Talk:Abortion in the United States

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[edit] AGI, CDC and recent addition

I moved this from the article:

The figures above are from the CDC. The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) is generally considered more reliable and produces an abortion count which is on average 15% higher. The AGI acknowledges a "pro-choice" bias and estimates that its abortion count may be 3% short of the actual total. (AGI, The Limitations of U.S. Statistics on Abortion, Issues in Brief, 01/1997.) Statistics extrapolated from AGI's yearly count show that 47,282,923 abortions had been performed from 1973 to 2005. According to the Supreme Court, relying on figures from the CDC in Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood, 87% of abortions in 2005 were first trimester abortions. Therefore, 13% of abortions were second and third trimester, or "late term." If we assume that figure is an approximate yearly average then there have been, at a minimum, six million late term abortions since Roe v. Wade.

What is the purpose of these latest additions? What are they getting at? The last 4 or 5 sentences are completely unsourced, and partially inaccurate/original research. The article cited The Limitations of U.S. Statistics on Abortion doesn't say anything about "bias" or "pro-choice". There are other problems as well. Anyway, can we discuss what the article is lacking, how we should remedy that, and then work together to reach a consensus version we can all live with?-Andrew c [talk] 02:37, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Just wanted to note that I agree with the removal of the material for the reasons stated above. · jersyko talk 00:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Anon, please come here and discuss your proposal, and stop edit warring. You can't force controversial new content against consensus. Work with us, not against us, please.
Here are some more reasons that the new text is problematic. Without citing math or a reliable source, it claims that one can extrapolate from the AGI data the number of total abortions in the US since Roe v. Wade. However, this as it stands is original research, and we simply cannot publish this number for the first time. Where are the sources? Similarly, it is extremely erroneous to use the figure of 2nd and 3rd-tri abortions from 2005, and assume that it was the same for the last 30 years. Using that sort of math is worse than a guesstimate, and is misleading the reader. Finally, the definition of a 2nd tri-abortion as being "late-term" isn't universal. See our article for more details. -Andrew c [talk] 14:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[moved from the "Biased statments" section above]The article's statements about the number of abortions is slyly deceptive. The number of late term abortions is presented only as a percentage of the overall number of abortions since Roe v. Wade. Nowhere are these numbers made explicit. Only the number of abortions in the U.S. in 2003 is made explicit. That number, 854,122, is about half the peak number of abortions in any of the years since Roe, hardly a representative number. The percentage of late term abortions (2nd and 3rd trimester) in the innocuous looking pie chart adds up to 11.3%, a number significantly exceeded by the Alan Guttmacher Institute's calculations, which are generally considered more reliable than those of the Center for Disease Control cited in the pie chart. If we enumerate the total number of abortions since Roe and factor in the more reliable percentage, we find that the number of late term abortions since Roe exceeds 6,000,000, a figure the writers of "Abortion in the United States" apparently wish to conceal. I propose the following edit to be added immediately under figure 1 in "Number of Abortion in United States":

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.56.223.46 (talk) 13:24, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

First of all, I want to thank you for coming to the talk page. Now, perhaps you could read some of the comments already made above and reply to some of our concerns. Part of the issue is that your extrapolating figures results in original research that hasn't been published outside wikipedia, and therefore is inappropriate for use here. You also use an uncommon definition of "late-term" and haven't justified why the AGI is a "self-acknowledged "pro choice" research organization" or why that information is even important here.-Andrew c [talk] 15:03, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Here is a quote from AGI itself: "...the Institute works to protect, expand and equalize access to information, services and rights that will enable all women and families to avoid unplanned pregnancies and births and exercise the right to choose abortion safely and with dignity." http://www.guttmacher.org/about/2007/06/25/AnnualReport2006.pdf. (Wikipedia cites AGI 74 times in various articles and nowhere mentions AGI's bias. In the same way, the article under discussion here nowhere mentions that the CDC fails to include all the states in its tally of abortions)

You cite AGI and CDC in this article. Someone needed to point out AGI's bias and CDC's incomplete count.

Your article also states, "According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), there were 854,122 legal induced abortions in the US in 2003." This is the lead statement in the section of the article dealing with the number of abortions. It is not only prominent; it is entirely unqualified, which suggests that it is typical of the yearly abortion rate in the U.S. It most certainly is not. Did the critic of my "worse than a guesstimate" object to that statement in the article? I will agree that I ought to have included the qualification, "If we assume that the figure cited by the Court is typical...."

Furthermore, pointing out CDC's stunted estimates will help the objectivity of the article.

Basic arithmetic is not "original research."

Late-term abortion is commonly defined as 2nd and 3rd term abortion. But I make it clear in my suggested edit that by late term abortion I mean 2nd and 3rd term abortion. So there is nothing misleading here.

Had I time, I would address all the issues raised. I will make only one more point. Planned Parenthood and its sister pro-choice organizations habitually state that only a "very small percentage" of abortions are late term abortions. This makes the number sound small. The article's pie chart adopts this perspective. However, the statement that over 6,000,000 late term abortions have been performed in the United States since Roe v. Wade doesn't sound small and will give the reader a choice of perspectives. I hope you folks have a committment to choice as well as truth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.56.223.46 (talk) 18:21, 15 September 2007 (UTC) It has been a couple of days since I wrote this response to the critics of my proposed edit. This time no one has made any reply. I assume that's because they are satisfied. I will wait a couple of days more and if there are still no objections, I will reintroduce my edit (with the changes mentioned above) into the article.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.56.223.46 (talk • contribs)

Please provide reliable sources that can be used to verify your claims through citations if you want to include such information in the article. I have no opinion as to whether you are correct or not regarding the number of abortions in the United States, or the inaccuracy of the CDC, or the accuracy/bias (I'm not really sure what you're getting at) of the AGI. However, I will insist on extremely reliable sources for each of your claims. As it stands, you are continuing to engage in unreferenced original research, such as your math regarding the number of late term abortions. A way to remedy this problem, for example, is to provide a reliable source that presents the math in the way you have suggested. Similarly, I'm perplexed regarding support for the claim that the AGI data is more reliable than the CDC. Thanks. · jersyko talk 15:27, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

But I just gave you hypertext leading to AGI's own self-description in its own publication: "...the Institute works to protect, expand and equalize access to information, services and rights that will enable all women and families to avoid unplanned pregnancies and births and exercise the right to choose abortion safely and with dignity." http://www.guttmacher.org/about/2007/06/25/AnnualReport2006.pdf. If you can reject that you can reject anything. Also a cite was given for the statement that AGI was more reliable than CDC (The Limitations of U.S. Statistics on Abortion) What the hell is going on? I'm beginning to think that you guys just don't want that 6,000,000 figure known. Objectivity isn't making neutral statements; it's making true statements. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.56.223.46 (talk) 21:55, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I'm simply not understanding. Please correct any of this if you believe I am wrong. You're saying that the AGI is a pro-choice organization, thus it is not a particularly reliable source given its agenda. However, you also are using an AGI source (the "Limitations" source) to demonstrate that the CDC figures (which are used in our article) are wrong. I'm not sure how to square these two positions, but moving on. Finally, you haven't provided any reliable source, other than your arithmetic, to demonstrate that the number of late term abortions is what you say it is. If you provide one, we can move on. Am I misunderstanding anything here? · jersyko talk 22:06, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm saying that AGI's pro-choice position would, if anything, cause it to underestimate the number of abortions in the U.S. since Roe. Therefore, we can treat its 47,000,000 figure as a minimum and its claim that CDC under-reports abortions as accurate. The actual total of abortions since Roe has probably passed 50,000,000 by now. My use of the 47,000,000 figure is an estimate of the number that can be backed up by citation. Also, do you really doubt the statement from AGI that it supports abortion rights? Don't readers of Wikipedia, which cites AGI so often, have a right to know its position? Let's not be working to keep the readers of Wikipedia ignorant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.56.223.46 (talk) 20:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I have one more change to make. then, i think, Im through. Determining the number of abortions in the United States since Roe v. Wade is extremely difficult.Most of the figures above and below are from the CDC. The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) is generally considered more reliable and produces an abortion count which is on average 15% higher.[1] If we add up the Alan Guttmacher Institute's (AGI's) yearly abortion tallies, we find that 46,995,300 abortions were performed from 1973 through 2003.[2] The AGI is a self-acknowledged "pro choice" research organization, so it is not likely to have overestimated the number of abortions.[3]. AGI estimates a 3% under-count for its own figures.[4]In 2002 the Center for Disease Control estimated that just under 87% of abortions were first term abortions, a fact relied upon by the Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Carhart in 2007.[5] Therefore, 13% were second and third term abortions, a percentage which multiplied by 46,995,300 yields 6,108,389 as the number of 2nd and 3rd term abortions performed in the U.S. between 1973 and 2004.

Please consider WP:OR carefully. The following are examples of original research in the proposed addition: "If we add up the Alan Guttmacher Institute's (AGI's) yearly abortion tallies" . . . "it is not likely to have overestimated the number of abortions" . . . and the entire final sentence. Have you looked for a source that says everything you have noted here? For example, is there a newspaper article out there that discusses inaccuracies in abortion figures? That would be immeasurably helpful to you in including the information you want to include. In fact, if you can find such a reliable source, I will happily endorse its inclusion. As it is, though, there's far too much original research involved for me to do so. · jersyko talk 21:48, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I can do what you ask if you will allow me to use sources that are pro-life. You now allow the pro-choice AGI as a reference even though it admits that it's figures are inaccurate by about three percent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.56.223.46 (talk) 13:51, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome to use any source you like, including a self-described "pro-life" organization, provided that it meets the standards found here. · jersyko talk 14:03, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I just wanted to make a side note. If you are going to be using talk pages, then you need to learn how to "sign" your comments. Look at the top of the talk page edit window (the one in which you are going to type your reply), and you will see a box that says Please respect the talk page guidelines, and remember to sign your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). This 'code' automatically creates a name and timestamp at the end of your posts. This makes it so everyone can keep track of who is saying what. So just add the tildes at the end of your next post. Doing so will prevent the SineBot from coming and adding the message that your post was unsigned. Hope this helps.-Andrew c [talk] 14:36, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

By the way, you removed my edits from the article on anencephaly in favor of such statements as "Infants born with anencephaly are usually blind, deaf, unconscious, and unable to feel pain," which cites no source at all. Nobody on earth knows whether an anencephalic baby can feel pain or anything else for that matter. You really do have a double standard here and it really seems to favor the pro-choice position. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.56.223.46 (talk) 17:41, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

By the way, did you even read my last comment? Do you not understand what I mean when I say "sign" your comments? I'd be more than glad to try to help, but I'm not sure how else I could explain it besides to ask you to please type four tildes at the end of your posts. Next, I do not recall removing any edits having to do with anencephaly. I just checked through your edit history and couldn't find the edit in question. Could you post diffs to this alleged revert? (you can see what a diff is by clicking on the page history tab, and then looking at the links that say "diff". it shows the changes between revisions). Thanks.-Andrew c [talk] 18:41, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Anon, please try to assume good faith. Neither one of us reverted your edits at that article, but rather another anonymous editor appears to have done so. I'm not following your edits to other articles, and I feel certain Andrew c isn't either. So, again, please assume good faith and refrain from continuing to accuse editors of things they did not and are not doing. · jersyko talk 19:01, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Could one of you answer this finally?

Before I put in any more effort, I'd like to hear your verdict on the statement and citation below. Keep in mind that the addition here was done by NRL not me;I'm just describing the results of their "original research;" (I'm assuming sources are allowed to do "original research.") Would you allow the following paragraph to be put in Abortion in the United States?

Adding the abortion figures released by AGI from 1973 to 2004 and estimating the number of abortion from 2004 to 2006, National Right to Life(NRL) concludes that there have been 48,585,993 abortions in the United States between 1973 and 2007. (footnote: NRL, "The Consequences of Roe v. Wade 48,585,993 Total Abortions since 1973," Jan.,2007. http://www.nlc.org/factsheets/FS03_AbortionsintheUS.pdf)

The Physicians for Life, which has an entry in Wikipedia, reviews technical statements for the NRL. "please type four tildes at the end of your post." I did. It doesn't work.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.56.223.46 (talk • contribs) 13:00, 27 September 2007

OK, first, please try to copy and paste the following ~~~~ and put at after your last sentence of your next post. Next, the sentence leaves you that they also calculated an extra 3% based on AGI's estimate of underreporting. Also, the range is 1973-2003 (not 2004) based on this (the link you provided is dead). Also, there are still reliable sourcing issues. Read through Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Aspects_of_reliability. Multiple points jump out at me. Why isn't this number reported in more notable journals? Peer reviewed journals? Why isn't this number reported in popular media sources? There are even some concerns dealing with the "Extremist sources" section. I'd be more comfortable if we had a less partisan, more official or scholarly source for this number. -Andrew c [talk] 17:23, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

You have read my edits as presented above. Therefore, you know that the claim that AGI is pro-choice cites directly to an AGI statement that says it is pro-choice. The declaration is often repeated in AGI literature. AGI is cited twice in the "Abortion in the United States" article and mentioned 74 times altogether in Wikipedia. You have no quarrel with this, unless I add the AGI yearly counts together to come up with a minimum total. But you do quarrel with an NRL cite. You are clearly biased. Trading proposed edits back and forth in this context is the same as what you call "edit warring." It's useless. You win the "war." You have effectively concealed from the readers of Wikipedia the fact that there have been over 6,000,000 second and third term abortions in the United States since Roe v. Wade. I'm sure you know the company you're in —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.56.223.46 (talk) 14:41, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I just posted a warning about assuming good faith on the anon's talk page. Anon, all you have to do is provide a reliable source for your claims. That's all we're asking. Find a newspaper article, find a peer reviewed study if you want to include those numbers. If no such sources exist, that might be telling. In any event, I'm simply making a request for a reliable source, and I believe that Andrew c is doing exactly the same thing. We care about abiding by Wikipedia guidelines, not concealing information. · jersyko talk 16:07, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Stats moved from main abortion article

I have moved this out of the main abortion article as it is too detailed there. I haven't checked if this content is redundant here, so I am coming to talk to see if any regulars here would like to give a shot in integrating this text:

In the United States, abortion has predominantly been provided in high volume abortion clinics since its legalization in the 70’s. Approximately 93% of abortions in the United States are performed in clinic settings (defined as 400+/year). 80% are performed in large clinics (1000+/year). Hospitals provide 5% of abortion services; physicians provide 2% of abortion services. From 1996 to 2000, all types of providers decreased in their percentage of abortions performed except the highest volume clinics (5000+/year). Thus, abortions are increasingly concentrated among a smaller number of very large providers. [6] [7]. Since 2000 there have been significant efforts to mainstream early abortion services into family practice settings. [8] [9] Medical abortion and Manual Vacuum Aspiration (both considered nonsurgical abortions) are now being offered in general family practice offices.

-Andrew c [talk] 22:32, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


[edit] NPOV Edit

Under "Additional Statistics", the following appeared:

An April 2006 Harris poll on Roe v. Wade, asked, "In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that states laws which made it illegal for a woman to have an abortion up to three months of pregnancy were unconstitutional, and that the decision on whether a woman should have an abortion up to three months of pregnancy should be left to the woman and her doctor to decide. In general, do you favor or oppose this part of the U.S. Supreme Court decision making abortions up to three months of pregnancy legal?", to which 49% of respondents indicated favor while 47% indicated opposition. The Harris organization has concluded from this poll that "49 percent now support Roe vs. Wade." In fact, the poll question only dealt with first trimester abortions, and it is known that the legality of later abortions is more controversial (see above). Pro-life groups assert that the media has often misreported polls on the issue of abortion.

The first sentence following the actual statistics is debatable, but the remainder is clearly not npov and represents a flagrant abuse of facts (the question was phrased to explicitly limit its scope to the aspect of Roe dealing with first trimester abortions; the commentary goes on to say that it's narrower than this because it only pertains to first trimester abortions) and insertion of opinion under the tired "some people say..." dodge. I've cut the portion following the actual statistic since it is at best misinformed (by implying that Roe is the root of all abortion) and has more likely willfully "misreported polls on the issue of abortion". Also, did a grammar edit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.220.211.139 (talk) 04:13, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The sentences you removed were uncited and rather POV. · jersyko talk 04:18, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Late Term Reasons Study Misread by Contributor

<quote>In 1987, the Alan Guttmacher Institute collected questionnaires from 1,900 women in the United States who came to clinics to have abortions. Of the 1,900, 420 had been pregnant for 16 or more weeks. These 420 women were asked to choose among a list of reasons why they had not obtained the abortions earlier in their pregnancies. The results were as follows:</quote>

<quote>In all, 1900 women responded with useful information, of whom 420 had been pregnant for 16 or more weeks. Because such women had been oversampled, their reasons for having an abortion were weighted to reflect the proportion of U.S. abortion patients who obtain midtrimester abortions.</quote>

The first quote is from the article as it is, now. The second quote is from cited the study itself. The article claims that the results that follow are the statistics pertaining to only the responses of the late term abortion patients. The study, however, does not make that distinction in its results and in fact is meant to be a representation of all abortion patients, as the obtained reponses of the midtrimester abortion patients are scaled down to represent the group more accurately in the total number of abortion patients in the United States. The wiki article's claim is outright false and misrepresentative of late term abortion patients. In the interest of factual truth, someone please remove that segment or find a better suited set of statistics ASAP.

DGrayson (talk) 14:04, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] State to state differences

I was expecting to find an entire section in this article dealing with the state to state differences, in terms of availability, public funding, legal restrictions, legislation, etc. But there is only a single paragraph summarizing the situation. I know this article has a devoted coterie of editors, so I strongly urge you to expand that paltry paragraph into a full section. Regards, Cgingold (talk) 00:55, 16 December 2007 (UTC)