Talk:Abortion-breast cancer hypothesis/GA Review 1
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This'll be a long review, I felt compelled to give a thorough critique of this article. Basically, the lead is pretty much good, reference four could probably do with a non-PP cite for neutrality purposes, but I don't think that's too terrible a problem considering that the fact being referenced doesn't seem silly. I figured i'd start with the lead because that's about the best thing this article has going for it, and now for my long list of problems I have identified:
- "When pro-life advocates link abortion to breast cancer, some claim that the goal is to stop women from having an induced abortion. Because breast cancer elicits disproportionate fear in women,[16] there exists the concern that pro-lifers use it as a scare tactic." "Some claim"? I think its fairly self-explanatory that if the advocates are pro-life, the goal is to convince women to not have an abortion, I don't think there's a need to find claimants for that. The second sentence is very non-neutral and not cited adequatly at all, in addition to being unclear. Disproportionate in comparison to what, the proper amount of fear that a woman should have of getting Brest Cancer? Who defines that proper amount of fear? I certainly hope not some apparently 10 year old reference (Copyright 1997 at the bottom) hosted on a website which seems to be dedicated at the moment to trying to debunk global warming, and is an article written by a person who doesn't even appear to be a notable source, all there is is a name, no hint of possible qualifications is given. I'm not saying this person definenetly isn't notable and therefore this ref is definently inappropriate, but from what the ref gives, I have no reason to conclude otherwise. Also, who is concerned that it is a scare tactic, and why is it relevant? Not all scare tactics are bad.
- Removed for now. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- The next two sentences I won't bother quoting, the main problem is there's no reference and they require attribution as to who is accusing whom, and if they are referenced, the content may change based on what's in the refs.
- Removed for now. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "At the same time pro-life organizations lobby to increase obstacles to abortion, such as mandated counseling, waiting periods, and parental notification,[17] and some feel that pro-life advocates treat ABC as simply another weapon in their arsenal. In enacting these obstacles it takes longer for a women to get an abortion and as a result this increases potential breast cancer risk and complications" This is certainly not neutral, its clearly written in a way to make the pro-life efforts seems as negative as possible, by making "abortion" into a victim of sorts, and accusing pro-life organizations of using "women as simply another weapon in their arsenal", and without even referencing the people who make the accusations to boot. The citation given doesn't even seem to be POV pushing at all and even cites its sources making it seem a good deal reliable, so the wording of the article here seems like some POV pushing independant of the citation.
- Tweaked wording, ref grabbed from above. Abortion is not the victim, nor do I see that inferred in the article. Longer time for a woman to get an abortion makes her the possible victim. ABC used as a weapon, not women. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- It's not that its being inferred throughout the article per se, its just the use of language makes that connotation, "increase obstacles to abortion" would have a pro-life counter of "incrase the defense of unborn children" or something like that, and if has a counter-perspective of wording, it's likely not to be neutral in the first place. Plus, lobbyists these days are a pretty negative thing, and the use of "lobby" here also seems to be part of non-neutral wording. I thought it had said women though, perhaps the word being directly below the acronym confused me.... Homestarmy 16:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- Tweaked wording, ref grabbed from above. Abortion is not the victim, nor do I see that inferred in the article. Longer time for a woman to get an abortion makes her the possible victim. ABC used as a weapon, not women. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- " The ongoing and incremental legal challenges to abortion by pro-life groups is documented in Frontline's The Last Abortion Clinic" This seems to be an advertisement, this surely cannot be the only thing that documents legal dealings in this area. Since this also seems to be trying to victimize abortion, perhaps this line and the lines above it are all part of one large advertisment? Recommend just removing them all if so.
- I can remove wording, but subject matter is critically important... and cover, decades of legal precedents in relation to abortion; the reference and documentary itself are world class. It is certainly not the only thing, but its one of the most comprehensive, notable and reliable sources. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- The article didn't seem to justify or demonstrate how important this documentary was, and because it was Frontline, I thought it was just some typical protrayel of Abortion stuff through the mass media, so I was suspicious. Homestarmy 16:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- I can remove wording, but subject matter is critically important... and cover, decades of legal precedents in relation to abortion; the reference and documentary itself are world class. It is certainly not the only thing, but its one of the most comprehensive, notable and reliable sources. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "In 2005, Life Canada put up billboards in Alberta with large pink ribbons and the statement: "stop the cover up".[19] The Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation was concerned this did not reflect the conclusion of the 2004 meta-analysis done by Dr. Beral et. al,[7] which they felt was the "best piece of evidence" for no ABC connection." These sentences are kind of confusing. "Life Canada" I presume is a pro-life group, but what cover up? might want to give more details about their rational, and the next sentence is sort of ambiguous pronoun-wise, is "this" referring to Life Canada's billboards? Also, a foundation cannot be a "they", only the members, and how is the CBCF certain the Life Canada billboards were put up with Life Canada specifically because of the study? That kind of thing could probably do with some explanation too, and "no ABC connection" to what, abortion?
- Added clarification on Life Canada rationale. ABC = abortion breast cancer, and CBCF felt Life Canada was ignoring the best scientific evidence. The foundation wasn't, necessarily, inferring a cause between the two. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I've had no choice but to split this up... just looking at it gives me a headache. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "The continued focus, misinformation and promotion of the "ABC link" by pro-life groups has led to a backlash by pro-choice advocates, which has created a confrontational political environment at the expense of science.[15] As a result, the ABC hypothesis is referred to as pseudoscience[20] despite the fact its proposed mechanism remains verified in rats.[3][21]" Ohhh boy. Really, it wouldn't matter if the citations were extremely reliable, Wikipedia seems to be making a fact claim here which is entirely POV-pushing to its core. Even if this article was meant as an essay from the pro-choice perspective, it hasn't even demonstrated that pro-life organizations are creating misinformation, the lead even says there's still some controversy, not only does this wording fail NPOV standards, even if it was a positional essay, I think it would still be pretty lousy. I don't care if this one author personally feels that pro-lifers are deceptive on this issue, or even if he is some historian who got his book on PubMed, that doesn't make him reliable enough to usurp WP:NPOV whenever people want him to. If it was attributing an accusation, that might be ok if this person is highly notable. But it isn't attributing the statement, it is simply making it out as if it were absolute fact. What does "Expense of science" even mean anyway?
- A lot of words to say, reference this uncontroversial statement. Refed with JASEN. Expense of science means, science becomes secondary to politics, POV and misinformation. Wikipedia is usually pretty dry, a little flavor couldn't hurt? - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- A little flavor might not necessarily be bad, but the wording here makes this flavor out to be fact. Homestarmy 16:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- A lot of words to say, reference this uncontroversial statement. Refed with JASEN. Expense of science means, science becomes secondary to politics, POV and misinformation. Wikipedia is usually pretty dry, a little flavor couldn't hurt? - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- Next, the Pseudoscience thing. Although I haven't had the pleasure of participating heavily in fun Pseudoscience type articles, (I tend to shy away from fighting on Creationism related articles because its just so time consuming and there's easier ways to make Wikipedia better) I certainly get the gist of what makes a reliable Pseudoscience classification, and this reference is absolutly not it. The citation given is not scientific nor does it relate any testimony of the scientific community, it is a pro-choice advocacy website which has absolutly no reliable jurisdiction in scientific matters in and of itself at all, and therefore cannot reliably be used in this article or any other to label a topic absolutly as pseudoscientific. To make it worse, the person quoted is a mere Staff Attorney, who does not appear to have any scientific credentials whatsoever. For the article to, if i'm reading this right, label this hypothesis as pseudoscientific because of the testimony of a single staff attorney is compleatly wrong. Now, if the sentence read, "ABC is often referred to by pro-choice groups as Pseudoscience...." this would be ok. But "Is referred to as" with no attribution in the article reads very easily as a claim of fact. Also, the second half of the sentence appears to of been written as a counterbalance to the first half, and two POV wrongs don't make a right, just attribute both claims to references and I don't think there'd be a problem here.
- It can and should be used as a reflection of pro-choice perceptions, but broader referencing would indeed be more robust. Refed. This is the "Politicization" section after all; it doesn't have to be a scientific reference(s). I don't consider the second half a POV, clarify please. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- The second part with "despite" leading it off made it seem like it was there to say that although the ABC hypothesis is considered pseudoscience, this study clearly indicates otherwise, and if it was actually pseudoscience as the sentence seemed to be saying before, then if some study was indicating otherwise legitimatly, (I assumed that since there was no qualification on the counter, that this counterpoint was considered legitimate) that would contradict the claim of pseudosciece. The new wording is still vauge, (It just seemed to say "some say" in the diff I saw) exactly who labels it as pseudoscience seems to be limited to pro-choice organizations instead of an open-ended "some". Homestarmy 16:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- some > pro-choice organizations Heh, being specific indeed would be helpful in the article. - RoyBoy 800 20:02, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- The second part with "despite" leading it off made it seem like it was there to say that although the ABC hypothesis is considered pseudoscience, this study clearly indicates otherwise, and if it was actually pseudoscience as the sentence seemed to be saying before, then if some study was indicating otherwise legitimatly, (I assumed that since there was no qualification on the counter, that this counterpoint was considered legitimate) that would contradict the claim of pseudosciece. The new wording is still vauge, (It just seemed to say "some say" in the diff I saw) exactly who labels it as pseudoscience seems to be limited to pro-choice organizations instead of an open-ended "some". Homestarmy 16:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- It can and should be used as a reflection of pro-choice perceptions, but broader referencing would indeed be more robust. Refed. This is the "Politicization" section after all; it doesn't have to be a scientific reference(s). I don't consider the second half a POV, clarify please. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "Scientists are put under significant pressure and criticism if their results contradict the current consensus of no ABC association. This is illustrated by an interview with Dr. Daling that was published on September 28th, 1997 by the Los Angeles Daily News. In it she made the following statement" Are they now? According to whom? Ah, it seems according to nobody, after all, surely if Wikipedia says it, it has to be true, and we can just get by with an illustration to help demonstrate our truth claims, even with the top part of the article compleatly contradicting it with other truth claims. No, seriously, this is unnatributed POV pushing as well without any mention of who makes the accusations about pressure and criticism, and why does "Dr. Daling" get a big quote anyway? I don't see how a quote out of a single newspaper article warrents being the only thing quoted on this topic. The reference given isn't even about Dr. Daling, and doesn't say why this doctor is even important, the reference itself is an article written by another doctor, why not quote the person who wrote the article if anyone at all?
- Seriously, you're good at this. Removed scientist, ref new version. (search for "uncritical" in JASEN ref, do you consider that sufficient? As to Dr. Daling, she is a notable pro-choice ABC researcher; Dr. Angela Lanfranchi isn't. The quote is one of the few instances of a researcher publicly commenting on their experience publishing positive ABC results; making it unique and notable. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- It might be nice to note in the article that Dr. Daling is a highly notable pro-choice reasercher, that was only mentioned much in the reference itself, not the article. Homestarmy 16:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- Wikilinked to her section below Is that sufficient... actually is that even allowed, to Wikilink to another part of the article. I suppose so, since that's what the TOC does. - RoyBoy 800 20:02, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- It might be nice to note in the article that Dr. Daling is a highly notable pro-choice reasercher, that was only mentioned much in the reference itself, not the article. Homestarmy 16:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- Seriously, you're good at this. Removed scientist, ref new version. (search for "uncritical" in JASEN ref, do you consider that sufficient? As to Dr. Daling, she is a notable pro-choice ABC researcher; Dr. Angela Lanfranchi isn't. The quote is one of the few instances of a researcher publicly commenting on their experience publishing positive ABC results; making it unique and notable. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- The thing with congress is almost ok, "congressman" should be "congressmen", and it ought to say that its the United States congress that's being talked about here. Also, what exactly was the result of Kindley's law review? Finally, i'm not entirely certain why exactly what these congressman were doing is relevant, the paragraph doesn't give me much to go on as to why it was important to the issue of the ABC hypothesis, if its just about the National Cancer Institute, that seems somewhat off-topic.
- Added US Congress. The result of the Kindley review is the actions taken by those in congress, and some lawsuits. It's relevant in that politics and the ABC issue are more heavily involved than most people realize. Does it also serve to put the NCI in a lackluster/defensive light, yup, off-topic? Can't see why, since it involves their historic position on ABC research. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- Eh, it just seemed too NCI-centric, but that might be debateable, I don't think i'd come back and fail the article again just for this if I saw it still around its present form, it just seemed off to me, so I commented on it. Homestarmy 16:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- Added US Congress. The result of the Kindley review is the actions taken by those in congress, and some lawsuits. It's relevant in that politics and the ABC issue are more heavily involved than most people realize. Does it also serve to put the NCI in a lackluster/defensive light, yup, off-topic? Can't see why, since it involves their historic position on ABC research. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "The National Cancer Institute (NCI) conducted a workshop to evaluate the scientific evidence regarding the abortion-breast cancer hypothesis. This was done in response to alterations to the NCI website by the Bush administration in November 2002.[26] The workshop concluded that the evidence was well-established that abortion did not increase a woman's risk of breast cancer.[6]" The first reference seems rather poor, althought it is from a government committee, it is quite a POV source, which although cites its sources on some facts, gives a very POV interpretation of the facts when it isn't necessary for the sentence being referenced in the article, it specifically cites the National Cancer Institute several times and the letters sent by congressman, I think it would be much better to cite the article's cites directly instead. Other than that, might want to make it more clear that the NCI didn't do this directly because of the administration, but because some congressman wanted action, its a bit unclear about that.
- Good call. Expanded. I can also use oversight ref for NCI, Planned Parenthood, Melbye, refing below. Man, you did a lot of reading! - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- The entire next paragraph confuses me. Do these workshops work like courts with dissenting opinions that way? And who is Melbye? And how did Dr. Daling re-appear, he's only introduced as what seems to be a compleatly random quote above. Also, I don't understand "and preterm delivery was listed as an epidemiological "gap"" at all, these medical terms aren't easy on alot of people. The last sentence is unattributed and confusing, so what if he was invited as well, his point was that "many invited scientists" had a conflict of interest, not all of them. The rest is a good point however, which is a problem, as the article should be attributing the points of other people, not making a point on its very own.
- Not like courts, but they do solicit opinions of experts. As to people introductions, I could move them from below; I thought people could learn about them from the rest of the article. (the entire science section use to be reversed, with NCI at the bottom, after the scientific research and doctor introductions) Removed point(s) until a citation is found.
- "...but this article covers relevant recent ABC research history..." Self-reference bad.
- Removed. RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "... the large cohort studies and then finishing in 1980 with the first rat study" What's a cohort study?
- Wikilinked. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "The majority of the results in epidemiologic scientific studies are calculated as a relative risk with 1.0 being 0% followed by a 95% confidence interval. This means a relative risk of 1.51 (0.93-1.87) is a 51% increased risk with a 95% chance that the actual risk is within the range given" This scares me. Not just because I have no idea what it means, but that the vocabulary and terminology usage has suddenly ratcheted up like 5 or 6 grade levels from the rest of the article. epidemiologic? Relative risk to what? what's being followed with 0 percent? "Confidence interval"? Less numbers, more words of lower vocabulary level, prefereably with a citation, since there isn't one and for all I know, these numbers just got made up out of thin air.
- Wikilinked, reworked entire intro. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "Genetics is a major factor which plays a role in the long list of socioeconomic factors. " Ehh, if socioecnomic means social + economic factors, i'm not sure what the economy has to do with one's DNA structure.
- Yeah, that was really awkward. Clarified, refed. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- The next few sentences appear to be addressing the reader, hardly encyclopedic. It says something needs to be done without saying who says it, the usage of "you" is also a tip-off. Also, the difficulties of the issue are only cited with one thing, so as far as this article is concerned, the only verified source calling the examination of this article difficult is that one institute. Besides, what's the point of the sentence? Trying to justify Wikipedia's possible lack of ability to adequalty cover the topic? That definently doesn't seem encyclopedic.
- Reworded, more wikilinks. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "...but they do not significantly affect the results of ABC studies that are properly conducted and take these factors into account with case-control matching." What is case-control matching?
- Wikilinked, removed interviews as confusing. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "The controversial nature of abortion may introduce response bias into interview studies; especially for studies done in decades past when abortion was less accepted." According to....?
- Re-add excellent old ref.[1] - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "It should be noted the overall incidence does not effect ABC studies with proper controls because the case and control subjects would be equally affected." Should be noted according to....? There's no need to make things up to make the article more compleate, if what you want to write simply doesn't have any references for it, then it means that it probably isn't considered very important to the subject by important sources, and it doesn't need to be included.
- Agreed. Though I have seen it used by lay people as a solid rationale for no ABC link. Removed. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "The Melbye study's conclusions garnered great attention from the media and many organizations such as the NCI and Planned Parenthood, who use it as a foundation to argue that the best scientific evidence does not support an ABC link." Apparently not enough attention for there to be references....
- :"D Refs added. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "The relative risk after statistical adjustment came to 1.00 (0.94 to 1.06). This led to the conclusion that "induced abortions have no overall effect on the risk of breast cancer." Because the terms introduced that are about the studies are very confusing, I doubt most readers will have any idea why this would indicate a result contradictory to the ABC hypothesis.
- Hmmmmm. Expanded. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "In a large cohort study it is necessary to account for confounding factors that may have increased over time. For example, if oral contraceptives affected breast cancer rates 40 year old women in 1990 (young birth-cohort) would have a higher incidence of breast cancer than 40 year olds in 1970 (older birth-cohort), as the older cohort had little to no access to oral contraceptives during their reproductive years." According to whom, and who gives the example? To tell you the truth, I don't think giving an example itself would necessarily be OR if it has good similarities to the principles given in a reference attributing the fact in question, but without a reference, well....oh, and if the reference at the bottom is actually covering this whole paragraph, how authoritative is this website? It doesn't sound like a medical organization per se, though I can't check it through our school's firewall.
- The reference merely covers the last sentence. Removed/rewrote explanation as redundant and long, insert more letter and study refs. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "Drs. Senghas and Dolan questioned why a statistically significant result for induced...." Whoa there, who's Senghas?
- It's been a while since I've taken out my stack of studies. They come from Weston, MA; apart from that I get very little from online browsing. Tweaked out names for "letter to the editor".
- "Here is the first section of Table 1...." Self-reference, though not a GA concern. However, is the text below that table copied from the study? It looks very inconsistant with other parts of the article, and seems to fit a bit too neatly with the table to be OR....
- Tweaked. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- I won't even go into the next studies, as I don't think that'll be necessary, why exactly should every single one of these studies be in this article with so much detail? There's such a thing as too much information here, and by listing study after study after study like this, it really seems to get away from the topic of the ABC hypothesis and instead is just concerned with talking about individual studies, especially because there's so much detail, its almost like each study should have its own article. And then, that would need some summary style here. That goes for some of the meta-analysis stuff too, and the interview based studies.
- Well, summary style is being used already. Sigh, will work on it... but it wasn't easy bringing together the ABC scientific debate into one article. Was it a mistake to do so? Well, it goes against articles being short and to the point, but follows the goal of articles being comprehensive and complete. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- It's not that the scientific debate itself is a problem here, its just that when I read this, it was just so much about the science and how the science was executed on this matter that it seemed overboard. Does each study already have an article, I didn't assume so since there were no main templates.... Homestarmy 16:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- Correct, no main articles. Come to think of it; I don't think studies are allowed to be put on Wikipedia; maybe Wikisource? But it would be pretty sweet if a WikiProject started, tracking criticism of published studies and allowing a much more open examination and discussion of scientific research. - RoyBoy 800 01:21, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
- It's not that the scientific debate itself is a problem here, its just that when I read this, it was just so much about the science and how the science was executed on this matter that it seemed overboard. Does each study already have an article, I didn't assume so since there were no main templates.... Homestarmy 16:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- Well, summary style is being used already. Sigh, will work on it... but it wasn't easy bringing together the ABC scientific debate into one article. Was it a mistake to do so? Well, it goes against articles being short and to the point, but follows the goal of articles being comprehensive and complete. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "Furthermore, women in the control group are more likely to have no serious illnesses, and hence have less motivation to be truthful than those trying to diagnose their problem. If this occurred then it would artificially create an ABC link where none existed." According to who concerning the three facts proposed.....?
- I think someone tweaked that and I didn't notice. Tweaked and refed. Response bias should also clarify this, but it currently does not elaborated on the epidemiological aspect of the term. I actually did that for recall bias, but it doesn't belong there, removed! I love how things can balloon on Wikipedia. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- Three more studies under the response bias part in a similar state to the one's already listed above. This article should primarily be about ABC, and after reading all this stuff about studies, I get the impression it starts out being about ABC, and turns into an article about how to conduct studies on the issue, what happened in every single study on the issue, what were the technical details of every study, etc. etc., and all this is very distracting from the topic when its done in such humungous detail. I'm not saying slice out everything, but radically slim this stuff down, and don't have individual sections for studies unless they were super ultra important and notable and are the most frequently cited or criticized for the purposes of this hypothesis.
- You make solid point, but if the devil is in the details it is something I'd rather have too much of, than not enough. ABC is not a light topic; while trying to summarize things is certainly the stylistic goal at Wikipedia, I will not consciously remove one pertinent aspect of a study that cannot be easily accessed. What a cohort study is, can be easily accessed on Wikipedia... other details might be located all over the place; or worded in even more lengthy complicated prose. Maybe implemented after easy stuff taken care of. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- What's up with this lawsuit section? All it was was that an Abortion clinic used an outdated fact sheet, the judge found that this made them not liable for the possibly wrong information contained therein, there's even a ref stating the plaintiff didn't even read the brochure at all, and with so much pro-choice language in all these quotes, this whole section appears not only worthless to the topic, but changing the whole POV of the article to decidely pro-choice. It doesn't even look like the judges ruled at all on whether ABC was fact or fiction.
- Which is the point (your last sentence). It is the most notable legal case on the ABC issue, and has to be covered. It also emphasizes that while the case was lost by pro-lifers, the abortion clinic did end up updating/correcting their brochure. I think the section is solidly NPOV, as it balances out the opposing viewpoints and helps clarify how it can be hard to figure out who has the moral high ground. Frankly how you can miss the pro-choice lawyer sounding zealous and dismissive, while the pro-life lawyer sounds reasonable and inclusive; is more than a little confusing to me, and indicates you focused on things you didn't and confused the point of the section as a weakness and/or pointless. It is neither. Unchanged. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- Seems odd that the most notable case was barely about ABC anyway since the lawsuits just got failed not for ABC itself but because of things the plaintiff did which made her claim suspicious, but all the quotes started seeming pro-choice, so I didn't realize that pro-life lawyer quote was actually pro-life at all, the plaintiffs name was weird and I guess I didn't see it. It looks like it could be the kind of thing said by both sides really. Homestarmy 16:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- I understand. Yes, it's pretty unfortunate both sides don't say/follow that philosophy. - RoyBoy 800 01:10, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
- Seems odd that the most notable case was barely about ABC anyway since the lawsuits just got failed not for ABC itself but because of things the plaintiff did which made her claim suspicious, but all the quotes started seeming pro-choice, so I didn't realize that pro-life lawyer quote was actually pro-life at all, the plaintiffs name was weird and I guess I didn't see it. It looks like it could be the kind of thing said by both sides really. Homestarmy 16:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- Which is the point (your last sentence). It is the most notable legal case on the ABC issue, and has to be covered. It also emphasizes that while the case was lost by pro-lifers, the abortion clinic did end up updating/correcting their brochure. I think the section is solidly NPOV, as it balances out the opposing viewpoints and helps clarify how it can be hard to figure out who has the moral high ground. Frankly how you can miss the pro-choice lawyer sounding zealous and dismissive, while the pro-life lawyer sounds reasonable and inclusive; is more than a little confusing to me, and indicates you focused on things you didn't and confused the point of the section as a weakness and/or pointless. It is neither. Unchanged. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- "These state laws put up further barriers to elective abortion,[74] and critics charge that they have the real potential to misinform women of the actual risks of the procedure." Non-neutral, POV pushing use of pro-choice source to cast abortion as a victim....again. "Critics" is also unattributed, just remove the first part entirely in its present form, its ridiculous anyway, the laws can only be barriers if they deny or impede people's access to abortion. Of course, if pro-choice groups nationwide agree with that interpretation, who am I to recommend that their sillyness be absent from this section, but currently, Wikipedia's phrasing affirms this as absolute fact here.
- Ref 74 and "state laws" is speaking to general tactics of abortion movement, not specifically to ABC issue. As to "misinform", I had a ref that specifically said that... if I remember correctly I got it from the original AP Yahoo link that eventually went dead. Dangit. Removed, rewritten and old ABC ref re-added. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- A conclusion section? There should not be conclusions in Wikipedia articles that are made by Wikipedia, this isn't supposed to be a term paper, Wikipedia shouldn't be making conclusions about anything anywhere, only reporting the conclusions of other people, and by using differing references to bring together a conclusion not present in the references, it is, in my opinion anyway, a textbook example of WP:OR. If some notable organizations all made some sort of unifying conclusion on this hypothesis, then reporting on their conclusion would be notable, but only in terms of Wikipedia reporting on other people's conclusions, not in terms of Wikipedia stringing together refs and making its own OR conclusions.
- Removed. Cut and pasted below for possible future integration. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Ok, basically, this article probably needs a pretty bug chunk of work for it to be a GA. Overall things i'd do would include removing most of the material in all of the study-related sections except for the stuff most directly relevant to the ABC hypothesis, so all of the technical stuff could easily be removed and put in sub-articles concerning the studies, that will remove a whole bunch of really difficult technical content, and yet leave more than enough things that should be helpful from the studies which have to do with the topic at hand. Focusing on the conclusions of the studies rather than the nitty gritty details is what I think would help here. The POV problems i've highlighted are pretty bad, but probably easier to solve than the studies thing. Homestarmy 17:42, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks for the detailed review Homestarmy. I'm not sure quite where we go with this as you are correct that this is a very scientifically worded article. I feel that is its strength as it explains the issue using the available data rather than quote mining from pro and anti abortion pamphlets. Its a difficult subject but I feel the only way to walk the NPOV line is to focus on the science. By lowering the language there is a real danger of stepping into OR territory with interpreting what the range and limitation of theses studies are. I personally would rather forego the GA than loose the detail and clarity that we currently have. RoyBoy is the guy who needs to consider this though as he has written most of this. Sophia 18:24, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
- Tremendous review, a little snarky... but I've been snarky more times and I can count doing this article. Also helps provide motivation to do something about it, responses within review for readability and traceability. Mistakes are mine, and likely the result of a lack of sleep. - RoyBoy 800 20:23, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
- I replied to these points in reverse order, so more mistake; but it helped make it less daunting... I just scrolled up and addressed each, as best I could for now. I really appreciate the time, and obvious care you have put into reading references and double checking things. Please recognize, that while the article obviously needs some more work; I have absorbed a lot of information on the ABC issue, and that just because everything isn't attributed directly doesn't mean it is off the wall. :"D Unless it is... then um, you wrote it and forgot! Joking!!! Look forward to working further with you on this important subject. God I'm tired, insomnia picked a horrible week to strike me. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- Eh, well, the article topic motivated me to really give it a thorough review, but it's only the second time i've done a review that identifies so much, ordinarily, I stop reviewing most articles and just give the fail when I haven't even made a list half this long :/. And then, the first time, I did only start out with like the top third of American Civil War, but then when someone surprisingly fixed everything, I was obliged to do the whole thing, and that was like the size of three of these reviews, so I guess i'm getting more proficient at really going at articles now. Homestarmy 22:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
- I'll say! Thanks again Homestarmy, hopefully you'll stick around a bit for continued feedback. - RoyBoy 800 03:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
- I would call in another person to help, because i'm not actually amazingly proficient at reviewing things when science is too deeply involved, (It's just most of the errors so far didn't seem to have to do with the science as much as how it was being presented in the article) but I don't know any GA reviewers who do much with these kinds of articles.... Homestarmy 16:07, 3 May 2007 (UTC)