Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Abortion article titles

Contents

1 Preamble
2 Proposals on titles
3 Discussion
4 Comments by the community

Current progress

Evidence

In progress

23 February—22 March

• Collect systematic evidence of the frequency with which the proposed titles are used in various English-speaking countries
• Cite Wikipedia policies

Community consultation

Not yet

23 March—23 April

• Consultation from the community (voting and discussing)

Closing

Not yet

24 April—1 May

• Administrators will review comments
• Issuance of binding solution on 1 May

Preamble

The Arbitration Committee has requested a binding, structured community discussion on the article titles "Support for the legalization of abortion" and "Opposition to the legalization of abortion". From commencement, editors should collect systematic evidence of the frequency with which the proposed titles are used in various English-speaking countries, as well as any other material which is relevant to the appropriateness of any proposed title, and present that evidence in an organised, structured and easy to navigate manner. After a period of one month from the commencement of the RFC (on March 23 at 00:00 UTC), comments from the community and a vote will take place. This will be closed by three neutral administrators (HJ Mitchell, Black Kite and EyeSerene), who shall report to ArbCom. The vote's result shall be binding for a period of three years.

At this structured discussion, participants should maintain civility and decorum, and the discussion should remain focused on the topic. The various proposed variants of titles are presented below, each with its own section. In each section, editors are welcome to provide reasoned arguments and appropriate references that support that section's title.

If you have any questions about the process, feel free to leave a message on the talk page of Steven Zhang (talk · contribs), or at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification.

Regards, Steven Zhang (talk · contribs)

General points of policy relevant to all options

• Per WP:TITLE, to choose the title of an article is, essentially, also to choose its topic and scope. So, in evaluating these options, it is important to look at them not as merely choosing a label to be applied to a pre-set scope of political advocacy, but as defining the scope that these specific two articles will address moving forward.

Arguments and policies regarding Pro-choice movement / Pro-life movement

For arguments specifically relevant to the titles Pro-choice and Pro-life, which were removed from this list as not sufficiently viable, see Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Abortion article titles#Archival of arguments regarding Pro-choice / Pro-life.

Sources

• Google Books shows 19,100 results for "pro-choice movement", 40,500 results for "pro-life movement".
• Google Scholar shows 2,170 results for "pro-choice movement", 3,470 results for "pro-life movement".
• Google News Archive shows 3,600 results for "pro-choice movement", 13,400 results for "pro-life movement".
• Google Web Search shows 530,000 results for "pro-choice movement", 2,070,000 results for "pro-life movement".
• Encyclopaedia Britannica uses pro-life movement and pro-choice movement as "redirects".
• The Washington Post stylebook says "The terms right-to-life and pro-life are used by advocates in the abortion controversy to buttress their arguments. They should generally be used as part of an organization's title and in quotations, but not as descriptive adjectives in the text. Use abortion-rights advocates for those who support freedom of choice in the matter, antiabortion for those who oppose it." (page 185, under "right-to-life")
• NPR, by self-report, uses "pro-choice" and "pro-life" on-air, while acknowledging these as "non-neutral language favored by the opposing special interest groups". On its web site it prefers anti-abortion and abortion rights, following the AP stylebook. [1]

Policy based arguments

For

• Firmly grounded in sources. Does not require Wikipedia to fabricate names.
• WP:POVTITLE supports the use of POV titles where the common name of the topic is POV. (The weight of this necessarily depends on analysis of WP:COMMONNAME, which is addressed separately.)
  • Arguably best meets the criteria of WP:POVTITLE as it is the only option in which both groups' names are used to describe themselves. Additionally, it is the only option in which one group is not given a negative title.
• Constitute scope-definition-improving modifications to what are believed to be the original names of the articles.
  • WP:TITLE compliant: defines, with adequate clarity while adhering closely to sources, the scope of the articles as being about the United States movements that use these names (which are either the only movements to use these names or, at minimum, clearly WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the titles).
  • This clarification of scope allows these titles to overcome many of the arguments against using Pro-choice and Pro-life as titles, since those arguments arise from vagueness as to what the articles' topics are.
  • Closest terms to original titles of articles, which WP:PRESERVE supports.
  • Sets a scope that, unlike the current titles, embraces coverage of these movements' activities beyond advocacy regarding legal access to abortion, and unlike titles that include the term "abortion", beyond abortion itself.
• Arguably best meets the criteria of WP:COMMONNAME.
• Parallel naming insofar as each movement is identified by the name it prefers for itself.
• Does not limit global perspective; with these articles scoped to the United States movements that use those names, different articles would naturally address global perspective on related issues.
• As the articles would now have clear scopes that exclude material not related to these movements, such material would become a natural candidate for refactoring to more general articles, most obviously Abortion debate. This supports the goal of having a broad, global overview of political advocacy regarding abortion, as opposed to these specific US movements, handled by a single article with a neutral title.
• It can be argued that these movements were the actual original topics of these articles as written, before the vagueness of their titles compromised that, which would mean that WP:PRESERVE best supports restoring and maintaining that scope.
• Concise.

Against

• The titles are based on the self-chosen names of the corresponding US political movements, each of which is designed to put their own side in a good light and (by implication) their opposition in a bad light. Though arguably fair, it may be seen as questionable neutrality.
  • This is much more significant if WP:COMMONNAME is not held to strongly support these titles, which in turn makes WP:POVTITLE inapplicable.

Arguments and policies regarding titles including the terms "abortion-rights" and "anti-abortion"

Sources

• Google Books shows 35,000 results for "abortion-rights movement", 84,900 results for "anti-abortion movement"
• Google Scholar shows 535 results for "abortion-rights movement", 1,900 results for "anti-abortion movement"
• Google News Archive shows 20,900 results for "abortion-rights movement", 68,200 results for "anti-abortion movement".
• Google Web Search shows 3,310,000 results for "abortion-rights movement", 1,490,000 results for "anti-abortion movement".
• The AP Stylebook says "Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice." (page 5, under "Abortion")
• The New York Times stylebook says "For the sake of neutrality, avoid pro-life and pro-choice except in quotations from others. Impartial terms include abortion rights advocate and anti-abortion campaigner (or, in either case, campaign, group or rally). Anti-abortion is an undisputed modifier, but pro-abortion raises objections when applied to people who say they do not advocate having abortions." (page 5, under "Abortion")
• The Philadelphia Inquirer is described by NPR as using "abortion rights advocates" and "anti-abortion". [2]
• CNN is described by NPR as using "abortion rights supporters", "anti-abortion activists", "pro-abortion rights", and "anti-abortion rights". [3]
• NBC is described by NPR as using "pro-abortion rights", "anti-abortion", and "anti-abortion advocates". [4]
• CBS is described by NPR as using "pro-abortion rights" and "anti-abortion rights". [5]
• The Chicago Tribune stylebook is quoted as counterindicating "pro-life" without mentioning "pro-choice", though reporters and editors were also reportedly issued a memo saying that neither "pro-life" nor "pro-choice" should be used; however, computer analysis showed that the terms "surfaced sporadically" in the publication despite this. [6]

Arguments common to all variations

For

• Firmly grounded in sources. Does not require Wikipedia to fabricate names.
• Parallel naming insofar as each "side" is identified by a somewhat-neutral, common term used for it rather than its own preferred name.
• Arguably sets a more useful scope (per WP:TITLE) than the current titles, as anti-abortion movement activities such as sidewalk counseling and crisis pregnancy centers are in-scope with these titles and are not with the current ones (or any other invented titles that construct the opposition case in terms of legality).
• WP:POVTITLE supports the use of POV titles where the common name of the topic is POV. (The weight of this necessarily depends on analysis of WP:COMMONNAME, which is addressed separately.)
• "Abortion-rights" and "anti-abortion" qualifiers are frequently regarded, and explicitly described, as neutral or impartial terms by reliable sources in their style guides.

Against

• Arguably not neutral due to giving preferential treatment to abortion-rights by constructing anti-abortion using a negative ("anti-X") formulation, and by describing the abortion-rights movement using a term which they use themselves, while describing the anti-abortion movement with a term they do not often use and may object to.
• By identifying the United States pro-life movement as an "anti-abortion movement" (whether specifically or as part of a class), sets a scope that makes coverage of that movement's involvement in other areas such as capital punishment, stem-cell research and euthanasia problematic.

Arguments regarding Abortion-rights movement / Anti-abortion movement

For

• Due to factors like press usage, may meet WP:COMMONNAME reasonably well, or arguably even better than the self-identification-based names (but see Against section).
• Reasonably concise.

Against

• Implies the existence of a single, worldwide "movement" on each side of the debate, which is dubious.
• Questionable job of scoping the articles per WP:TITLE: it isn't clear whether the articles are scoped as about the US pro-life and pro-choice movements, since it doesn't identify them by the names they use for themselves and they aren't clearly WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for the terms, or about abortion-rights and anti-abortion political advocacy on a global scale, which brings in the invalid implication of a global movement and arguably violates WP:PRESERVE.
• WP:COMMONNAME support is undermined by lack of clarity in scope: sources using "abortion-rights movement" and "anti-abortion movement" may be talking about entirely distinct movements in different countries, especially since these terms predominate when talking about such movements outside the United States.
• These terms, if used to signify the United States pro-choice and pro-life movements, outright deny those movements the right to self-identify, which is supported by WP:Naming conventions (identity) (a proposal that has no official status) and is considered important by many Wikipedians.

Arguments regarding United States abortion-rights movement / United States anti-abortion movement

For

• Defines a completely clear scope per WP:TITLE.
  • Sets a scope that, unlike the current titles, embraces coverage of these movements' activities beyond advocacy regarding legal access to abortion.
  • Possibly does an even better job of clearly defining scope than Pro-choice movement / Pro-life movement, though given WP:PRIMARYTOPIC there is not a lot of ambiguity to resolve there.
• Does not limit global perspective; with these articles scoped to the United States movements, different articles would naturally address global perspective on related issues.
• As the articles would now have clear scopes that exclude material not related to these movements, such material would become a natural candidate for refactoring to more general articles, most obviously Abortion debate. This supports the goal of having a broad, global overview of political advocacy regarding abortion, as opposed to these specific US movements, handled by a single article with a neutral title.
• Arguably restores the articles to their original scope, which is supported by WP:PRESERVE.
• Arguably meets WP:COMMONNAME well. Though the full phrases do not often occur in sources, we may validly read strong WP:COMMONNAME support by considering the "United States" prefixes to be "natural disambiguation" per WP:PRECISION and so considering primarily the "abortion-rights movement" and "anti-abortion movement" stems. However, also see the Against section.

Against

• Not all sourcing statistics regarding "abortion-rights movement" and "anti-abortion movement" can be read as supporting WP:COMMONNAME status for these titles, as the movements being referred to are often not the United States movements. It is not clear how often the United States movements are those being referenced.
• Not very concise.
• Outright denies those movements the right to self-identify, which is supported by WP:Naming conventions (identity) (a proposal that has no official status) and is considered important by many Wikipedians.

Arguments regarding Abortion-rights movements / Anti-abortion movements

For

• Defines a completely clear scope per WP:TITLE -- in this case, one of global coverage of abortion advocacy movements.
  • Sets a scope that, unlike the current titles, embraces coverage of these movements' activities beyond advocacy regarding legal access to abortion.
• Arguably beneficial in terms of WP:GLOBAL perspective because of covering related worldwide movements in each article.
• Arguably meets WP:COMMONNAME extremely well. As it is setting a scope that encompasses multiple related movements, the important consideration appears not to be the raw frequency of the plural phrases in sources, but how often the unpluralized terms "abortion-rights movement" and "anti-abortion movement" are used to refer to any such movement. Thanks to worldwide press preference, that criterion is met to a very high degree.
• Reasonably concise.

Against

• Arguably sets an inappropriately broad scope that would call for a WP:SPLIT, since numerous regional abortion advocacy movements are likely to be discrete, notable topics capable of supporting independent articles (and the United States movements unquestionably are).
  • Because of the broad scope involved, it seems as likely that material would be suitable for refactoring from Abortion debate into these articles as the other way around, which may be undesirable.
• Arguably out of keeping with WP:PRESERVE because of rescoping articles originally about the US movements to global coverage.
• A strong case can be made that global perspective is better addressed by a single article, like Abortion debate, than by one article handling each side of the advocacy spectrum.

Arguments and policies regarding constructed "support for" and "opposition to" titles

Arguments common to all variations

For

• Arguably meets WP:NPOV by not using names that are considered biased, but this is questionable in every instance (see Against sections of each)
  • WP:NPOV is a WP:PILLAR, whereas other policies in play aren't.
• Has precedent on Wikipedia: Opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, Opposition to the Iraq War, Opposition to immigration. (It is not clear that any of these titles form a precedent for adopting a constructed title in response to POV contention around a sourcing-based title, as opposed to simply a precedent for the general form of the titles.)

Against

• Fails to meet WP:COMMONNAME.
• Specifically contraindicated by WP:TITLECHANGES as compromise titles made up to quell contention.
• Using a constructed title makes Wikipedia responsible for the framing that takes place, making any attempt at neutral point of view a matter of endless wrangling over incredibly subtle nuance in a situation like this that is, in the broader cultural context, largely an endless war of spin doctoring. We take a lot of work and risk of failure on ourselves when we abandon our fundamental approach of being guided by our sources.
• Scopes these articles (out of keeping with WP:PRESERVE) as about general perspective on political advocacy regarding abortion, which is arguably better addressed by a single article with a neutral title -- which already happens to exist, in Abortion debate.
• The attempt to devise titles which encompass otherwise-identified partisan sides to this issue with neutral language is arguably original research.
• Leaves us without articles scoped to the United States pro-choice and pro-life movements, which are discrete notable topics clearly suitable for encyclopedic coverage in and of themselves, and probably in a state where we are bindingly forbidden to have articles so scoped. This leads to a situation where, for example, if we wished to cover the pro-life movement's involvement in advocacy regarding capital punishment, stem-cell research and euthanasia, we would have great difficulty finding someplace to do so where it would be germane to the article.
  • If, on the other hand, we were not forbidden to create articles on the pro-choice and pro-life movements, which we would then likely want to do, WP:PRESERVE strongly indicates that renaming and rescoping our current articles and then making new articles on the movements is the wrong way to go about the whole business, if the current articles were even arguably once about those movements; instead, that scope should be retained and general-perspective articles should be created if necessary (which they probably aren't because Abortion debate can handle it).

Arguments common to variations that construct opposition in terms of legality

For

• Consistent with the spirit of the previous consensus at the mediation cabal
• Arguably legality is the real issue here. (Virtually) no one supports abortion per se. It's just that some people think it should be legal and some people do not.

Against

• Constructing the opposition case in terms of opposition to abortion being legal is questionable from the standpoints of descriptiveness (i.e. setting an appropriate scope per WP:TITLE) and neutrality.
  • Though logically, to oppose something being legal is to oppose it taking place, rhetorically, in this context, constructing opposition in terms of legality raises the specter of women being forced to resort to dangerous illegal abortions. A suggestion that it is only legal abortions that are objected to, not illegal ones, could be seen as serving a partisan POV.
  • The suggestion that opposition to abortion takes only the form of working against legal access, rendering out-of-scope compassionate measures that act to reduce the need for abortions to be performed rather than solely meting out punishment when they are performed, serves a partisan POV.
  • People who advocate politically against abortion would typically see this as an aspect of their being opposed to abortion, full stop.
  • Anti-abortion activities which do not center around denial of legal access, such as sidewalk counseling and crisis pregnancy centers, are out-of-scope for articles titled this way.

Arguments regarding Support for the legalization of abortion / Opposition to the legalization of abortion

For

• Supported by previous consensus at the mediation cabal
• Strictly parallel naming.

Against

• Least concise option.
• Mildly counterindicated by WP:COMMONALITY due to legalization/legalisation spelling difference.
• Overly precise – exclude content on support and opposition for criminalization of abortion (in locales where abortion is legal).
• Stigmatize abortion by implying that the baseline state of affairs is for it to be illegal, which violates WP:NPOV.
• Non-descriptive: nonsensical as considered in any jurisdiction where abortion is not illegal, especially ones where it has never been illegal.
• Defines a scope that, due to the use of the term "legalization", does not match up with the actual content of any version of the articles in question which has ever existed, and which is not useful moving forward (if the content of the articles was actually rewritten to match the scope set by their titles, the results would be extremely poor).
• Constructs opposition in terms of legality (see above)

Arguments regarding Support for legal abortion / Opposition to legal abortion

For

• Reasonably concise
• Strictly parallel naming

Against

• "Support for legal abortion" may be considered POV if misread as "support for abortion as long as it's legal"
• Constructs opposition in terms of legality (see above)

Arguments regarding Support for abortion legality / Opposition to abortion

For

• Reasonably concise
• Parallel naming to within a reasonable degree of fidelity

Against

• Defines a scope where there is overlap between the two topics in the form of people who support legal access to abortion but oppose abortion itself.
• Neutrality and descriptiveness questionable in that framing the "oppose" case's position as one of opposition to abortion itself may be read as framing the "support" case's position as one of support for abortion itself.

Arguments regarding Opposition to abortion ban / Support for abortion ban

For

• Descriptive
• Reasonably concise
• Strictly parallel naming

Against

• Constructs opposition in terms of legality (see above)

Arguments regarding Support for abortion legality / Opposition to abortion legality

For

• Descriptive
• Reasonably concise
• Strictly parallel naming

Against

• The construct ("<noun> legality") is uncommon.
• Syntactically offputting - "Support for the legality of abortion / Opposition to the legality of abortion" sounds more natural.
• Constructs opposition in terms of legality (see above)

Arguments regarding Support for legality of abortion / Opposition to legality of abortion

For

• Descriptive
• Strictly parallel naming
• In comparison to "Support for abortion legality / Opposition to abortion legality"
  • May be easier to understand
  • "Legality of" is consistent with articles such as Legality of cannabis and Legality of the Iraq War.

Against

• Marginally less concise than "Support for abortion legality / Opposition to abortion legality"
• Constructs opposition in terms of legality (see above)

Arguments regarding Support for abortion being legal / Opposition to abortion being legal

For

• Descriptive
• Strictly parallel naming
• In comparison to "Support for legality of abortion / Opposition to legality of abortion":
  • Probably easier to understand.
  • Probably a more natural phrasing.
• Easier to comply with "If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence." in WP:LEADSENTENCE than many other options.

Against

• Marginally less concise than "Support for abortion legality / Opposition to abortion legality"
• A bit awkward and in a more colloquial, unscholarly tone than Wikipedia typically adopts
• Constructs opposition in terms of legality (see above)

Arguments regarding Support for the toleration of abortion / Opposition to the toleration of abortion

For

• Toleration can be interpreted in terms of law, ethics and specific actions, which is arguably the desired scope of the articles.
• Therefore, arguably describes the desired topic of our articles more accurately than anything else suggested (describing the topic is key to titles, especially constructed ones, as per WP:TITLE)
• Arguably neutral like the other constructed titles, but without any issues over whether legality is the right framing.

Against

• Unusual choice of words.
• Not concise.
• Arguably not neutral because "toleration" implies that abortion is something that people would still rather avoid. Although arguably this is the point: virtually no one is in favour of abortion per se. Some people argue that there is a right to an abortion, but virtually all of those people would prefer a situation where unwanted pregnancies didn't happen or were much rarer.

Arguments and policies regarding merging and refactoring into Abortion debate and Abortion debate in RegionName

The two articles under discussion become redirects to Abortion debate. Much of their content is moved to Abortion debate. Articles such as Abortion debate in the United States can be created as appropriate under WP:Summary style.

For

• Sets a scope that does not require us to decide where the lines around diverse and fuzzily defined "movements" are.
• Arguably beneficial in terms of WP:GLOBAL perspective by having a core article (Abortion debate) with a worldwide orientation.
• Addresses concerns over framing and labeling by giving a space where the uses of the different terms can be described without greatly promoting specific terms.
• Easier to meet requirements of WP:NPOV (especially WP:CRITS) as both sides of each debate will be contained within each article.
• Since we're talking about making an already-existing article with no major alternative titles the primary article, then forking by region off of that, WP:COMMONNAME analysis has no great bearing here (though see Against section for the impact on our ability to cover relevant topics that do have common names).

Against

• Possibly out of keeping with the intent of the RFC by specifying a merge and refactor rather than titles for the two specific articles in question.
• Leaves us without articles scoped to the United States pro-choice and pro-life movements, which are discrete notable topics clearly suitable for encyclopedic coverage in and of themselves, and probably in a state where we are bindingly forbidden to have articles so scoped. Similarly for any other regional movements that may be notable in and of themselves.
• This would be a fairly radical refactoring and so is recommended against by WP:PRESERVE.
• Even merging our material on both sides of the United States advocacy spectrum into Abortion debate in the United States is a poor, contraindicated merge by the criteria of WP:MERGE.
• Preserving article history would require extremely difficult and complex history merging, to the point that it would likely just not be done, resulting in loss of article history.

Discussion on possible alternative titles/questions regarding process

This section is for discussing the proposed titles only (such as additions and suggestions). It is not for detailing ones preferred option for a title, that will commence on March 23

• Query. Will the result of this discussion apply only to article titles, or will it also apply in-text to other articles, eg. "X is pro-life" vs. "X is anti-abortion"? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:37, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I believe that the result of this discussion will only affect the current article titles: "Support for the legalization of abortion" and "Opposition to the legalization of abortion". Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 23:42, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Yep, article titles only. Steven Zhang ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 00:04, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
• (Sorry, posted this first in wrong section)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jerzy (talk • contribs) 06:19, 23 February 2012‎
•    I'm embarrassed to weigh in with fundamental issues at this apparently late date, but then, i suppose no one is obligated to respond.
  1.    "Legalization" is an act or process; as the "pro-choice" article indicates in a graphic, abortion is fully legal in essentially the whole northern hemisphere, and legal at least to protect the mother's [physical] health in most of the rest of the world, so the controversy is actually about legality versus illegality of abortion, and far more about (hypothetical) acts or processes of prohibition than of legalization.
  2.    The articles purport to respectively be about two opposing world-wide phenomena of advocacy: a two-sided struggle. The graphic offers support more for the idea that there are at least six positions, corresponding to unqualified legality, unqualified prohibition, and four intermediate ones of advocacy for the status quo where it matches one's own position, but some degree of legalization in some other jurisdictions and/or prohibition in others.
  3.    In fact, even this 6-position view is too reductionist: IMO there are a lot of people who are sincere in believing that it's none of their business to have an opinion about what is right for other societies, and have only an opinion of whether their own should needs change.
  4.    In practice, what you think about abortion in other societies is as significant as your opinion of the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin, unless you are going overseas with your sniper rifle, or sending similarly deadly quantities of money overseas.

  In short, the attempt to write two articles about two supposed world-wide movements on reproductive rights is ridiculous. Oh, excuse me, fundamentally misguided. IMO the articles should have their "Amero-centric" tags removed, and be merged into American controversies about abortion and contraception law, which should be tagged {{Lacks nuance}}, pending addition of at least 4 more sections.
  --Jerzy•t 05:57, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  

  •    (What i said above is far more important than this, so i am subordinating it as a comment on my own main point.) Part of the political controversy in the US is about what actions actually constitute "abortion". (A very small number of people are probably interested in a corresponding scientific and philosophical issue, about whether that question has any meaning -- since there is no such thing as an "instant of conception".) Arguments one way or the other can be important talking points in efforts to win votes, but i have serious questions about any use of "abortion" in defining the scope of a WP article that doesn't devote a section to how ill-defined the word is.
    --Jerzy•t 05:57, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
    

From a copy-editing standpoint, how about a slight alteration on the last set of names, to "Support for abortion legality" and "Opposition to abortion legality"? For one thing, as Jerzy pointed out the current proposal doesn't take into account that "legalization" means "making something legal", not "supporting its continuing being legal". For another, the current proposal is lengthier. Allens (talk | contribs) 20:11, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, or Support for the legality of abortion / Opposition to the legality of abortion (compare the original 'Support for the legality of abortion / Opposition to abortion'). It would answer the non-neutral argumant against 'Opposition to abortion' and make them both evenly concise. I really can't think of any objections to both your format and the one I suggested. With yours being more concise. Therefore, I think it would be sensible to include one or both into the structured discussion. JHS_nl (talk) 09:08, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh. Another formatting matter. Shouldn't "Other descriptions" be its own section, not under the last set of names? Allens (talk | contribs) 20:14, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Variants of legal/legality/legalisation has been discussed before. The proposal could always be adjusted to encompass the lot, or alternatives could be offered. Each could work, really. Steven Zhang ^{DR goes to Wikimania!} 20:25, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

What is going on ... where are my comments and the others that are now gone? I'd like someone to post an explanation of what happened to the discussion and why my comments were deleted.--Djathinkimacowboy 21:24, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Steven removed the comments by the community section below because there was a misunderstanding. Discussion on the titles and input from the community will take place after the 30 day period (starting on 23 March). The discussion that you were involved in has been archived here: Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Abortion article titles#Closed discussion. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Steven and I are working diligently to address your concerns. If you have any other concerns, please let me know. Thanks, Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 21:33, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• The proposals to date would all continue the present false dichotomy. We should be discussing a spectrum of positions. Not all who support a putative right of access to legal abortion on demand also support public funding for such. Not all who support a putative fetal right to life also want the death penalty for practioners who provide abortions to rape victims. There are many incremental positions in between the extremes that are not well addressed by the polarized terms above. Does pro-life convey whether a person is in opposition to antibacterials, to weed killers, to contraceptives, or just to abortions? Does pro-choice convey whether a person is in favour of a right to sex-selective abortion, to reduction of multiple pregnancies, or simply to avoid an inconveniently-timed pregnancy? It is absurd to contend that WP must adopt a binary nomenclature. LeadSongDog come howl! 22:57, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I believe that these positions can be incorporated into the main body of the article once a decision on the article titles have been made. Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 23:05, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• About 6 pm today (UK time) a BBC TV 1 television news item said that the debate about rights and wrongs of abortion is likely to never be settled. The same seems to be happening here: compare two people, Mr.X and Mr.Y, each reporting a sensitive matter such as a death; X obeys WP:NPOV and reports neutrally, and Y reports emotively. X complains that Y should have reported neutrally. Y complains that X's neutral style is "as if the death does not matter to anyone", and inserts emotive matter if he can, or else complains to the editor. The same likely applies to titles of articles reporting emotive subjects. There are two points of view here, and such conflict is likely to be hard to resolve. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 23:09, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

In the real world, perhaps, but on Wikipedia such conflict is settled easily: WP:NPOV is a fundamental tenet of Wikipedia policy. Emotive content is simply not appropriate here, period. This issue isn't "one title is NPOV and one is not," but rather, "which title conforms most to NPOV?" Yunshui 雲‍水 23:49, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

The thing that's currently controversial in the UK is sex-selective abortion. Not general abortion rights. The same is generally true in the Asian sources I looked at. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:29, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

• Procedural query. The two sides seem to be always being taken together when titles are proposed, but there's no rule requiring that they be taken in the same format. I don't think WP:NPOV requires for balance that if one article is titled (e.g.) 'Support for legal abortion' the opponents of that position must have their article titled 'Opposition to legal abortion'. Can the debate be structured so that people can indicate support for different phrasing for the two sides? Sam Blacketer (talk) 09:31, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

  This is basically an extremely bad idea. If it fell out of the actual formulation, that's unfortunate, but an absolutely vital consideration that was addressed by the current titles and which needs to continue being addressed by whatever is adopted is that the articles have parallel names. Before the current titles, one article had wound up at the propaganda name its own proponents prefer for it, while the other had a more neutral title. Mix-and-match is a spectacularly bad road to go down. —chaos5023 (talk) 13:09, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

YES, chaos! I came here specifically to say the exact same thing. It is absolutely MANDATORY that both names have identical, parallel syntax or the whole effort is for naught. If they're different, then not only will one side or the other complain about the names being biased, but in my opinion, one or both of the names will almost certainly BE biased. With parallel construction, nobody can reasonably complain, modulo the specific words used (e.g."pro-life" vs. "pro-murder").

I'd also like to say that I hope there's enough attention to this arbitration to keep it clean (with respect to integrity). Every other professor that I personally know where I teach (a legit, real university) has forbidden students to cite wikipedia, not because it's written by amateurs, since it's sourced. No, they have complete disgust and frequently contempt for this project because conflicts like the present one are again and again resolved by socially-malfunctioning, authority-abusing geeks angry at the world, sitting in their parent's basement in their underpants who support each other without regard to the content of the discussion so that they themselves will be unquestionably backed-up when they need to gang up on someone. Several academic studies have supported that contention, though they presented that same conclusion in a faaaaaar more polite way.

My point is that if the shocking, disgusting things I saw at arbcom last year happen again here, I strongly encourage people to object LOUDLY instead of being bullied and beat-up by the other political faction until they quit in disgust. HelviticaBold 14:24, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree that bullying here is too often tolerated and I'll go further, IMO I have on occasions been punished myself for being the victim. What chance has a newbie? But I still believe that there's more chance of a good result for those who do try to stick to the behavioural guidelines. Some interesting observations above, but are there better places to discuss them? Feel free to reply on my talk page if you feel that this is getting off-topic. Andrewa (talk) 15:46, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

More important (and I'm still a long way from understanding the process), the opinion above that it is absolutely MANDATORY that both names have identical, parallel syntax is premature here I think... what we're looking for here is predominantly white hat. But since it's been expressed I'll flag that I don't think it's that simple at all, and trying to be a bit white hat, WP:AT doesn't seem to support this but WP:IAR might. And it might be a moot point if we decide not to restrict the topic to exactly two articles, see below. Andrewa (talk) 00:24, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

It's beyond premature, it's not supported by observation of reality. "Abortion rights movement/position" and "anti-abortion movement/position" are used, in- and outside of American English, very, very broadly, and are often chosen specifically to avoid association with or implication of highly-politicized activism activities, and focus on the broader politico-philosophical positions. Using these less loaded terms would also reduce the WP:OR tendency to assign anachronisitic labels like "pro-life" (dates to the 1970s) to earlier anti-abortionists. Proponents of anti-abortion viewpoints often like to use euphemisms that avoid "anti-", the same way that anti-war protestors like to call themselves peace activists or anti-alcohol organizations were called temperance leagues, but I don't think we need to care. The terms are accurate, and instantly sourceable as being used both inside and and outside the movement for generations. I'm not sure I prefer them to a pair of the more constructed alternatives (which can be even more neutral and are not naming problems because redirects exist and work for a reason). But they should not be painted as being "mandatorily" excluded as reasonable options. SMcCandish (talk) 04:52, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

• Is it too late to suggest another? It may be rather late to suggest this but the "pro-life" alternatives are mostly in the form of "Opposition ...". One might have considered "Support for Banning Abortion". I see ban used in practice. It also allows degrees or partial bans. It also is symmetric with many of the "Support for legalizing ..." Jason from nyc (talk) 16:04, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

• Thinking this through, the argument is about whether and in what circumstances abortion should be legal. The most common position taken by one side seems to be that abortion should be/remain legal with exceptions limited to widely agreed-upon cases (e.g. late term). The most common position taken by the other side seems to be that abortion should be made illegal either in all cases, or with limited exceptions (rape, incest, when the life of the pregnant woman is at risk, etc.). Since, as Jerzy pointed out above, "abortion is fully legal in essentially the whole northern hemisphere, and legal at least to protect the mother's [physical] health in most of the rest of the world", one side is generally arguing to retain the status quo, while the other is arguing for legal restrictions. That makes me think of a pairing like "Support for abortion legality" and "Support for abortion prohibition" or something along those lines. Maybe "Abortion legality movement" and "Abortion prohibition movement". cmadler (talk) 16:30, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
  •    This discussion is too informal for the term friendly amendment to apply, but Cmadler's ideas do an excellent job of meeting my "what makes it two-sided?" objection: in practice, in any particular jurisdiction, only the status quo and one politically conceivable direction of change are on the table. (Note, however, that that sharpens rather than softens my argument against the IMO artificial approach of treating the positions in a world-wide article, rather than in a two- -- or one- -- article per country fashion.)
    --Jerzy•t 06:33, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
    
    • Perhaps it's useful to consider how we've treated other legal topics where there is some degree of similarity worldwide (or in much of the world) but also meaningful country-by-country variance. Consider how we cover the issue of copyright, with a main article (Copyright) that summarizes the major issues, and then further articles that go into more details on a country-by-country basis (e.g. Copyright law of France). These are tied together by Template:Copyright law by country. Likewise, we have Freedom of speech, Freedom of speech by country, and then country-specific articles such as Freedom of speech in the United States. Perhaps a similar approach would work here. cmadler (talk) 13:59, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

I am in complete agreement that these titles need to be standardized but I am at a loss for why pro-choice, pro-life are unacceptable in the first place. While the terms themselves may convey a POV that does not necessarily mean that they are unusable due to NPOV restrictions.

• If these terms are the predominant terms used by individuals in society who are active and vocal about this issue then they are the most accurate terms. I think we start to move towards counting angels on pins when we abandon the language of the debate for other contrived terms which only exist because each side thinks the other's name is too POV.
• It seems to me that although there is a great variety within the two camps - as mentioned by Jerzy - such variety does not mean that the two camps cannot be defined by the labels used in the debate itself! For example, when one talks about 'Democrats' or 'Republicans' one does not assume - especially these days - that every single member of either party holds the exact same opinions as their fellow members. Nevertheless, the two categories continue to exist and successfully describe the majority of politicians and American voters. Just as not all in the pro-life camp favor the complete prohibition of abortion not all in the pro-choice camp favor complete and immediate access to abortion.
• Even if individuals don't agree with every view of the general pro-life/pro-choice dichotomy almost no one attempts to adopt a categorization outside of those terms. I don't know of any examples from public figures or advocacy groups in which someone has tried to say they don't fall into either category. On the other hand it is not infrequent to hear people say "I am pro-choice but would not have an abortion," or "I am pro-life but believe it is a decision that should not be made by the government."
• If the pro-choice/pro-life option is deemed unacceptable despite the fact that those are the terms used by the majority of individuals participating in the debate why is the AP stylebook alternative not viable? Although Abortion-rights movement / Anti-abortion movement are somewhat clunky they at least represent the consensus view of the largest news agencies in the English speaking world.

Ultimately, it seems odd that wikipedia would reject both labels most commonly used in the debate (pro-life/pro-choice) and a professional/scholarly consensus alternative (Abortion-rights movement / Anti-abortion movement) and instead create new terms to describe an existing public debate.Grin20 (talk) 21:52, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

• Query. What were the original names of the articles and how long did those names last? I think this should be a factor in the discussion, and added to the "for" for the relevant names.LedRush (talk) 18:40, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

• I haven't been following this debate, so maybe this has already been addressed, but why do we have two articles? Last time I checked, POV forks were against policy. Shouldn't we just have one article about the debate that covers both sides? Then there is no real issue over the name, since it's neutral anyway ("Abortion debate" would work fine). --Tango (talk) 01:45, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
  • I believe that this is constitutes a legitimate POVFORK. Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 01:49, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
    • The examples given there aren't really comparable to this. While they are mutually exclusive points of view, they aren't simply opposite points of view. It wouldn't make sense to have one article that discussed both capitalism and communism because they are two completely separate economic systems (and far from the only two). You could very easily have one article on the abortion debate and, even without the naming issues, that article would be better - the arguments on both sides aren't isolated from each other, a lot of them are simply counters to the arguments of the other side. It's very confusing to have the argument in one article and the counter-argument on another, and it's unnecessarily duplicative to have them both in both articles. --Tango (talk) 02:09, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
      • That is certainly a viable option. I will discuss with Steve and AGK about this. Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 02:12, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
      • After reading the feedback given by other it's clear to me that this is the best option. Other authors have presented many other sub-classes of the debate, each of which could easily be and article in it's own right. I think the example given above about economic systems is correct. There are many economic systems and there is a parent article economic system that describes and links to them. Likewise a parent article like what Tango suggest can frame the debate and provide links to the many flavors of it. This would also server to frame the discussion within and internationl setting providing links to various countries and regions issues and policies.War (talk) 05:38, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I would like to suggest that we have more than just these two articles. Opposition to the legalization of abortion and Support for the legalization of abortion are both good topics and clearly scoped. They both should have articles. But Right to Life Movement and Pro-life movement are both also notable and well-defined topics, with plenty of material for articles and seemingly much interest in writing about them. They should not simply redirect to Opposition to the legalization of abortion as one does currently, and I'm surprised that Right to Life Movement doesn't seem to ever have existed, I get 1.4 million ghits [7] (your results may differ) and quite a few Wikipedia articles mention it by this name as well. There will be similar organisations and movements linked to the other side too I expect. Andrewa (talk) 02:11, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Andrewa, this is supportable evidence for the above sections. If you would be so kind to place this evidence under the appropriate header. All the best, Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 02:13, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

I confess I'm very confused about the process. Does this satisfy your request? It doesn't deal with the main point I was trying to make, but I'm not sure how to. Andrewa (talk) 02:37, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Yep. That'll do. :) Don't worry a lot of editors have never experienced a "binding content discussion" such as this one. Regards, Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 02:43, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

OK. But how about the point that having main articles by this name doesn't necessarily mean we can't have articles on the related topics too? For example, the point has often been made that pro-life includes anti-euthanasia views as well as anti-abortion, yet it currently [8] redirects to Opposition to the legalization of abortion. To me this seems wrong, it is a distinct but related topic not well covered by the article, and so the current redirect violates the principle of least astonishment. Andrewa (talk) 03:06, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmm... and I guess that also means that pro-choice is also related to euthanasia. Whenaxis talk · contribs | DR goes to Wikimania! 14:45, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

A good green hat, let me now be black hat: Not necessarily. White hat: In Australia, organisations such as Right to Life http://www.righttolife.com.au/ who dislike being described as anti-abortion and consistently use pro-life or pro-choice or similar instead are equally concerned about euthanasia as abortion, but I know of no such connection with regard to those with opposite views. The various Voluntary Euthanasia Societies (http://www.saves.asn.au/ for example) have no policy on abortion, but their opponents have strong ones. Andrewa (talk) 19:47, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Beware. This be a very large can of worms that now seems to be opened and may cause many an emotional entry. Study long thine entries well before posting. Canoe1967 (talk) 19:27, 26 February 2012
• "Support for abortion legality / Support for abortion prohibition" makes sense to me but perhaps I would prefer "Support for legality of abortion / Support for prohibition of abortion" not sure why adding the word "of" makes it easier for me to understand, but it does. Maybe "abortion legality" sounds a bit like a kind of legality, rather than a position on abortion. I don't know. I notice we have Legality of cannabis, Legality of the Iraq War, Prohibition of drugs etc. Should we add "Support for legality of abortion / Support for prohibition of abortion" to the list? Yaris678 (talk) 22:33, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: The Guardians styleguide gives pro-choice and pro-life as the preferred to abortion and anti-abortion[9]. They should be added to a source in the first section rather than being used as a source in the second section which is a blog on their site. 94.2.68.193 (talk) 08:37, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

No, it says "pro-life should not be used to mean anti-abortion" – Danmichaelo (talk) 21:13, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - Reading these articles, I think they have bigger problems than the naming convention, starting with what their purpose is. Having the two articles split is inherently POV, whereas a balanced discussion on a single page would be far preferable for dealing with bias. At the moment, the content on these pages is very US focused, and probably more properly belongs at Abortion in the United States (as does the other country content, seemingly there as an afterthought). If there were to be two articles, it would be better to have the ISSUES debated on a single page, and then a page about 'pro-life' and 'pro-choice' movements, restricted to only the activities of the actual movements, not about the underlying issues. OwainDavies ^(about)_(talk) edited at 10:52, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I strongly agree with this. The option should at least be presented. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 19:29, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

This isn't a real option. Since you're effectively talking about a WP:MERGE of two huge articles, often merging them into a THIRD huge article (Abortion debate), any even slightly justifiable way of constructing it talks about merging these articles -- and then factoring material about the US pro-life and pro-choice movements into two other articles! So at the end of the day, it has accomplished the same visible result as resolving the RFC in favor of Pro-life movement / Pro-choice movement would have, except it's damaged the hell out of the article history involved. It does nothing but achieve the same ends as a much simpler option with bonus shooting ourselves in the foot technically. Basically, if you want global overview to be in a single, neutrally-titled article, support Pro-life movement / Pro-choice movement, since with those titles finally defining a coherent scope for these articles, material that isn't about those movements would naturally factor to Abortion debate. —chaos5023 (talk) 00:52, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

• Query - Is it too late to suggest alternative titles? It seems to me that the most neutral and descriptive titles would be "Support for the legal availability of abortion" and "Opposition to the legal availability of abortion", as that fully captures what the topic is about AND avoids "legalization" which implies a change from the status quo.Lawdroid (talk) 15:04, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

  It isn't too late to add options, no. Please carefully consider the existing options as to whether any already provide the benefits your proposal would have, though, and whether major points against existing options would also weigh against yours. For example, I would say that the extreme wordiness of your proposed titles makes them a somewhat unlikely alternative to the largely semantically equivalent Support for legal abortion / Opposition to legal abortion, and that arguments against that option also tend to apply to yours. —chaos5023 (talk) 15:25, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Chaos on all points.LedRush (talk) 15:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

I shall simply point out that, at least in my neck of the woods, the debate is really about whether insurance should pay for abortion or not. Bwrs (talk) 04:44, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

*One article - not two - I'm with Owain on this. I think splitting the topic into two articles is wrong. A common objection to the proposed naming pairs is that they are not parallel. That's because the attempt to analyze this issue into two positions obscures its many levels and nuances. This topic cannot be properly presented as two sides of a dispute. Editors who cannot work collaboratively on such an article should not be working on it. Pleas add an option to have a single article covering the issue. Jojalozzo 20:22, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment Per WP:COMMONALITY, shouldn't we be trying to avoid the use of legalization (or legalisation) in article titles? Pro-choice movement and Pro-life movement, referring to movements in the US, possibly deserve their own articles. Is that discussion relevant here (or has it already taken place)? -- Trevj (talk) 11:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

  It's been talked about elsewhere, but hasn't been integrated here yet. I'll add it. —chaos5023 (talk) 15:21, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

• Comment It appears somewhat misleading to state The vote's result shall be binding for a period of three years when Binding content discussions is still only a proposed policy, with "clearly no consensus for implementation". That's not to say that the policy isn't a valid proposal which could solve a few problems - it's just not obvious from reading the intro here that the decision apparently may not be binding! Have I missed something? -- Trevj (talk) 11:47, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

  Sorry, I didn't follow the link to WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Abortion#Systematic discussion and voting on article names, which I guess is non-negotiable. -- Trevj (talk) 11:51, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

As an alternative to Pro-life movement and Pro-choice movement, how about simply Pro-life and Pro-choice? This would have the same strengths of the former, chiefly avoiding the dog's breakfast that is the "support/opposition" titles, and would further avoid the pitfall of implying the existence of some unified "movement". --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 19:29, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Another addition I would like to make is that focusing on the legalization of abortion (or however you want to word it) is much too narrow. Plenty of people are "consistent pro-life", meaning that they oppose abortion, euthanasia, war, capital punishment, etc. Also, plenty of people are opposed to funding of abortion and government support of abortion and would describe themselves as "pro-life" though they do not advocate prohibition. There should be room for a "pro-life" page that encompasses all these things and does not focus so narrowly on the legalization of abortion. Can these points be better represented in the "for/against" items above? --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 19:29, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

My issue with this discussion is that it's not totally clear what is being discussed: it looks like it might be very hard to separate out naming and content. If the article is on that group of people who oppose it being legal to have an abortion, then a case can probably be made for one of the word salad constructions. But if it is about the "pro-life movement", broadly construed, and the article on the pro-life movement is all about abortion and not the other issues which the pro-life advocates claim to also support, by their own arguments it is lending undue weight to only one aspect of the pro-life movement. A similar but less strong argument could perhaps be made regarding the term pro-choice.

I hate to go all wikilawyer, but a "structured discussion on the names of the [...] articles" (as ArbCom has specified) can be interpreted in two ways: perhaps it is a discussion of the best names for the articles concerning the topics strictly defined, or perhaps it is a discussion of the best names for the articles as they currently exist. Either way, the right-on warriors for truth, justice and freedom will find a way of challenging it on this basis. Only unlike me, they'll challenge it after it has concluded rather than just as it is kicking off. —Tom Morris (talk) 09:49, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

This issue will very likely be cited as a model case of the limitations and shortcomings of encyclopaedias in general, and of Wikipedia in particular, when it comes to issues that have complex geographical and historical dimensions. The majority of editors of these articles will likely come from the USA (I myself am writing in Scotland), but the material itself is envisaged as covering a variety of contemporary contexts, and including a good stretch of history in those different contexts going back to the varied forms of legislation passed in different countries. Arbitration can solve (in an ad hoc fashion) the choice of titles, but it does not address the deeper question of how a suitable title can be found that properly covers every country in which there is debate about legislation, together with their different histories. There is no single debate, for which a single title can be found: there are many debates, oriented to different legislative contexts, with varied histories. In practice, the proposed articles are bound to be dominated by the US context, its legal framework, and its history. This is not because of the content, but because of who the editors are likely to be. It would be far preferable to have articles that are geographically, historically, and legally specific. e.g. 'Abortion debates in the USA'. I can imagine a single page that summarises the contents of these specific pages; but I cannot imagine the split between two pages proposed here having an outcome that pays due attention to the different legal contexts in which these debates are conducted. Thelongview (talk) 12:07, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I completely agree with you, although this discussion might be more something that should be discussed áfter this 'evidence gathering' face. (Abortion debate is there, so that summary page already exists.) You do, however, are in my opinion right to point out that this debate is now framed out as a discussion on the title, while it might be better to start out with what the content of the page should be. Maybe the involved user (Whenaxis, Steven Zhang) can figure out a way to structure the debate which will commence later in this fashion: 'what content' first, 'what title' second? JHS_nl (talk) 12:18, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the content needs sorting out first. I would propose that the pages should be (without prejeudice to the naming):

• One page containing the main arguments for and against abortion (legal, ethical, religious etc.). This should be on a single page in order that the two can interact fully (i.e. side x says this, but side y reject this on the basis of...). This is probably based on abortion debate.
• One page for each major country under discussion, such as Abortion in the United States which should primarily cover issues of legality, along with any specific issues faced in that country (major campaigns etc.)

Now, some of these may have large sections that deserve a daughter article. The two most obvious in the context of this debate might be the Pro-life movement in the United States and the Pro-choice movement in the United States. If these articles did exist, they should only be about the movement, not about the issues. For instance, it could talk about the major groups, action they take and any variance in position, but should not talk about the acutal issues (that would be in the main article).

Other daughter articles could include single topic issues like Islamic views on abortion (haven't even looked to see if this is an article, it's just an example of the sort of thing that could be).

I think this type of structure is the only way to make sure that the issues stay clearly defined and separate from the complications and inherent POV of national and interest group bias. Any further thoughts? OwainDavies ^(about)_(talk) edited at 17:43, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

• This suggestion has some merit... although I'm not sure if it addresses the issue that this RfC is supposed to be about. The title "Pro-choice movement in the United States" may make more sense than "Pro-choice movement" but there will still be contention over whether it should be called that. Yaris678 (talk) 17:16, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not certain of what the structure is supposed to be on this page. So I'm not adding to the many lists above (but someone helpful and clueful is welcome to try to add my suggestion : )

But anyway, it would seem to me that rather than talk about "american bias", why not have United States in the title of each "movement" (United States Pro-life movement; United States Pro-choice movement) for the existing articles (a simple page move); and have another page for International abortion debate movements, with the US movement pages existing there with a concise summary and template:main linking to the pro life and pro choice pages? Leave Abortion debate for the general information, and if necessary, split off by country as needed (something like: Abortion debate in the United States). - jc37 19:22, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

It is said above, and re-iterated, that "abortion is fully legal in essentially the whole northern hemisphere". I'm not quite sure how relevant this is, but if it is relevant, is it true? In UK, for example, abortion remains illegal unless two doctors in good faith decide that the case falls within one of the designated exceptions. This is not often checked - and may be widely disregarded (witness the recent furore about sex-selective abortions in UK). 'Widely available', Yes: 'fully legal', No. A second point - a usage by a particular institution (in their style guide, for example) is not necessarily evidence of NPOV. The UK Guardian may use 'anti-abortion', but it is certainly not NPOV as between the two sides of the debate - should it be balanced by Fox News referring to 'pro-life' (if I'm wrong in suggesting that Fox News would do this, I shall be happy to apologise)? There are topics (and this is one) where truly NPOV terms are hard to come by. Which is NPOV - 'enhanced interrogation' or 'torture'? [no option has been added in the drafting of this paragraph]Twr57 (talk) 21:40, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Firstly Fox News appears to use anti-abortion - see the above source list.

Secondly while the Guardian isn't politically neutral in general abortion isn't a controversial topic in the UK, so they aren't pushing a POV here.

Thirdly I don't think you need to go to the "technicality" of the UK. For example abortion is still largely illegal in the Philippines, Pakistan, Iran and Egypt, to name only the largest such countries in the northern hemisphere. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:54, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

There are half a dozen trivial variations on "legality" and "legalization", which seem likely to steal votes away from one another. It's like an election where the choices are:

1. Support Republican — 40%
2. Very, very strongly support Democrat — 25%
3. Very strongly support Democrat — 20%
4. Strongly support Democrat — 10%
5. Somewhat support Democrat — 5%

and the Republican is declared the winner! For the integrity of the process, I would strongly urge that the combined vote total of the various legality/legalization titles be taken into account. -- P.T. Aufrette (talk) 01:42, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

• • Because there are more than two choices you are going to have to have some sort of ranking system. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 10:58, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Nominally, Wikipedia doesn't decide things by vote... but when it is a contentious issue with different ways of looking at the arguments, it seems to end up looking very similar to a vote. That being the case, I would suggest that the type of vote we end up looking like should be Instant-runoff voting... or "some sort of ranking system." as Eraserhead1 said. Yaris678 (talk) 17:16, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
      • And usually I would side with WP:NOTVOTE but here we are presenting all the arguments up front so people should be making an open-minded decision on the evidence - and thus a final vote is much more reasonable. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:27, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
        • Properly, the impact of wp:NOTVOTE is that we look for ways to address the negatives of each proposal. If we find a proposal where any of the negatives cannnot be dealt with, that proposal should be discounted if not outright dismissed.LeadSongDog come howl! 06:10, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
      • I strongly agree with Yaris that the voting phase should be structured as instant-runoff voting. Single-option support would skew the reading of consensus severely. —chaos5023 (talk) 16:42, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: I have a problem with the use of pro-choice and similar terms. As words coined in the 1970s I don't believe that this family of terms is appropriate for use in historical articles. For example I've been working on Isabel Annie Aves recently and wouldn't editors to be forced to use historically inaccurate terminology, either in body text or framework. Stuartyeates (talk) 09:07, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

PLEASE READ BEFORE ADDING OPTIONS — I, on the basis of no sort of authority or anything like that, am asking you, dear reader, to help keep this RFC sane by only adding new options to the above list if you, at the very moment you're adding it, believe that the option you are adding is the best one and is the single way this RFC should be resolved. I ask this because I believe that adding options for the sake of covering bases doesn't add anything useful to the process and helps make the whole thing an indigestible wall of text that prevents people from engaging usefully with it. I hope you'll agree. —chaos5023 (talk) 23:58, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

• While a certain amount of trimming might be useful, I don't actually know what "the best one" is at this stage. I think it helps to get ideas out in the open. Let other people see what they think of them. Yaris678 (talk) 17:16, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Extensive trimming is called for, yes. As far as kicking things around and seeing what people think of them, I would suggest that that can happen on the talk page, and options can be added to the actual analysis if they turn out to have something serious going for them. Nothing about the way this RFC was set up makes it appropriate for it to be a far-reaching inquiry into obscure and unlikely potential naming schemata for these articles. —chaos5023 (talk) 20:55, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
    • Where does it say we are allowed to add options? The instructions only mention making comments. I would assume that this means that if I want another option added I should suggest it in a comment. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:58, 7 March 2012 (UTC)
• Suggestion for one page title. 'Abortion issues by country/region/religion'. This idea may work if a one page article is decided on. The page could have links/contents as to what the issues are in each area, solve the USA focus, and have all issues branch from one place. I don't know if there is a 'milder' term for 'abortion' that would be more acceptable in the title. Could we add 'One Page Article' to the suggestions above?.Canoe1967 (talk) 21:30, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

• Question:.

Why are

"It may be problematic that these names are sometimes used outside the United States to refer to topics other than abortion..."

and

"It may be problematic that the term 'pro-life' can be more wide-ranging..."

Listed as arguments against "Pro-choice / Pro-life" but not as arguments against "Pro-choice movement / Pro-life movement"? The fact that whoever drew up the list could not think of a single argument against "Pro-choice movement / Pro-life movement" suggest a (I would assume unconscious) bias in favor of that particular choice. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:35, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

They are listed as specific to Pro-choice / Pro-life because they're only relevant in the (severely misguided) case where these articles are used as catch-alls for global political advocacy regarding abortion, which only happens as a consequence of poor scoping; the "movement" variations define the articles' scope as about the US movements that use those names, so we know in that case that there's no reason to be including global politics in the articles in the first place. The list is a highly collaborative exercise and was not drawn up by any one person, but beyond that you're overlooking that the arguments that apply to all options including the terms pro-choice and pro-life apply to the "movement" variations. —chaos5023 (talk) 04:18, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Title suggestion I propose asymmetric titles both starting with Abortion for clarity:

• Abortion opposition
• Abortion rights support

However, that still leaves us avoiding the most common, even if biased or euphemistic, labels of "pro-life" and "pro-choice". Obotlig (talk) 23:55, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Please see the brainstorming section on the talk page. —chaos5023 (talk) 01:34, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

• Invalid Argument? Re: Abortion-rights movement / Anti-abortion movement, the following argument appears to be invalid: "Gives preferential treatment to abortion-rights by suggesting that they are for the protection of a right, while anti-abortion is against that right". This suggestion only occurs when you put the two next to each other. "Anti-abortion movement" used by itself (which it will be as an article title) suggests nothing either way about rights. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:57, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• Even if they are separate pages, people will still often read both of them, and it is still arguably unfair for one title to have a positive orientation while the other has a negative orientation. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 03:51, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

• I agree, but that's not what the text I quoted above says. I would have no issue if the text listed one title to have a positive orientation while the other has a negative orientation as an argument. I do have an issue with the present wording claiming that both titles refer to a right. That is factually incorrect. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:26, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

• If the text you quoted were changed to "while the opponents of abortion are against that right," would that remove your objection? That sentence doesn't necessarily have to refer to "Anti-abortion movement" as a title, does it? I think it can just mention "opponents" and work just as well. -- JohnWBarber (talk) 20:40, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

• That would address my objection. I really have no problem with the spirit of what is being argued here. Mine is a purely technical objection; Saying that the title "anti-abortion" is against anything other than abortion is simply not true. Saying that the opponents of abortion are against that right is fine, and from what I have heard of their arguments (which isn't much) is an accurate portrayal of their position. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:56, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

• Looks the above-quoted argument has been corrected so it is no longer invalid. Whatever we do, however, it is important to observe strict neutrality between the sides of the debate; this weighs in favor of symmetric titles. It is unfair to refer to one side as the “abortion-rights movement” and the other as “anti-abortion” because the former implies that abortion is a right, whereas the latter is strictly neutral. It would be better if both are strictly neutral or, in the alternative, they can both refer to something as a right, such as “abortion-rights movement” versus “right-to-life movement,” or both of them can simply call the movements what they call themselves (“pro-choice” versus “pro-life.”) Bwrs (talk) 05:27, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

To me the use of the term movement implies articles about, primarily, people and/or organisations, rather than one about concepts and arguments. To me the name these articles should be given depends what the focus of the articles is to be. LukeSurl ^{t c} 22:34, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Interesting point. If the articles are about the concepts or arguments, then maybe “pro-life” and “pro-choice” would be best, but if the articles are about the movements, then maybe “pro-life movement” and “pro-choice movement” (or “right-to-life movement” and “abortion-rights movement”) would work. Bwrs (talk) 14:16, 24 March 2012 (UTC)

Abortion is an important issue. Wikipedia:Edit warring is so so so unimportant; The Arbcom are important people is this debate but they are simply not important. Change perspective - abandon Wikipedia:Edit warring; accept WP:Fluidity and if the world does end I will apologise. Tom Pippens (talk) 20:43, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Comments by the community on proposals

After one month from the commencement of the RFC (March 23), members of the community are invited to comment on the various proposals here, giving reasons as to why they support their preferred argument. This discussion is not a vote, and as per all discussions, comments will be weighed based on strength of argument.

General comments

There are many issues on this topic (why there is this RfC!) but one clear aspect is that the discussion in the USA is far more active than that in other countries (eg European states) where abortion is legal (in the sense of available through open public channels but may have a hurdle). "Opposition to the legalization of abortion" and "Support for the legalization of abortion" directly imply that it is no currently legal. I'd contest that the title(s) need to be differentiated by country name, at the very least. --AlisonW (talk) 01:35, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Voting

The comment phase being now open, here is a numbered chart of the options under consideration at the time of opening, so that we can refer to them by number for brevity:

Note: edited to include option 13, added after opening of comment period. —chaos5023 (talk) 16:57, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

1. Pro-choice movement / Pro-life movement

2. Abortion-rights movement / Anti-abortion movement

3. United States abortion-rights movement / United States anti-abortion movement

4. Abortion-rights movements / Anti-abortion movements

5. Support for the legalization of abortion / Opposition to the legalization of abortion

6. Support for legal abortion / Opposition to legal abortion

7. Support for abortion legality / Opposition to abortion

8. Opposition to abortion ban / Support for abortion ban

9. Support for abortion legality / Opposition to abortion legality

10. Support for legality of abortion / Opposition to legality of abortion

11. Support for abortion being legal / Opposition to abortion being legal

12. Refactor to Abortion debate and Abortion debate in RegionName

13. Support for the toleration of abortion / Opposition to the toleration of abortion

—chaos5023 (talk) 02:17, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

My preference order, were we presently conducting instant-runoff voting (edit: or Borda count voting) (which it's not completely clear we aren't), would be: 1, 3, 4, 2, 7, 6, 11, 10, 9, 13, 8, 12, 5. (edit: option 13 added later.) My reasoning is that 1 has the best combination of WP:COMMONNAME support with other factors; 4 probably has the best WP:COMMONNAME support of all, but it sets really too broad of a scope, I feel that these articles should be scoped to the US movements because of WP:PRESERVE, and its other issues feel like the sort of thing that will become larger problems down the line. 3 is almost as good as 1, but I really don't like ignoring the right to self-identify in any context. 2 is a pretty bad idea because the scope it sets is just plain ambiguous, but it's still a better idea than any invented title. Out of the invented titles, I like 7 best because I feel the issues with constructing opposition in terms of legality are much worse than those with doing otherwise. Among other invented titles other than 5, I'm mostly going by feel and don't care that much. I think 12 is a really bad idea for the reasons stated in its section, and the only thing I like worse than 12 is 5, keeping the current titles. —chaos5023 (talk) 02:26, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I know this has been worked on for a while, but shouldn't sections be created for each of the options so that users can support and oppose? How on earth will closers deal with responses such as "1, 3, 4, 2, 7, 6, 11, 10, 9, 8, 12, 5"? FormerIP (talk) 02:28, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Tallying instant-runoff voting results is actually pretty straightforward. Check out the article. I'm not seeing why reading consensus from supports and opposes on 12 separate sub-proposals would be easier. —chaos5023 (talk) 02:39, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

AV's a shit system for such tallying of options because lower preferences only come into play once higher ones are knocked out, thus making it hard for middle ground compromises to make it to the end. Borda or Condorcet are more conducive to finding consensual positions, although Condorcet has the major problem that it's very hard to explain the results sheet to the uninitiated. Timrollpickering (talk) 13:23, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

I'd be entirely happy with Borda. Luckily, my preference list makes a perfectly fine sheet for it as well. —chaos5023 (talk) 14:29, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

• 2, 1 and a bunch of POV swordfighting, in my opinion. This is one of those cases where WP's tortured decision-making process is going to melt down. Carrite (talk) 04:12, 23 March 2012 (UTC)