impressed with your approach. You state you don't support the image, yet you put it back - but its clear the one person who does support the image is Anythingyouwant, already on thin ice where Abortion articles are concerned, and he is the only person who spoke against topic banning you. A bit too much of the one-hand-washes-the-other for my taste. Of course it could simply be that the two of you see things the same way; but I suggest you widen your mentors and find someone to edit with and emulate who has not come quite so close to being site banned. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 00:36, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I follow the article talk pages mostly, I don't generally know who here has any sanctions, current or expired. DMSBel (talk) 01:06, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I have asked GWH, who implemented the topic ban, and his ruling is that DMSBel's behavior is not problematic enough to make him "want to stretch the ban to cover it, at this time" and adds the comment that "DMSBel is aware that misbehavior will garner attention." So we have an answer; DMSBel's topic ban does not include Abortion at this time. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 12:00, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

en that it's not reliable, we can only infer that it was placed there for POV purposes only." - I don't think this inference is valid.DMSBel (talk) 22:57, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

RfC's are a waste of time. But if you're going to open it up, I'm going to make sure "death" is removed from the lead, since a fetus is not alive, so it can't be killed. If you're going to open one shitty can of works, I get to open my own. Go for it. By the way, I reverted the POV picture. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 23:21, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks legit? Wow. I bet you really looked into it too. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 23:51, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, but I'm going to need more than "looks legit" here. Leaving aside the appropriateness of the photo to this article (which is highly questionable), what do we know about its provenance? It looks to me like an anonymous Flickr user is the sole source on which we're basing our interpretation of this image. Am I missing something? Does this strike anyone else as questionable? Moreover, how do we know that the patient who underwent surgery consented to have this image reproduced on Wikipedia? Absent such consent, should we feel comfortable using the photo? There are actual legal and ethical issues here, and blowing them off with "looks legit" seems cavalier, to say the least. Maybe one of the reverters could explain to me why a serious, respectable reference work would illustrate its medical articles with photos from an anonymous Flickr user, lacking clear patient consent? MastCell ^Talk 05:09, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

From my take on the law after consulting with a medical law group in Canada, as long as there is no identifiable person consent is not needed. Also I remember something from American law that says that people do no have any legal rights over parts of there body once separated from them ( this come up from court cases where the police find peoples urine and test it for drugs ). Consent not required. But this is just a side note and has nothing to do with if we use this image or not. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:15, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Doc James on those points, which rebut MastCell's point. Also, I object to removal of longstanding content without consensus. This image is unusual in that it depicts a particular fetus that has DNA different from the DNA of every other aborted fetus, but it also has features in common with many abortions.. No one has identified anything in this image to suggest it's anything other than what it purports to be. Motion pictures of sex acts and erotic pics of underage girls are necessary according to Wikipedia policy to prevent censorship, but such considerations are never applied at this article, which is why there has never been an image here of what an abortion actually does to a fetus. So we have had this image instead, for years, in response to a huge RFC (linked in the FAQ) in which a majority of editors supported such an image.
KC, without addressing whether or not I should be under sanctions for the rest of my life (as you gratuitously have alluded to), my opinion is that you and OrangeMarlin would be much more deserving of such sanctions than I ever was (and more). Your joint removal of longstanding content without consensus is yet another case in point.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:31, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Off-topic, but I'm kind of amused - the proponents of keeping the image probably overlap a good deal with the opponents of arguments like "it's not a person" and "it is a part of the patient's body" which Doc James is citing as possible laws that would allow it to be used. ;) Its provenance is still questionable, though, and should probably be discussed beyond this talkpage. (Consensus can change, ATYW.) Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 05:43, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

It's no more questionable than for thousands of other Flickr images at Wikipedia.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:47, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Anythingyouwant: Its not my opinion; it was ArbCom's Remedy: "Ferrylodge is subject to an editing restriction indefinitely. Any uninvolved administrator may ban Ferrylodge from any article which relates to pregnancy or abortion, interpreted broadly, which they disrupt by inappropriate editing." (emphasis added) so I suggest you drop this line of attack. You're falsely attacking me for what your actions brought on yourself, via an ArbCom remedy, and you're doing it on an article talk page, not an appropriate venue to offer your opinion that ArbCom sanctioned the wrong editor.

Regarding the image, there is obviously no consensus at this time to keep the image, regardless of how long it was in the article. Remember that consensus can change; remember also such incidents as the Seigenthaler incident, which show that clearly inappropriate content may go unnoticed for an extended period of time. Our only productive way forward is to discuss the images appropriateness and merits at this time. KillerChihuahua^?!?Advice 12:15, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I am a little amused too, and puzzled. I don't agree with the picture captioned as it is but if there is a long standing consensus (and lets face it this page is hardly one to slip under the radar easily), then I would only risk getting myself sanctioned if I stood against that consensus. So you see that's rather an important issue for me. As these things frequently turn one way then the other, it's rather easy to completely inadvertently and without any intention of disruption find oneself being "hung out to dry". I rather object to that sort of editing culture! As for the picture I would prefer to see a caption change, if it is kept.DMSBel (talk) 13:56, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

• I have not consulted a lawyer, and I suspect that laws and practices regarding patient consent differ across various jurisdictions, so maybe it's best to omit the legal argument. I think there is a strong ethical argument against including photos of aborted fetuses without some sort of indication that the patient consented to their prominent display on a highly-viewed page of a top-10 website, but maybe we should table that for now since it's distracting from more immediate concerns.

  No one has actually addressed my core objection. We know nothing about this photo's provenance beyond what has been provided by an anonymous Flickr user. I think that is far, far below the bar we should aspire to use to illustrate medical articles. Again, no serious, respectable reference work on Earth would use an anonymously uploaded Flickr photo of unknown provenance to illustrate a medical article.

  As a secondary concern, the image is in no way typical of therapeutic abortion - in fact, it's extraordinarily atypical. Using it as one of the (relatively few) photos in this article is misleading.

  Finally, perhaps we can dispense with arguments that "other crap exists on Wikipedia" as a justification for lowering our standards here. MastCell ^Talk 17:52, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

• If the objective is to show the most representative image, would it not simply be one of a woman taking a pill? Boring, perhaps, but representative. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:33, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Or an IM injection as we give methotrexate primarily here in Canada. I could get a photo next time we do this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:54, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

(Undent) If those who question the "provenance" of the image would say exactly what they want, and say how it might be obtained, then I or someone else could perhaps try to get it. On the other hand, I see that the grounds fir objecting to the image have shifted during this discussion, so perhaps any effort to keep the imagery neutral would be futile.Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:16, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

They haven't "shifted"; there are multiple objections. Let me ask a counter-queston: under what circumstances do you think an anonymously uploaded Flickr image should be used to illustrate a controversial, high-profile medical article? The arguments for keeping the image so far seem to boil down to: a) it's been in the article a long time, and b) various other Wikipedia articles contain questionable images. Neither one is particularly convincing to me. I'm open to more convincing arguments to keep the image, but they would need to address at least two questions. First, how can we vouch for the accuracy of this image and its description when it's been uploaded anonymously to Flickr? And second, even if the image is exactly what it purports to be, how do we justify using a vanishingly rare, non-representative circumstance as a general illustration of the topic? MastCell ^Talk 17:02, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like you've answered how the "provenance" could conceivably be proven to your satisfaction. If you look at the huge RFC on this subject (linked in the FAQ), you'll see that this image pretty much satisfies the requests of a majority of the commenters there, by showing what is aborted during an abortion of a fetus at a typical time during pregnancy. No one has pointed to anything in the image that gives any indication of inauthenticity. No one who has urged removal has suggested any comparable substitute. If anonymity of the contributor of a photo like this is the main problem, then can detailed info about the contributor be provided via OTRS to satisfy that concern? Like almost all images at Wikipedia, this one has representative aspects and non-representative aspects, and I don't see how the non-representative aspects detract or mislead in any way. If anything, the nonrepresentarive aspects portray abortion as a non-bloody, non-gory procedure, which hardly conforms with the suggestions above that this image is part of some pro-life conspiracy. If an image of a more typical abortus (bloody and gory) were inserted here, it's been made very clear that it would be removed in a heartbeat despite rules against censorship, so ruling out an image like the one in question would just exacerbate that problem.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:46, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

This is a very high-profile, highly viewed article. I think we should aim to make it conform to the highest possible standards for Wikipedia content. To me, that means we should use images from identifiable, reputable sources, and the reader should be able to verify that the source of the photos is legitimate. That pretty much rules out random Flickr images.

To be clear, at present there is absolutely no way that this image meets the standard set forth in Wikipedia:Verifiability: "all material added to articles must be attributable to a reliable, published source appropriate for the content in question". It's obvious to me that anonymous Flickr accounts are not "reliable, published sources" appropriate for controversial medical content. It's an obvious policy violation at present, at least from where I sit.

I suppose if we had some concretely verifiable information about the contributor and the image (e.g. via OTRS) that would help. I personally still wouldn't be comfortable with it, but I wouldn't stand in the way if a consensus of others (ideally without a history of agenda-driven editing on the topic) felt that this was sufficient.

Really, though, I think the time would be better spent finding images that meet the high standard we should be aspiring to, rather than bending over backward to try and keep an image that's going to be borderline even in a very-best-case scenario. I'm going to stop now, and let others chime in since I don't want to beat a dead horse if I'm totally out on a limb here. MastCell ^Talk 00:02, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Best point I think that was raised is this is not an image illustrating the concept of a normal 'abortion'. It is, in a round about way, sort of related, but admittedly comes from a very unusual situation. I don't think we need to hide behind the motives. The reason this image was included was because some users felt it was important to illustrate what was being aborted, without necessarily showing gory, shock images found on pro-lifer's signs (and I can't help but think this image isn't much removed from a prior contender, File:Lifesize8weekfetus.JPG). Do we keep the image because we, as a community, think it is important to the topic to show the fetus, even in the context of an unusual hysterectomy? While important, I think the issue of providence is more nitpicky, and skirts this bigger issue. We could probably address those providence concerns with some legwork, but the bigger issue, IMO, would still remain on whether it's appropriate to use a very atypical abortion procedure to illustrate "abortion", and whether the actual motive behind the image, to show a fetus, is still important to the community. -Andrew c ^[talk] 14:42, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Many similar images have been considered for this article, per the RFC linked in the FAQ. And yet those now recommending removal of this image have still not suggested any alternative, which kind of suggests to me what MastCell calls "agenda-driven editing". That's unfortunate, because NPOV should apply as much at this article as any other. The sudden fastidiousness about sourcing also strikes me as very selective, given the consistent opposition to even mentioning pro-choice affiliations in any of the footnotes. I agree that Flickr might not be the best source to use, if anyone could point to the slightest aspect of the image that appears inaccurate, but anyway sources have been proposed other than Flickr. Holding this image to an unusually high standard does not seem credible to me, nor does refusal to apply that standard to any other alternative images. The image from Angkor Wat of a bas relief is not representative of your average type of abortion either. I would appreciate if those opposing the image in question would go look at the RFC and say here whether any alternative would be more acceptable.

Also, if we're going to try to be honest here, how about acknowledging that the Flickr pages for the contributor of this image already do indicate her name, her location, her occupation, and much more. I have never contacted that contributor, but I could do so to get more information, either for public display at our image page, or for private disclosure via OTRS. But I need to know what to ask for; do we need her birth date and marital status? If what we need is a non-anonymous Flickr account, that's what we already have.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:57, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Hey, all. Making my occasional rounds to the page, thought I'd throw in my two cents. Probably Andrew c is the only one who'd remember me, and, on that subject, why hasn't anyone given him a barnstar since 2007 for his vast and ongoing corpus of work on WP:Abortion? He's richly earned it, but I'm not active enough to give one out. Anyhow, on topic:

It seems to me that the anti-picture faction is putting the pro-picture faction in a Catch-22: it can't be one of those nasty gory pictures from a common abortion, because that's offensive, but it also must be representative of common abortions, so it can't be from rare procedures like a hysterectomy abortion. Here is the trouble: common abortions are gory and visually offensive. Inescapable fact of abortion. I sympathize with both "horns" of the dilemma, but we have to pick a value here: do we prioritize representativity (a word I just invented) or do we favor sensitivity?

Throwing up our hands in disgust and scrubbing all fetal photographs from the article is not an acceptable answer, because such a deliberate, permanent erasure of any touchstone between abortion and its concrete, definitional result deeply compromises the article's encyclopedicity (another word I just invented). Wikipedia, above all other encyclopedias anywhere in history, has insisted on the importance of graphic photography, and has, at times, walked right up to the edge of legality with its long-since uncontroversial images of ejaculation and pornography. And some Abortion editors not only refuse to show graphic images of a perfectly legal medical procedure that are highly central to the topic, but define acceptable imagery in such a way that it is impossible to include any direct photography at all, ever? The idea parodies itself.

Where I do sympathize with the anti-imagery brigade is its concern for verifiability and reliable sourcing. I just got finished criticizing an article that cited Yelp! reviews as a valid source; I'm not going to come over here and argue that Flickr is okay (although, as AYW points out, we've got a lot of information about the uploader. We could just contact her and reload it to Wikimedia Commons to make it as verified as most anything else on the Commons). I'll concede, also, that ads by anti-abortion groups are dubious under NPOV. It should be replaced by a better image from a better source. In the meantime, however, it should be restored-until-replaced. It is topic-relevant, is reasonably well-sourced (though not ideally so), a longstanding part of the article, and was pulled down without discussion (much less consensus) by a user (OrangeMarlin) who appears eager to relitigate large portions of the article in order to (forgive me for saying so, OM) push his POV. Those actions have already resulted in an edit war and an article protection by a third-party admin, which I think sufficiently demonstrates that they were undertaken inappropriately.

The TLDR version: put it back up for now and replace it as soon as possible with something better. And never ever ever edit the abortion article without discussing it first! :P Hope my perspective is helpful. --BCSWowbagger (talk) 23:43, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

BCWowbagger, you seem to be representing yourself as a person who knows something about this subject when you state, "Here is the trouble: common abortions are gory and visually offensive. Inescapable fact of abortion." I would like to know something about your experience in the field of "common abortions", since you state that the procedure is, as a matter fact, gory and visually offensive. Thanks. Gandydancer (talk) 02:44, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

They are fairly bland as surgery goes and less "gory" in fact than say an I&D of an abscess... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:18, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I guess you missed my point - that is why I am wondering why BCSWowbagger feels they are so offenive.Gandydancer (talk) 03:23, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

• I don't really understand BCSWowbagger's assumptions. He seems to assume that the article must include some sort of photograph of the end result of a surgical abortion in order to be encyclopedic. I disagree. If I look at articles on various "perfectly legal medical procedures", I generally don't see post-surgical images of the removed material. Splenectomy doesn't have any images of extracted spleens; appendectomy, no images of removed appendices; etc. Granted, tonsillectomy does contain an image of removed tonsils, but notice that it's sourced to a published medical journal article rather than a Flickr account? We seem to be creating a false standard here - such images are not required or demanded elsewhere on grounds of encyclopedicity. Moreover, as Doc James pointed out elsewhere, given the prevalence of medical abortion in 2011, it might be most appropriate to show an image of a woman taking a pill to illustrate the procedural aspects of the topic.

  As to Flickr accounts, I doubt I will ever be comfortable with using one to source something like this - how hard do you think it would be for me to create a Flickr account tonight with solid-sounding (self-provided) credentials and start uploading pics and case histories? But like I said, if I'm out on a limb here, I'll register my disagreement and accept consensus.

  Finally, at the risk of distracting from more tangible concerns - am I the only one here who is uncomfortable with displaying an image of an aborted fetus with zero indication that the patient consented to its prominent display on a high-traffic page of a top-10 website? If the answer is "yes", I'll shut up about it. MastCell ^Talk 03:32, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I've been reading the discussion from the start but wanted to take plenty of time to form an opinion. I do have problems with the picture being used. How can it be possible to say that it's appropriate to have the fetus held in hand? If the article were about a tonsillectomy, would the extracted tonsils be held in hand? Or if about amputation, would you say that an amputated foot, for instance, is dead...or alive... And, perhaps beside the point, but why is the fetus not being held by a surgically-gloved hand but by a hand from (perhaps) the cleaning staff (going by looking at the glove).

But to move forward, I believe MastCell is correct, there is no good reason to have a picture of a fetus at all. Gandydancer (talk) 04:18, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Not an expert so I can't say if flickr is an ok source for pictures. To me it's about the picture not belonging here. I get the wikipedia is not censored idea, but at the same time isn't wikipedia supposed to stay neutral? There's a lot of things involved in an actual abortion--the woman, her uterus, the embryo, the doctor, the tools, the clinic. Only having a picture of no. 3 seems pretty selective. It basically frames the issue like peta pictures in the article about hotdogs would. You could argue it takes pigs dying to get hotdogs, that's a fact, why hide it? But it's not just facts that matter, it's how they're wrapped too. A slaughterhouse picture might be ok in an article about slaughterhouses, but stick it in the hotdog article and now it's not neutral. There's not being censored and then there's trying to make sure everyone sees The Truth because you think it's important for people to support your cause. Like they say you can't please them all and staying neutral is what we should go for in this case.Friend of the Facts (talk) 06:02, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Ah! Now we come to the meat of the objection. The group favoring removal's problem is not really with this particular image, but a general objection to having images of an abortion (or its products) at all. That's fine and dandy. Perhaps it is time to revisit the RFC of 2009. First let me make a couple of quick replies to specific comments made to my last addition. Gandydancer stated, "I would like to know something about your experience in the field of "common abortions", since you state that the procedure is, as a matter fact, gory and visually offensive." The answer is I haven't the faintest medical experience. I surmise this from the fact that, over the course of the four+ years I've been working on (or lurking around) the WP project, every single image of a common abortion ever proposed for this article was rejected for being a "shock" image. D&E's, D&X's, chemicals, saline, certainly any ultrasounds of any version of the procedure actually underway... They never survive the discussion process, because everyone who isn't a POV pro-lifer decries them as visually offensive -- and they can't disagree, because that's exactly why the POV pro-lifers want them posted. (Andrew c, who has a much more complete memory of this page than I do, can correct the record if I'm wrong about this.) The non-representative hysterectomy abortion image was selected specifically because it showed a recognizable conceptus without making the article look like something out of an Operation Rescue protest.

MastCell asked: "am I the only one here who is uncomfortable with displaying an image of an aborted fetus with zero indication that the patient consented to its prominent display on a high-traffic page of a top-10 website?" No, I share that concern. As I argued above, the picture, however longstanding its place in the article, has serious deficiencies, especially given its place on one of the most difficult articles on WP, and it should be replaced. In the meantime, we can contact the Flickr user in question (assuming AnythingYouWant is right about the user's contact info being public) and ask her. Per WP:Image, we can assume her good faith consent and identification of the image's subject until we can scrape together a good replacement picture.

Lastly, I reread my own post, and, on a second read-through, it feels like I accused OrangeMarlin of deliberate POV-pushing. That was not my intention, and I apologize if OM reads it and thinks that's what I meant. WP:AGF and all that. I only meant that the aggressive manner in which OM has taken action on this matter, combined with the outright threat to reopen the old first-sentence debate, does not look like carefully considered NPOV thinking from where I'm sitting.

Now let's talk about the wider question. The group seems to want to revisit the question of having images of aborted fetuses on the page at all. Cool. It may be valuable to everyone to reread the old RFC (linked at the top of the page) to get some starting points in the discussion. I'll be rereading that as soon as I'm done with this comment.

First, I think it is wrong to say that just because splenectomy doesn't have an image means we shouldn't. Splenectomy should have an image. In a perfect encyclopedia, which WP one day hopes to become, it would have an image both of the operation in progress and the final results. The argument to the contrary smacks, to me, of WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST.

Second, there's this floating question of relevance. Every time images get brought up, there's an argument that if we included an image of an abortus, then we would need to include an image of a pregnant lady in an abortion clinic and maybe a separate picture injection, and then where would we be? I make reply: first off, I've no objection to including pregnant women and metheltrexate injections in this article. As I have perhaps made clear, I think images are fantastic. So, in general, does Wikipedia, albeit within certain reasonable limits which the Abortion article is not even close to reaching. A desire to add other images of equal weight is no barrier to adding this one.

Second, however, there is a false equivalence being drawn here. These proposed images are not of equal weight. Abortion, per the article, "is the termination of a pregnancy by the removal or expulsion of a fetus or embryo from the uterus" (and I'll leave the last clause of that sentence aside, because I do not want to reopen that discussion at the same time as this one). The most relevant image for the article, then, would depict "the termination of the pregnancy," especially "the removal or expulsion of the fetus." The best image to use would be an image of an in-progress abortion. There's a longstanding consensus against doing that. However, I think if we're reconsidering the consensus on images, we should reconsider everything -- and it strikes me as relevant, topical, illustrative, and inherently uncontroversial to include an in-uterine view (with reliable, NPOV-sourcing, of course; i.e. not "The Silent Scream") of an in-progress abortion.

However, if the in-progress abortion image remains outside consensus (as it always has), then the next-most-relevant image is that of the fetus just after its "removal or expulsion." To illustrate childbirth, the best image would not be "a pregnant woman" or an undisturbed vagina or even an injection of anaesthesia. The best image would show the process of expelling that baby from the vagina or, failing that, the end result (a messy, ugly, dare I say visually offensive new baby), and, if there's space, all those other incidentals I mentioned before. (The childbirth article notably manages to accomplish both these goals in one image.) To illustrate impregnation (as distinct from pregnancy), the best image would show (as well as possible) the introduction of semen, the fertilization of the ovum, and implantation in the uterine lining, or, failing that, the pregnant woman who resulted and, if there's space, the inputs of the process (semen and ovum). To illustrate abortion, the best image would show the removal or expulsion of the fetus, or, failing that, the expelled fetus that resulted and, if there's space, the tools which expelled that fetus (drugs, curette, etc). From a purely definitional standpoint, abstracted from the controversy and the very impassioned stances about rights on both sides, abortions are about fetuses, not about women, and not drugs -- just as splenectomies are about spleens, not about the people who have them. If for whatever reason consensus rejects the idea of including an image of an abortion in progress, then the ideal, most encylcopedic abortion article (which is what we're all going for here) will include some image of the direct object of the abortion process.

Now, I know some of the editors are concerned that, if there is an image, POV pro-lifers will push particularly emotionally evocative images in order to forward their POV. Jimbo himself has warned about the power of images to inherently attack NPOV. There are a number of ways we can avoid this, whether by somehow finding a particularly non-gory yet illustrative image or by including multiple images of different fetuses aborted at different stages by various methods, or even creating some kind of combo image illustrating the varying products of abortion (a la the eleven-doctors composite image at the top of The Doctor). There is a lot to discuss about particular choice of images, and I think, based on the opinions given here, that the Abortion article is ready to have that discussion again. But blocking images of the abortus entirely is, I strongly believe, not appropriate for the World's Greatest Encyclopedia in an article about abortion. Once we get past that idea, I think we can address what I consider much weightier encyclopedic concerns, like Friend of the Facts's NPOV worries.

Finally, leaving all the foregoing arguments aside, there seems to be an underlying current of thought here that suggests that abortion is perfectly comparable to any other perfectly legal medical procedure. While it is a perfectly legal medical procedure, the intense moral debates around it, the constantly embattled social and legal ground on which it stands, set it importantly apart from other medical procedures in some important respects. Discussions around splenectomies rarely revolve around spleens and their biological, physical, and moral status, and I've never heard of someone being confronted outside a hospital with a picture of a dead spleen. Discussions around abortions, however, are focused strongly on the status of the fetus. Fetal imagery is an important and widespread element of societal apprehension of abortion, as no one on any side would deny. While it would be ideal and unobjectionable for an article on splenectomy to include some images of the operation and the spleens that were extracted from them, it is particularly important for the abortion article to include some examples of the imagery which dominates so much of the general understanding of the procedure throughout the English-speaking world. Wikipedia does not shy away from this in other controversial departments: Friend of the Facts points to the article on abattoirs, which includes extensive imagery of the components, process, and outputs of the slaughterhouse process. WP editors stood by the most controversial imagery of the decade in its article on the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, because the images themselves were central to understanding the concept being discussed.

I expect at least one respondent will argue, "Okay, fair enough, then we should include those images on the abortion debate article, because that's where we deal with the controversy". While that would be an improvement on what some of the most vociferous imagery objectors would establish, it would still be to miss the point. Just as slaughterhouse and is the place for pictures of what happens in slaughterhouses, this is the article about abortion; pictures of what happens before, during, and after an abortion belong here. The most relevant images for the abortion debate article, as the editors there would rightly argue, are images of people arguing and protesting -- which is exactly what that article currently uses.

I do have one specific question, and that's for Gandydancer: you spend a whole paragraph talking about whether it's appropriate for the abortus to be "held in hand". I'm genuinely confused. Are you arguing that it's appropriate or inappropriate? I don't see what would be particularly right or wrong about holding the products of a surgery in hand when taking a picture of it, whether we're talking about abortion or tonsillectomy or amputation. It provides a nice sense of scale, I suppose, but other than that very minor point I really don't follow your argument. Can you elaborate?

Finally, lest the original topic of discussion be forgotten: while we have this discussion, the image of the hysterectomy abortion, which was inappropriately removed, should be temporarily restored, but, as soon as possible, replaced by an image that does not have the same technical deficiencies as users like MastCell have outlined.

The imagery consensus is dead! Long live the imagery consensus! :D --BCSWowbagger (talk) 19:20, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think I was clear with what I wrote before. Basically I wanted to make an analogy with another issue where protesters use pictures to get their message across. Peta and animal rights activists do it and so do prolifers. So a picture of an animal being slaughtered would be ok in the slaughterhouse article because it's relevant and shows what the article is actually about. But the same picture in an article about a meat product wouldn't be appropriate. The only real reason it could be there was because someone thinks it's important to "show the truth" about meat to get people to go vegan or whatever. Or pictures of maimed civilians on the army page trying to convince people to be antiwar. It's the same thing here. Fetus pictures are ok for fetal development articles because they show what those articles are about. But tied to abortion those same pictures create problems. Fetuses are only one of multiple things involved in an abortion surgery, so why pick and choose just them to show? And how many encyclopedias have a fetus picture in their article about abortion? Do we want wikipedia to be marginal because we just go through hoops to suit everyone's agenda and don't focus on what makes a good encyclopedia? I get that there are folks who think that picture shoiuld stay because it either does no harm or makes the article better. But other folks are disagreeing with it being there and when two sides can't see eye to eye about what to do it's probably best to play it safe and do nothing. I'd say it's probably not worth the time looking for the perfect compromise fetus picture when the idea of such a picture in this article isn't really ok to begin with, but other people had different reasons for not wanting the picture from flickr here and I guess they might think differently. But to me it would be like debating whether the hamburger article should have a picture of an electrocuted cow or a cow with its throat cut when it shouldn't have a picture of a slaughtered cow at all. And I wouldn't call this the "meat" of all the objections (though given the analogy you can call it the meat objection) because it's my own personal reason and so far everyone else has given their own reasons which are different from mine. Also if what's wanted is to show an abortion in progress isn't that already covered by the diagram of the abortion surgery already there in the article?Friend of the Facts (talk) 22:03, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

I have to admit to finding it difficult to determine what if any POV the picture was putting across. It seems fairly neutral as pro-life adverts tend to place emphasis on the dismemberment of the foetus. I would have no problem with it being kept in the article until such time as another is found to replace it. I would only request that it is captioned to explain that the procedure was a primarily a hysterectomy but resulting in a synchronal termination of the pregnancy, rather than refering to the entire procedure as a theraputic abortion. It should not be removed solely because of doubts over verifiability without some attempt to contact the uploader. 62.254.133.139 (talk) 22:50, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

Gloved hand

I have been asked:

I do have one specific question, and that's for Gandydancer: you spend a whole paragraph talking about whether it's appropriate for the abortus to be "held in hand". I'm genuinely confused. Are you arguing that it's appropriate or inappropriate? I don't see what would be particularly right or wrong about holding the products of a surgery in hand when taking a picture of it, whether we're talking about abortion or tonsillectomy or amputation. It provides a nice sense of scale, I suppose, but other than that very minor point I really don't follow your argument. Can you elaborate?

I am arguing that it is extremely inappropriate. Although legal aspects are discussed, this is basically a medical article about a medical procedure. Medical pictures in medical textbooks do not show human body parts held in hand for visualization and certainly not for "a nice sense of scale". Gandydancer (talk) 13:07, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Other Wikipedia medical articles uncontroversially show fragile objects held in a doctor's hand.[6] And other Wikipedia articles uncontroversially show a doctor's hand supporting or posing an object that's being photographed.[7] This very article about abortion has a drawing of a doctor's hand that is about 75 times bigger than the abortus shown in the same drawing.[8] None of the hand images I've just linked to is crappy or different from what's typically in medical textbooks and articles. I don't see a consensus to remove this longstanding image (and replace it with nothing), and no consensus to overturn the majority opinion of the image-RFC that's linked in the FAQ, but if people want to open a new RFC please feel free. I'd have no problem with tweaking the caption, or with requesting further info from the image contributor (if someone would specify what info would be sufficient). Another possibility might be for us to locate another image of a hysterectomy abortion that is copyrighted in a textbook or article, and simply refer to that image via footnote for anyone who wants to verify the authenticity of this image that we've used for years.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:49, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

The aspiration drawing would of course have a hand doing the procedure. The debridement would as well since it is a procedure. How many photos did you find other than photos of a procedure? Gandydancer (talk) 05:26, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't see much support for the image. And what support there is seems based in large part on the length of time it's been in the article, which doesn't actually address any of the concerns raised here. You can feel free to request more info from the uploader. It won't convince me - I don't think that anonymous Flickr images are appropriate for articles on complex and controversial medical procedures, and I don't think that emailing the uploader necessarily makes the images any less anonymous, given the low bar for creating a Flickr account. But you may convince others, and if you do I won't keep fighting this. I will probably never feel that it's ethical to display an aborted fetus without some indication that the patient consented to its display in this context on a top-ten website, but there isn't much I can do about that, and if my concern isn't shared by others then I guess I have to accept that. MastCell ^Talk 05:59, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I'll ask yet again MastCell: is there any image at the image RFC (linked in the FAQ) that you would agree to? Additionally, Wikipedia has lots of images of skulls and skeletons without any indication that the deceased agreed to publication. There's no indication in the tonsil article, or hundreds of other Wikipedia medical articles that the patient consented to publication of the removed body part. To say the least, I am skeptical of these sudden new standards for this article. I suppose if I obtained evidence of consent, there would be some other objection, given that you haven't even commented about the possibility of using an alternate image. It seems the goal here is to simply deemphasize, censor, and hide any image of this sort. I oppose that type of agenda-driven editing, and so did a majority of commenters on the above-mentioned RFC.Anythingyouwant (talk) 06:31, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Holding a fragile item in hand is quite normal. Keeping the delicate amniotic sac from rupturing was likely the reason. It also assists with picture taking as the person holding the object can tilt his hand or move into a better location for lighting etc. than if the object is just placed down on a surface. The picture is used on numerous other wikipedia sites, some of which have multiple pictures of foetuses. This is by far the best picture we currently have. DMSBel (talk) 13:28, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Also just to assist discussion, and as it is rather a nuisance to have to keep going to Wikipedia Commons, or an archived RFC to search out this picture since its sudden removal from the article, could we post the picture here for sake of reference. New editors (to this page) reading this may not be aware of the picture under debate. DMSBel (talk) 13:38, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I do not agree that the photo should be returned just so new editors to this article can look at it. I am new here and I had no problem finding it. Anythingyouwant, you continue to argue that Wikipedia contains "many" and "hundreds" of articles with similar photos and yet to this time you have produced only one "held-in-hand" photo. You supplied a debridement procedure photo with a hand holding an instrument - as one would expect for a procedure (as in the aspiration drawing for this article). Also note that the debridement photo does not show a chunk of dead tissue held-in-hand or even otherwise. Then you went on to say that the tonsil article has a photo without permission. That was not what I found. I did find a very good infected tonsils photo by (our very own!) Doc James and he noted that he had written permission for his photo.

Another editor states: "Holding a fragile item in hand is quite normal." I have had no luck in getting Anythingyouwant to produce evidence of this statement. Can you back up your statement please? Perhaps it is to be expected for a Flickr photo and it's another good reason that, as MastCell has explained, Flickr is not an appropriate source for a medical article such as this. Gandydancer (talk) 14:23, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

I was asking if the picture could be posted here (the talk page) not back to the article, apologies for not making that clearer. I really don't see what is either inappropriate or appropriate in this case about the foetus being held in hand. If that is the issue then another image probably could be found, if not then this seems to be more a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Verifiablility of the picture meets basic requirements (correct me if I am wrong), we have a name and location (of the uploader), details of the surgical procedure, the age of the woman, medical indications - so quite a bit actually. The uploader (to flickr) has also answered a question to clarify of the age of the foetus. 62.254.133.139 (talk) 23:01, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Friend of the Facts, I have read your posts and considered what you have said. I am in agreement with you position that a photo of a fetus is not appropriate for the article and I too find that the aspiration drawing, which does show a fetus, is adequate. A reader can, of course, click the fetus link and look a a picture on that page. Gandydancer (talk) 14:36, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

For me, the issues are: a) the image represents an extremely atypical scenario, and is thus misleading if presented as the sole "medical" image; b) the image was uploaded to a Flickr account and currently fails WP:V rather unambiguously; c) to my mind, no serious, respectable reference work on Earth illustrates its medical articles with images culled from Flickr lacking any substantive verification; d) the ethical concern, which I won't belabor further and which may be unique to me. Rather than repeating myself further, I'd like to hear a few more voices. MastCell ^Talk 16:38, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

(EDIT CONFLICT - I will add my edit before reading MastCell's "Actually strike that..." post)

MastCell I do want to address your ethics concern. I find it VERY disturbing that this image has been used in Wikipedia till now. Since one is forced to attempt to imagine the circumstances of the mother of this fetus and her feelings surrounding its termination, one must accept the possibility that she suffered a great deal over this abortion and the last thing she would want is to have her "child" displayed on Wikipedia. That several editors here do not seem to understand this suggests to me a real lack of empathy for this mother (and all mothers as far as that goes) - and perhaps her legal rights as well. Gandydancer (talk) 17:11, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, strike that. I will elaborate on the ethical concern a bit. Suppose you were a woman who discovered she was pregnant, but then discovered shortly thereafter that you had a serious precancerous cervical lesion. Suppose you were faced with choosing lifesaving surgery with the knowledge that it would end your current pregnancy and your future chances of childbearing. Suppose you manage to get through this and move on with life, and then one day you discover that a picture of your fetus has been featured for years on a highly-trafficked website and viewed thousands of times daily as an example of "abortion".

We're clearly capable of great heights of moral fury when someone adds "lol he is gay" to a BLP, so why is it hard to see the potential for real-life harm here? If you support (or demand) the inclusion of this photo, shouldn't you feel some sort of moral obligation to determine whether the patient knows that their fetus is being used to illustrate our article?

I'm comfortable with images uploaded by our medical contributors because a) they're identifiable by their real names; b) they typically vouch explicitly for patient consent; and c) the images are generally much less emotionally charged for the patient than the one we're discussing. I'm fine with images taken (with appropriate permissions) from medical journals (e.g. the tonsillectomy photo), because there's a clear chain of provenance and medical journals generally demand that authors certify that appropriate human-subjects protections exist. MastCell ^Talk 16:49, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

To Gandydancer: I was asking if the picture could be posted here (the talk page) not back to the article, apologies for not making that clearer. I really don't see what is either inappropriate or appropriate in this case about the foetus being held in hand. If that is the issue then another image probably could be found, if not then this seems to be more a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Verifiablility of the picture meets basic requirements (correct me if I am wrong), we have a name, location and profession (of the uploader), details of the surgical procedure, the age of the woman, medical indications - so quite a bit actually. The uploader (to flickr) has also answered a question to clarify the age of the foetus, and indicated a willingness to answer any other questions. I don't "demand" it's inclusion in the article. I do support it's inclusion (with amendments to caption along the lines I suggested earlier). 62.254.133.139 (talk) 23:01, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

My post immediately above, had forgotten to sign in. DMSBel (talk) 23:05, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

The image under discussion

A fetus removed via a therapeutic hysterectomy abortion from a 44-year-old woman diagnosed with early-stage uterine cancer, at about 10 weeks LMP, in India. An aborted fetus (abortus) is rarely intact like this.

Here is the image under discussion. per request of another editor. It was in the article for a long time until recently edit-warred out of the article without consensus. The article is presently frozen due to the edit war. No one has suggested any replacement fir this image, no one has suggested any copyvio, no one has pointed to any inaccuracy or inauthenticity of what's shown in the image, no one has pointed to any legal right of the mother that may have been infringed, the contributor's name and occupation are available, and the caption to the right makes clear that this is not a typical image of an abortus. A majority of commenters at the image-RFC (linked in the FAQ) agreed we should include an image of this sort.Anythingyouwant (talk) 09:53, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

This is already on Wikipedia and is from a more reliable source. Also not a typically abortion as it is a tubal pregnancy. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:55, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

The tubal pregnancy image is also from Flickr. Was it from a miscarriage or an intentional abortion? In any event, this abortion article included an image of an aborted embryo along with the image under discussion (which is a fetus rather than an embryo) for many months, which was fine. Obviously, an image of an embryo looks less "human", and is also less typical of when during pregnancy intentional abortions actually occur (see chart in this Wikipedia article), and for those reasons I don't think the tubal pregnancy Flickr image would be a substitute for the image under discussion. I would not suggest that we need a signed affidavit from the woman who had the tubal pregnancy, consenting to the photo.Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:56, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

Please stop referring to the RfC as if it supports your position. It closed as "no consensus", and a substantial number of editors explicitly took issue with the view you put forth at the time (some supported you as well, hence "no consensus"). The lower image shows a surgical salpingectomy specimen rather than a miscarriage, since the Fallopian tube is visible surrounding the embryo. A significant proportion of elective abortions are performed at 7-8 weeks gestational age (the age of the embryo in the lower image), as our article makes clear, so in that respect it's reasonably representative regardless of whether it looks "human" enough to you. On the other hand, I agree that images of tubal pregnancies are better suited for our article on ectopic pregnancy rather than for this article, which is more focused on abortion of potentially viable pregnancies. MastCell ^Talk 17:15, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I am happy to acknowledge that there was no firm consensus at the RFC to include an image of an aborted fetus, but I see no reason to stop pointing out that a slim majority of commenters at the RFC were in favor of including such an image. And yet you have declined thusfar to acknowledge that majority sentiment, and you are instead arguing to remove any such image from this article, without so much as another RFC. Please do not pretend that there was consensus, or even a majority, at the RFC in favor of excluding an image of an aborted fetus from this article, much less a longstanding image that has been in this article for over a year. As for your further attempts to impugn my position and motives by suggesting that an image does not look "human enough for me", I want to suggest MastCell that you re-read my comment in which I explicitly referred to the chart in this article describing when during pregnancy abortions typically occur, and also explicitly referring to the majority of commenters at the RFC. This matter has nothing to do with my personal views or what looks human enough for me, and really I am getting tired of your years-long attacks. Your view now seems very clear: no image of an aborted fetus is acceptable in this article, because it looks too human. I am now going to take a break from commenting here. It would seem that POV-pushers with their steely knives have cut out the part of this article that they dislike the most, and they are not inclined to put it back. That is a loss for NPOV, but maybe in a century or so this political issue will have calmed down sufficiently that Wikipedia administrators will no longer feel the need to shield readers from pertinent facts that they do not like.Anythingyouwant (talk) 10:10, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes I am not suggesting we use it as it too has many of the issues as the other one. Ed Uthman has also posted this image on his own site and he is a fairly well known pathologist. Have discussed Wikipedia with him. He is happy to have his work here. But I agree this the image is best on ectopic pregnancy. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:45, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

I'll list the reasons I strongly object to this photo for the abortion article:

• The Flickr source - the author's collection contains only 2 medical photos, which seems odd to me. Her other photos are just average, if that, but these 2 are quite stunning and even beautiful. She claims to be both a student and a doctor - which if either is she? Under what circumstances did she obtain the specimen? Did she obtain permission from the patient, the surgeon, or the hospital? Why is the fetus held in a cleaning glove rather than a surgical glove? Why does the photo claim that the fetus is alive?

• Why is it so important for an article on abortion to show a quite stunning photo of the fetus at this stage of development when abortion actually covers several weeks of development, and according to our article around 88% of abortions are done within 12 weeks. To show a 10 week old fetus really is not a good representation and not appropriate for this article. The drawing of the aspiration procedure is appropriate for this article.

• Let's face it, if this fetus was in the Cutest Fetus Contest, it would win first prize. The photo may or may have not been posed for cuteness, but it sure did turn out that way. None of that weird bulb at the back of the head/neck like those odd goldfish have. None of the skinny ribs look of a half-starved and almost dead children we see from Africa. Not at all! This fetus practically looks like a darling wee babe in a bassinet, and add to that the fact that it is gently held in an adult's hand. If one is looking to make a fetus seem quite dear and defenseless, look no further. Poster Child for How can those mean mothers kill me.

• Doesn't it seem odd that we'd look for a generic-type illustration of a embryo or fetus and come up with a fetus obtained from an extremely rare "abortion" with the fetus intact within the amniotic fluid-filled sac?

• This is a medical article but it can not be denied that it's much more than that. Keep in mind that there are many people who will look at any photo of a recognizable human and have no doubt what-so-ever that a baby has been murdered. They see a corpse of an innocent baby. To those of you in the medical field, you know that many babies are born that die after birth due to congenital defects and you have seen them. Would Wikipedia show that dead baby to show their defect? Do we need to show a stillborn to demonstrate that? Gandydancer (talk) 00:32, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand your first point, if 88% of abortions are done within 12 weeks, then a 10 week old fetus is as good a representation as one at any other stage. And why use a mediocre picture if there is a better one?

"The photo may or may not have been posed for cuteness..." - with the fetus still in the amniotic sac, there would be no way to pose this picture "for cuteness". "So sad", rather than "oh how cute", is the most common response I have seen in the comments about this picture.

This was not the only picture considered, there were about 7 under consideration. There is also a six week embryonic age (8 weeks gestation) photo:

DMSBel (talk) 18:54, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

[QUOTE] "I don't understand your first point, if 88% of abortions are done within 12 weeks, then a 10 week old fetus is as good a representation as one at any other stage."

Please furnish me with your link that shows what percentage of abortions are done for each week of gestation so that I too may know which week represents the best one to choose. Gandydancer (talk) 21:39, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

[QUOTE] "So sad", rather than "oh how cute", is the most common response I have seen in the comments about this picture." Exactly. You don't see anyone saying "So sad" for Little Squid Baby, do you. Gandydancer (talk) 21:56, 20 May 2011 (UTC)