Talk:Gianna Jessen

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[edit] 2007-02-28 page rework

I (User:Drostie) made a major edit to this page on February 28th, 2007. This article was a bit afoul of WP:BLP, and way beneath any encyclopedic standards, with horrible citations and more total focus on Ted Harvey than on Gianna Jessen. I also removed a bit of material and a bunch of sources, because, as WP:BLP notes, biographical articles of living persons need to be held to high-quality reference and citation standards.

Text removed:

  • Claim that Jessen testified before the US Congress in 1996 and 2000. A search of the Congressional Record did not yield her name in either of those two years; none of the sources that I could track down mentioned it; the only publications I could find that described the testimony on Google were poor reference sources (AFA, Spero News, etc.). In particular, the article contained an alarmingly specific quote that did not show up anywhere on Google. If this could be cited with a better source, feel free to put it back in.
  • Claim that doctors told her mother she probably wouldn't be able to walk. It didn't fit well into the flow of the article, is all, and wasn't a particularly vital detail -- but it's confirmed in the Telegraph source.
  • A bunch of the Planned Parenthood story. A lot of this section was about Ted Harvey, not Gianna -- including two fancrufty links to tedharvey.com and a transcription of a speech he supposedly made. (The speech is not Googlable in its present form -- no source cited, no real reason to keep it, so I don't plan on it.)

Sources removed:

  • The Daily Mirror -- It's a frickin' tabloid. What next, alien reportings from the US tabloids, too?
  • "The Pilot, Boston, May 2005." -- If Google serves, this is a local church newsletter? Poor source.
  • A Roanoke Times article -- was apparently an editorial, not a news source, written against partial-birth abortion? Gianna was not partial-birth aborted, and editorials are not held to the same factual rigor as main articles.
  • "Article by Elizabeth Day" link -- was a copy of the Telegraph.co.uk article, link now since defunct (but still viewable on archive.org, if you don't believe me). Removed because it was redundant.
  • SaltShakers.org.au; Spero News -- If a news source is not notable enough to have a Wikipedia article on it, then I'm hesitant to rely on it for biographical details. Let's stick with mainstream stuff.
  • Long Beach Press-Telegram -- This source was a little advertising snippet for an upcoming talk Gianna was doing -- not a useful source for the article.

I hope nobody has a problem with my edits; if you do, feel free to leave me a message on my user talk page. If you're going to post here, then please put comments beneath this one; some people like to do line-by-line commentaries on everything someone else has said, and that will just make it really hard to read the discussion.

-- Drostie 09:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Needs Sourcing

Claim of surviving abortion needs to be sourced. Current sourcing is not adequate (someone's personal tripod site and an interview by the BBC). She personally claims that there were witnesses and "It says on my records that I was born after a saline abortion..." but unless this can be verified by a reputable 3rd party source, this tag should stay up.--Isotope23 18:52, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

She testified under oath to Congress are you suggesting she's a liar because her medical records aren't being posted on the internet for your perusal? I guess that's exactly what you are suggesting. Dwain 23:41, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
Jump to conclusions much Dwain? No, I'm saying that personal accounts of events that happened before a person was old enough to remember them are not really a good basis for a factual encyclopedic article... even when that person has testified under oath to Congress. For the record, I don't think she is a liar. That still doesn't change the fact though that there is no corroborating evidence of her claims. If someone can find an article about her that included accounts of the events by someone else who was there (she has mentioned witnesses) that would suffice. I've noticed that there are some additional sources posted right now. I'm going to look through them... perhaps there is some additional info in them that would constitute external corroboration of her account.--Isotope23 14:23, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I added some refs and removed the verify tag. Newsbank has 234 stories on Ms. Jessen so I could certainly add more. -- JJay 18:34, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
    • Not to star an edit war, but I'd like to look at the sources before I agree to have this tag removed. I will get to it this evening.--Isotope23 22:05, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Fine, take a look at those sources. However, you are close to starting an edit war. It is not our role to dispute what is taken as fact by every serious media outlet I looked at. If you do not agree, reread WP:V, particularly the section entitled Verifiability, not truth. If you have a source that provides an alternate version of Ms. Jessen's life story then add it to the article and revise the text accordingly. Until such time, your tag should be immediately removed. My opinion and your opinion on this does not matter. What does matter is the BBC and the other news sources cited here.-- JJay 22:21, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
    • After looking at the sources, I don't have any further objection... there are an adequate number of them to meet WP:V. I will say that it is rather a WP:DICK move to remove a tag without at least making an attempt to contact me and discussing it.--Isotope23 00:38, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Sorry you feel that way, but my message above was posted two minutes after I removed the tag. I also didn't revert it when you put the tag back on the article. I also somewhat understand your objections. but if the whole world is taking Ms. Jessen seriously then we have to take her seriously and at her word, until we have a valid source that contradicts the article. That source may be out there, but I haven't found it. -- JJay 01:00, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with Ms. Jessen's Story

There are two problems with Ms. Jessen's story. Except where the mother's life or health is in danger or in cases of grave fetal deformity, third trimester abortions are illegal in California. Please consult Section 123468 of the California Health and Safety Code and see for yourself. Here is a copy of the code.

123468. The performance of an abortion is unauthorized if either of the following is true:

(a) The person performing or assisting in performing the abortion is not a health care provider authorized to perform or assist in performing an abortion pursuant to Section 2253 of the Business and Professions Code.

(b) The abortion is performed on a viable fetus, and both of the following are established:

(1) In the good faith medical judgment of the physician, the fetus was viable.

(2) In the good faith medical judgment of the physician, continuation of the pregnancy posed no risk to life or health of thepregnant woman.

Second, according to WebMD's Article on Induction Abortion, doctors perform saline abortions in hospitals, NOT freestanding Planned Parenthood clinics. This is to protect the health of the mother because she needs to be monitored through labor and delivery.

Eileen H. Kramer ehkuhall7@tacheiru.every1.net

Eileen, thanks for your concern, and you raise some very interesting points. I'm not a lawyer, but I could see how "viable" isn't the most unambiguous of terms. From the code section, viability means that "in the good faith medical judgment of a physician, on the particular facts of the case before that physician, there is a reasonable likelihood of the fetus' sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures." According to this article, Jessen was more than a month premature, and while I don't know the technology in 1977, I have no idea if someone at that stage would have been considered viable -- much less what a doctor planning to perform an abortion would judge to be viable.
On your second point, the WebMD article is more about "what to expect" in today's world. While I'm too young to have been there, the political and social climate of 1977 leads me to think that getting an abortion then might have been a very different situation.
Now, don't take this to be dismissive of your points; I'm glad you brought them up, and my counterarguments, if you can even call them that, were simply to remind you and other editors that the situation isn't as cut-and-dried as it may sound. That's why I think we (the Wikipedia community) certainly need to investigate this further and confirm or refute her claims as much as we can. At the very least, we could add phrases like "According to Jessen,..." or "she asserts that..." to indicate that we can't verify anything beyond that.
She's got one hell of a story, no doubt -- now, can she back it up? I'm interested to find out more. Thanks again for raising the issue. --SuperNova |T|C| 06:13, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with a lot of what you have to say, SuperNova. I also know that I just hit the tip of the iceberg as far as research is concerned. Unfortunately, a lot of what we need to know to judge Ms. Jensen's claims is not going to be available on the net. There are two reasons for this. First, there are privacy issues. Ms. Jessen's birth mother is protected by doctor-patient confidentiality. By the way, I think that her side of the story might change things considerably. It is a lot easier to prove a threat to a mother's health then fetal viability. If she received a late term abortion because she was severely mentally or physically ill, then this was an abortion for health reasons, something that most people feel is justified.

Second, the 1970's and early 1980's is early enough to be preinternet and late enough for material to be copyrighted. That means it won't be getting on the net any time soon. Fortunately, there are still old medical and nursing textbooks available in libraries. These can give a snapshot of what the definition for viability from the late 1970's. They can also give a snapshot of what the protocols for a saline abortion were in 1977/78.

I thought I could find such books this morning, but unfortunately the library where I work has weeded its medical stacks. I have reciporical borrowing priviledges with other libraries in this city. Let me see what I can dig up.

By the way, there is one other loosely dangling point in Ms. Jessen's story. If her mother relinquished her at birth, why was she not adopted until four years of age, and how if the adoption was a closed one (common back in those days) did she obtain her medical records?

Eileen H. Kramer

[edit] Gianna Jessen Story -- Research

This is not a 1970's/early 1980's medical text but it does have references to material published back then. Here is the book from which I am quoting:

Knight, JW and Callahan JC 1989. Preventing birth: Contemporary methods and related moral controversies. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press.

The following excerpt is reprinted in accordance with the Fair Use exemption of the US Copyright Law.

Intra-amniotic Infusion: The most widely employed second trimester technique (and th only abortion technique usable in the latter half of the second trimester) involves the direct infusion of some product into the amniotic cavity. Recall that the fetus develops in a fluid-filled environment -- the amniotic cavity (i.e., the space between the fetus and its surrounding placentla memberane, the amnion), which is filled with amniotic fluid. Intra-amniotic infuion cannot be readily utilized until about the sixteenth week of gestation since insufficient amniotic fluid is prent prior o that time. Like several other abortion procedures, a variety of terms can be found in the literature referring to this technique, including intra-amniotic instillation, amnionfusion, amnioninstillation, adn intra-amniotic injection. References is also often made to the particular product being infused, instilled, or injected (e.g. saline infusion. We shall first examine the general technique and then consider the solutions which can be successfully used for infusion.

From a medical perspective, the technique is extremely simple. After urinating to assure an empty bladder, the woman assumes a supine position and her abdomen is disinfected. Under local anesthetic, a large-gague needle is inserted through teh abdominal wall and the uterus and into the amniotic cavity. Up to this point, the procedure is identical to the comonlh performed diagnostic procedure of amniocentisis, which is often utilized to screen for various possible fetal chromosomal abnormalities and hereditary metabolic defects and to determine the sex of the fetus. In the abortion prcoedure, some of the amniotic fluid is aspirated with a syringe. The amount of amniotic fluid withdrawn depends uon the solution to be infused, as we shall see shortly. Many clinicians insert a Laminaria tent into the cervix at the time of amniocentisis to facilitate cervical dilation and to aid in the subsequent "delivery" of the fetus and placenta. Following infusion, the woman is simply returned ot her hospital bed to await the onset of labor inducd by the infusion. The extent of this wit is highly variable, usually ranging from twelve to forty-eight hours (Grimes et. al. 1980; Solane 1980) Also variable among women is the degree of pain which will accompany the expulsion of the fetus and other conceptus products. Since the delivery is toally analogous to childbirth, the ease with which it may be accomplished also vries among individuals. As in natural childbirth, the cervix diales and effaces, the uterus contracts, and the fetus and placenta are expelled. Appropriate drugs are sometimes given to aid in dilation of the cervix and the contraction of the uterus. In almost all cases, the fetus is dead at the time of delivery, death being caused by the product infused. p192

Here is more...

Hypertonic saline (in essence a very concentrated salt solution, usally 20 percent) is a h ighly toxic solution which must be used carefully since accidental placement into a blod vessel would seriously disrupt the woman's elecctrolyte balance and could cause cardiovascular collapse, killing her. This is just one reason why illegal abortions are so verydangerous. However, when used properly, hypertonic saline has been proven to be a rapid and reliable abortative. If it is to be used for infusion, 150-250ml of amniotic fluid is withdrawn following the placement of the needle into the amniotic cavity. Aspiration of the amniotic fluid also ensures that the needle has been properly placed (currect placement must be ascertained with one hundred percent accurancy before infusing the hypertonic saline) A volume of the saline solution equivalent to the volume of the amniotic fluid removed is then infused. Following saline inductin, fetal death (monitored by following the fetal heartbeat) usually occurs within one to three hours (Kovacs et al. 1970) Death or damage to the placenta also begins quite quickly, and decreased placental production of progesterone can be seen during the interval between infusion and onset of labor (Caspo, Sanvage, and Weist 1970) This is quite important, since the placental is the primary source of progresterone at this stage of gestation and a decline in progresterone production heops lead to the onset of parturition p192-193

And here is yet more...

In November of 1973, the FDA approved the use of prostaglandin F2α for second for second-trimester abortions. Since that time, prostaglandins have replaced hypertonic saline as the primary product utilized in the United States. The routine method of usage is to inject a single 40mb low volume (8ml) invusion into the amniotic cavity. Unliek saline infusion, only a small volume of amniotic fluid is asirated (,ainly to assure correct placement of needle) prior to introduction of the prostaglandin inufsion. Use of prostaglandin F2α in this manner was shown by Cates et. al. (1977) to be assocated with considerably lower mternal mortality rate than hypertonic saline infusion. Grimes et. al. (1980) conclude, however, that hypertonic saline infusion results in lower rates of hemorrrhage, infiection, and retained placental tissue than does prostglandin infusoin. An advantage of porstaglandin F2α is the shorter interval vbetween infusion and delivery. Disadvantages are that sometimes a single infusion is not sufficient to induce abortion i some women and a second infusion is required. Also, immediate short-term side effects (e.g. vomiting and diarrhea) are more common. because of the more powerful contractions directly induced by prostaglandin F2α the uterus tends to be more quickly and comletely emptied, but cerfical trauma is more likely. Of even grater concern to many are reports, such as that of Stroh and Hinman (1976) that the fetus is more likley to be delivered still showing some fleeting sings of life, since prostaglandins are consierably less feticidal than either hypertonic saline or hypertonic urea.

p194.

EHK ehkuhall7@tacheiru.every1.net

I am in *extreme agreement* that this article needs some fair criticism of how this woman has been used as a "poster child" for all abortion restrictions. I'm glad the link to the BBC article is there because it does enlighten the situation a bit. Most information out on the web that I have found has a very biased point of view about this woman's story, and do not point out that abortions of this type are extremely rare and are illegal in most states -- and that these state restrictions are in full conformance with the spirit and letter of *Roe*. Without any specific mention of these facts, this article does not present NPOV. IRing2s 03:41, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure if you were around when her mother was wanting to kill her unborn child you'd have made sure it was done correctly so Jessen wouldn't be around today to point out what abortion really is - the killing of an innocent human being. Thanks for clearing that up. Dwain 14:31, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Abortion's bad, mmm Kay? Abortion for birth control in week 34 is not the same as abortion to save the mother's life in week 1. Get over it. IRing2s 06:17, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

False dichotomy. An abortion to save the mother's life or for any other reason is not likely to happen in Week 1, since some time will pass before the woman even realizes she is pregnant.
In rare cases, abortion might be necessary to save a mother's physical health. In that case, the kid's rights might have to be weighed against those of the mother. That doesn't appear to have been the case here, however.76.21.8.213 (talk) 23:35, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Survived AfD

Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 13 March 2006. The result of the discussion was keep.