Talk:Religion and abortion

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Contents

[edit] Hinduism and Sikhism Sections

The Hinduism and Sikhism sections have been appalingly edited, using, in the case of Hinduism, out-of-context references to abortion, and making no mention of the views of contemporary Hindus. Hinduism is a dynamic and changing religion, and the views of contemporary Hindus are of significant concern, as there is no set guidance for morality within the religion itself.

Also, the section about Sikhism was lifted VERBATIM from http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/sikhism/sikhethics/abortion.shtml

The section indicated that abortion is prohibited according to Page 74 of the Sri Guru Granth Sahib, as that page discusses the beginning of life as being at conception. However, Page 74 makes absolutely no mention of it (http://www.sikhs.org/english/eg6.htm#p74).

Penciledition 22:08, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Religious groups supporting abortion rights

I have replaced the text deleted by RookZero and added citations as s/he suggested. Unfortunately I cannot figure out how to make the citations show up in the reference/notes section. Any help will be appreciated. TIA.

I reverted last edit by RookZero -- (a) The religious organizations here clearly do not support abortion per se -- they support abortion rights. Also, the text the availability of modern, medically supervised abortion has been agreed to in previous discussion on this page.

If its cited, then I won't delete the list. THe wording "legal abortion," that is, support for abortion to be legal, shows their position without violating NPOV (RookZERO 18:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Disputable tag on Judaism section

The first statement says "Jewish tradition holds life (including the life of a fetus) as sacred, and does not permit abortion on demand". Yes it holds life as sacred but the status of the fetus as life is an incredibly gray area in Judaism, with many contradictory laws. Ohalot 7:6, which is cited later in the section says that the fetus can be torn limb from limb from the mother and I read elsewhere that the fetus has the same status as any other appendage of the woman. We know from the Torah in Parashat Mishpatim that an unintentional killing of the fetus is, at most, a monetary issue (as opposed to unintentionally killing the mother which can result in capital punishment), but the tradition takes various positions on the status of elective abortions and I would like to see citations backing up a statement like Judaism "does not permit abortion on demand". --Valley2city₪‽ 00:46, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Feel free to revise my revisions! HG | Talk 04:08, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] religioustolerance.org

Some sourced content was removed because of religioustolerance.org is not considered a reliable source. I'm familiar with Wikipedia:Verifiability/Religioustolerance.org, but that guideline was never supported by consensus. If there is a specific reason why this information is wrong, or that it should be removed, I'd like to hear that, but removing content based solely on its source seems too simplistic.-Andrew c 19:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah, the proposal was rejected. I stand corrected then. The content should be restored. Darkfrog24 15:30, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
No problem. I've modified it to reflect the source.-Andrew c 15:50, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
ReligiousTolerance.org is operated by the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, who state that their goal is to research and write neutral, informative articles on a variety of topics, rather like Wikipedia. I don't necessarily see an issue with citing them, so long as they have done their homework, and cited reputable sources. -Severa (!!!) 15:54, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Changes to the lead

While there may be some significant concerns regarding the lead, I believe the most recent changes are, not to be blunt, but simply poorly written. It should generally be avoided to refer to the article itself such as "this article" (the changes introduce this twice). The use of "It is worth noting, however" is simply unnecessary and does nothing except make the lead more verbose. Does anyone want to copy edit the recent changes? or maybe revert back to the old version until we can get a better written new version?-Andrew c [talk] 15:47, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I have gone ahead and modified it, hopefully addressing these issues. LotR 16:55, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
I tried re-writing the lead again. Here are some problems with the prior version:
"Many religions have adopted specific stances" -- "adopted" implies some sort of active decision; some religious traditions don't quite work that way. In addition, not all religious views of abortion are "specific."
"regarding the morality of abortion" -- not all religious views of abortion purport to be about the "morality" of abortion; in some religious traditions, the permissibility of abortion is more a matter of religious law than religious "morality."
"Religious perspectives on this subject span a rather large spectrum." -- a spectrum can broad or wide, but not "large."P.D. 02:07, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
How about "espouse specific stances." Of course, we'd also have to account for the non-specific stances. Darkfrog24 05:09, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
OK, the latest version is acceptable. LotR 20:03, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Order of religions

Hi. I can see that the religions are ordered alphabetically. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Still, it might be better to use an analytical sequence. For instance, we could have a section on Abrahamic religions and another on Dharmic faiths. Plus, this might highlight where we need more balance and coverage. In addition, within Abrahamic religions, there would be a benefit in coordinating the writing of the sections, because some of the texts (eg Exodus) and concepts/reasoning overlap. What do folks think?

Incidentally, I've added the the Judaism section. Let me know when the time might be right to spin-off Judaism and abortion, which I'd like to do eventually. Thanks! HG | Talk 23:03, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, HG, for giving this article some much-needed attention! I think that you've done a very good job expanding the section on Judaism.
I generally order items in an article either alphabetically or chronologically. I do see a logical basis for dividing material in this article along the Abrahamic/Dharmic line. I can see this structure posing an issue, however, if a section on a religion with a different origin altogether were added. I suppose any religion which fits in neither the Abrahamic nor Dharmic category would most likely fall into the Taoic or Pagan/Neopagan categories. This is essentially the framework in place at Religion and homosexuality.
Regarding the creation of religion-specific sub-articles, if the deletion of the article Abortion and Evangelical Christians has set any precedent, I think it's that denomination-specific sub-articles might be a step too far in that direction. I do think that creating a series of spin-off articles for each religious movement would help to refine the focus of this article, though, as detailed coverage of topics only relevant to a particular faith could be migrated (the practice of mizuko kuyo and the Vatican's position on pro-choice politicians are two examples which come to my mind). I think the "Religion and homosexuality" article series could again serve as our guide.
The basic hierarchy proposed below would be Religion family -> Religion -> School or denomination. The inclusion of religions not currently covered by this article in the section tree is not intended to suggest that it would be necessary for us to fill in all of these gaps. It's just intended to show what the general layout of sections would be. -Severa (!!!) 03:32, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed section tree

  • Abrahamic religions
    • Bahá'í
    • Christianity
      • Denomination 1
      • Denomination 2
      • Et al.
    • Islam
    • Judaism
      • Denomination 1
      • Denomination 2
      • Et al.
  • Dharmic religions
    • Buddhism
      • School 1
      • School 2
      • Et al.
    • Hinduism
    • Sikhism
  • Neopagan religions
    • Ásatrú
    • Wicca
  • Taoic religions
    • Confucianism
    • Shinto
    • Taoism
Hi, Severa. Thanks for your kind comments. Smart suggestion to look at the Religion and homosexuality model. They do have the Abrahamics in the conventional chronological order, not sure about Dharmics (with Jainism after Sikhs). I'm surprised that Catholicism doesn't have its own main article, but maybe that's reflects the randomness of editors and their interests. Certainly, if some folks come along to help out, the Jewish view is complex and diverse enough that it would benefit from a separate piece. Hmmm, if I want collaborators, it might be best to spin-off the piece soon -- or at least tag this as a WP:Judaism project. Will you implement your outline above? You might as well be bold WP:BRD. Adieu, HG | Talk 04:07, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I just discovered that there is a host of denomination-specific articles for Christianity in the "Religion and homosexuality" series. I get the impression that the LGBT Studies project is much more organized than WikiProject Abortion (we've really only got two or three active members at the moment). I'd certainly like to implement the above outline, as well as the proposal for a spin-off series, but, frankly, I don't think I have the ambition to take it on single-handedly. I'd prefer to call in a few experts in each subject to lend a hand in putting everything together. I suppose if I wanted to get the ball rolling I could ask around at each of the religion-specific WikiProjects, or perhaps even at the LGBT Studies project, as the people who assembled a series of articles on how one heavily-debated topic is approached by various religions are likely to have information relevant to religious views of another heavily-debated topic. I think, in any case, we should probably start by expanding/spinning off the sections we already have (Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, & Sikhism). -Severa (!!!) 07:39, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Neutrality and links

I came to check the neutrality. I removed a number of links under "Religious Organizations that oppose abortion". None of them were religius orgs. I question the inclusions of the geocities "Pagans For Life" page. What do others think? Also, the intro cites an ABC poll stating "50%" of those who oppose abortion. The source says "52%" approve and 43% think it should be illegal. I'm going to change the stats to reflect the source and continue through the article. Phyesalis (talk) 03:42, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Entire "Christianity" section is unsourced

The several paragraphs directly under "Christianity" are unsourced. I'm going to try to source some of it, but the parts I can't, I move we quickly delete them.--IronAngelAlice (talk) 23:12, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good. Maybe we could fact tag them for a few days, see if others can find sources. Otherwise, I'm OK with it. If there are any disagreements, the material can be sourced and reintroduced. Phyesalis (talk) 12:44, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Judaism section revisions

Hi. User:IronAngelAlice had concerns with some of the Judaism section. Here's a diff showing our differences. Here's some of my thinking on this.

  • (a) Subheading refers to the Bible not the Jewish "Tradition" because this subunit deals more narrowly w/the Biblical verses and "tradition" would also cover the later subunits on rabbinic literature.
  • (b) This text had been deleted as weasel wording: "there is no unambiguous position on abortion. On the one hand, the Bible is understood to exalt the preservation of human life as a paramount value. Homicide is denounced and forbidden, except in cases of rescue and self-defense (see rodef). On the other hand, the Biblical texts say little about the status or treatment of the embryo or fetus. " The notion of ambiguity in the Biblical text is quite common in Judaism; more importantly, this view is not mine but rather from the major (Jewish) scholars on the subject, eg Feldman. These scholars note the tensions between forbidding killing and the valorizing life, while not necessarily focusing on or including the fetus. The specific propositions here are also supported by (Jewish) scholarly analysis of the Bible, including the relevance of self-defense (which plays a major role in rabbinic interpretations, as noted in subsequent sections of the article).
  • (c) Another disputed text here is this: Do we say "Talmudic texts say little about the status..." or 'Biblical text...." Two reasons to say Biblical. First, as noted above, this is a subunit about the Bible. Second, it is only the Bible that says little, the Talmud actually says much more.

Thanks. I look forward to feedback. HG | Talk 22:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks H.G.:

    • (a) Perhaps a more accurate phrase would be the "Torah and Talmud." What are your thoughts?
    • (b) The section you site above was not entirely deleted because of "weasel wording," though some sections seem to be editorializing, lack of sources and lack of a global view.
    • (c) The "Torah" in most contexts is the entire "Jewish Bible" (http://www.jewfaq.org/torah.htm) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh#Oral_Torah)

--IronAngelAlice (talk) 23:33, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, glad to see your response. I hadn't seen it (while the database was down just now). (a) I already reverted on adding Talmud; as explained in my edit summary, the Talmud (contra Bible) does say alot about fetus etc. (b) well, the sources are there but they aren't cited because I didn't expect much of a challenge on this, it's pretty well accepted. Not sure what you mean by lack of a global view. Explain pls? (c) Sure, we can use Torah, though I think it would be less familiar to most readers of this article. Thanks very much for doing this via conversation. Pls come back at me with more concerns, etc., as you have them. thanks. HG | Talk 23:59, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to just throw out the wiki phrases "editorializing, lack of sources and lack of a global view". Here are links with regards to those issues: Original Research/Editorializing, WP:Evidence/Sources, Global View--IronAngelAlice (talk) 01:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, though I'm somewhat familiar with these matters. I've responded above on sources and editorializing. In what particular way does the text reflect systematic bias? (In Judaism articles, there's sometimes a tendency to ignore the varieties of Judaism, but here we have not only the major modern movements but also Philo/Hellenistic.) Thanks. HG | Talk 01:52, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Order

The organization of religions seems odd with Christianity 2nd (kind of POV-y). I propose that we order them chronologically - Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, etc. Phyesalis (talk) 12:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I was bold,a nd went ahead and did it - any issues? Phyesalis (talk) 13:13, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

The previous order wasn't POV. It was alphabetical. I have a slight preference for the old order, but this matter doesn't seem that important to me, so unless there aren't any other objections, and your desire to re-arrange is that strong, I don't mind the change. -Andrew c [talk] 15:14, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I think it's far better to keep alphabetical. Otherwise, we'll waste time with origins/timing disputes, esp if we pick up more religions. My 2 cents. HG | Talk 19:39, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the input! Both chronological and alphabetical are equally defensible and expandable, though chrono makes more sense (to me) in that it follows logically - seems weird to talk about Christianity before Judaism (you're right it's not POV - just seems arbitrary in the face of a chrono development). This way you can follow the development of ideological positions, each section becomes an intro to the next, giving a nice historical perspective. I also think the chrono is more self-evident. I don't think there's very much dispute as to what order the religions developed, particular dates, maybe, but that's not an issue here. I have a strong preference for this but I don't want to make an issue out of it. Thoughts? Phyesalis (talk) 21:01, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that alphabetical is better. Chronological order creates problems - there are disputes about the ages of both the Hindu and Judaic religions. It's clear under each denomination that it is laid out in historical order. It's not confusing to have the denominations in alpha order.--IronAngelAlice (talk) 23:24, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

We don't have to assert exactly how old they are, there's like 4,000 years between Vedic Civilization and the covenant of Abraham. I don't think there's too much confusion as to which one came first. :) How is the chronological order made clear under each section if the sections are in alpha order? Also, please note that if there was consensus, Andrew c said he didn't mind, HG opposed and I supported - that seems to indicate the consensus was for moving to chrono, which I did and they accepted it. Would you mind discussing your points for alpha order? -Phyesalis (talk) 06:43, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] State the foundational principles, not the political polls.

I believe that if possible the foundations of these religions should be stated, rather than the present popular/political opinion. This can be done by researching the core values or holy books pertaining to these religions. Although you cannot find any direct results of searching through the bible, the Qur'an, or Talmud for the word abortion, each has much to say about life, innocence and purpose. In the section regarding Sikhism, this has been done by stating a underlying principle found in the Gurū Granth Sāhib. Buddhism has it’s foundations and those foundations have opinions in regard to life and the purpose of life. Hinduism sounds like it would be difficult to find their scriptural opinion, due to the fact that there are so many. It is insulting to these religions to do polls from people who claim to be from them and not the foundations of the religions themselves regarding life, innocence and purpose or in other words the matter of abortion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gotvision (talk • contribs) 10:05, 1 March 2008 (UTC)