Talk:Efrat (organization)

NPOV

This article has major NPOV and sourcing problems and should be rewritten.

I removed this part: "Efrat is not political and believes in empowering women to make informed decisions regarding their pregnancy. The women Efrat supports often feel that before learning of Efrat they were led to believe they have no choice but to terminate their pregnancy. Efrat provides them hope and continued support."

How can an organization that distributes an anti-abortion propaganda film to all members of the Israeli parliament not be political? Preventing an abortion is political, even more so in that part of the planet. "who was concerned ... that unnecessary abortions were causing the Jewish population to decline." https://i.imgur.com/jOOPALV.jpeg

"empowering women to make informed decisions" is a really weird way of saying they are trying to convince them to do what they want them to do. This is not a neutral way to describe attempts to prevent abortions.

"were led to believe they have no choice but to terminate their pregnancy" Yet another unsourced claim

"Efrat provides them hope and continued support." Promotional language

Polygnotus (talk) 08:20, 19 February 2024‎ (UTC)

I have wondered what "non-political" means. The organization has been called pronatalist, which is a political position. They are concerned about demographic shifts, which is a political position. They try to influence people's lives, which is a political action. (Writing a Wikipedia article is equally a political action; teaching someone to read, or training them in job skills, or giving them healthful food, or showing respect to marginalized people, are all also political actions.) They help some women enact their reproductive preferences, which is a political action. They try to influence public opinion about the acceptable excuses for an abortion (e.g., a severe fetal birth defect is an acceptable reasons, but simple poverty is not).

But: They do not seem to be associated with any particular political party, they do not seem to be interested in additional legal restrictions on abortion (and have publicly advocated for reducing some legal restrictions), and they do not seem be organizing political protests.

Depending on what you mean by the word political, they either are, or aren't "political". I think we should avoid that word, and try to be more specific. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:39, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

A lot of the choices you make every day are, in some way, political. Do you eat meat? Do you drive a car? Do you pray? (Don't answer, I am making a point ) The idea that they are nonpolitical is just silly. Some groups are not associated with a specific political party, but they are associated with a set of political ideas (and ideals). A source says: "Efrat initially promoted general pronatalist policies and social norms, rather than anti-abortion legislation. However, by 1965, Efrat was actively calling for stricter enforcement of dormant abortion prohibitions. " Polygnotus (talk) 06:04, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I agree. I think that we should say "pronatalist" and "they advocated for/against ____" instead of "political".

(Another problem: I've seen at least four different years given as the founding year [1962, 1963, 1970, and 1977]. If it's either of the latter two, then they weren't doing anything in 1965.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:45, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Money

The article states:

"Most abortions in Israel are motivated by financial difficulties, rather than the desire to not be pregnant or to not have children."

The first source did not support the claim made in the article, and I removed it.

The second source says: "Statistics show that the majority of abortions in Israel are performed due to financial problems, and this is the source of Dr. Schussheim’s rallying cry: “You don’t end a life because of money!”"

The third source explains where this claim came from: "According to Schussheim, 60 percent of Israeli abortions stem from financial concerns."

Schussheim is the ex-president of Efrat.

Polygnotus (talk) 08:40, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

AFAICT Schussheim was the president of Efrat until he died. Describing him as an "ex-president" feels like calling someone's widow his ex-wife; it has the wrong tone. Ex-presidents are people that were rejected, not people who left the role on good terms.

I am concerned about turning "Statistics show that the majority of abortions in Israel are performed due to financial problems" into a statement that is only "According to one person..." At the time that many of these sources were written, it was illegal in Israel to get an officially sanctioned abortion for financial reasons. (Also, half of abortions in Israel were done illegally, i.e., without the sanction of the committee that was legally unable to permit a legal abortion for financial reasons. These may be in normal medical clinics by fully qualified and experienced medical professionals, but they're still "illegal" due not having the paperwork done.) Are there any competing viewpoints on this? Are there credible researchers who say that most abortions in Israel are for non-financial reasons? If not, then we should not provide misleading WP:INTEXT attribution. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:31, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Please watchlist this page (if you haven't already) so I don't have to ping you.

Interesting thought about the connotations of "ex-president". Do you have any suggestions on how to improve that? Would "Schussheim, who used to be the president of..." be better for example? Polygnotus (talk) 06:14, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that would work. We could also say "Schussheim, the then-president..." or "Schussheim, the former president...", "Schussheim, speaking as the president of the organization in 2012...", "Schussheim, who was the president from 1977 until his death in 2021..." – I think that pretty much anything will work except "ex-", which has unpleasant connotations, or "late", which will confuse most non-native English speakers (who may think he's unpunctual, rather than former/dead). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:51, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't like "The then-" at the start of a sentence because it interrupts the flow, so I used "former". Polygnotus (talk) 12:15, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for this edit. "..abortions were technically illegal in Israel but were being done illegally..." Is it true that abortions were not "technically" illegal but just straight up illegal? Can we remove the word "technically"? Polygnotus (talk) 06:23, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I removed the word technically because before the penal code of 1977 abortion was illegal. Polygnotus (talk) 06:26, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Abortions pre-1977 seem to have been illegal but largely unprosecuted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:54, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

That part should be rewritten. I found better sources. Polygnotus (talk) 06:34, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Criticism section

The criticism section appears to be a criticism-debunk section with gems like:

"The latter criticism is directly contradicted by the facts"

"Another criticism was that the organization would station women outside offices where abortion permits are issued, with the aim of appealing to women visiting the offices.[citation needed] Efrat does not station women outside of clinics where abortions take place"

An office where the permits are issued is not a clinic.

Polygnotus (talk) 09:49, 19 February 2024‎ (UTC)

I thought that section was pretty lousy, but I didn't want to simply blank the criticism before taking the time to see whether any of it was verifiable. (No good sources were cited for any of it.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:41, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Better sources

https://www.jpost.com/national-news/activists-protest-granting-award-to-pro-life-group

mentions some of the criticism and the shooting

https://www.rd.nl/oud/010131home.html?pg=kl%2F010131kl05.html

mentions the methods of Efrat.

https://www.jpost.com/national-news/feminists-to-protest-anti-abortion-groups-prize

mentions the award-related protest, the shooting

https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/legacy/enews/2014/12/uc-research-examines-efforts-to-combat-abortion-in-israel--financial-incentives-vs-moral-persuasion.html

"Raucher's research reveals that in contrast to other pro-life organizations around the world, privately funded Efrat offers financial support only to Jewish Israeli women and calls into question two primary concerns:

• Efrat's moral position toward abortion as responding to competing challenges in Israeli society: pro-natalism on the one hand and the financial support that large Jewish families require on the other.

• Efrat's paradoxical approach to abortion commodifies a Jewish baby for the sake of claiming it has infinite worth in the demographic war with an ever-increasing Arab-Muslim population.

In an interview with Raucher's colleague Rebecca Steinfeld, an independent scholar originally from Stanford University, Dr. Eli Schussheim, director of Efrat explained that he has approached the Israeli government with the request to divert money away from 'external aliyah,' or encouraging Jews to immigrate, and move it towards 'inner aliyah' through abortion prevention. He says this is the only way to compete with the Arab birth rate in Israel. Schussheim says, 'We should imitate the Arabs; we should make higher births like the Arabs; we should reduce the abortions."

...

"The paradoxical irony, however, is that many of these women already have large families with low income and according to Raucher, in spite of Efrat's help, they still eventually end up on welfare subsidy."

So that claim about being non-political...

Searching for sources in English is complicated because Efrat is also a place and a name. Polygnotus (talk) 12:29, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

---

In 1962, in response to well publicized declines in the rate of Jewish births, Efrat, the anti-abortion group noted above, was established. Its full name at the time was "Efrat - Association for the Encouragement of Fertility among the Jewish People." Efrat initially promoted general pronatalist policies and social norms, rather than anti-abortion legislation. However, by 1965, Efrat was actively calling for stricter enforcement of dormant abortion prohibitions.

---

Wars of the Wombs: Struggles Over Abortion Policies in Israel

In 2000, Haredi MKs disrupted a meeting on abortion of the Knesset’s Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women to distribute material from Efrat, and Shas MK Nissim Ze’ev demanded members of Efrat be allowed to sit on abortion committees. But this demand was unsuc- cessful.98 Meanwhile Efrat has enjoyed only limited official support: It is referred cases by social workers,99 entitled to National Service volunteers, and Schussheim claimed that current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asked to meet with him in 1996, and expressed agreement with Efrat’s position.100 But it has not received direct assistance, its activities have not become official policy, and it is important to note that an array of other organizations is also entitled to National Service volunteers.101

---

{{cite journal |ref=none |no-tracking=yes<!-- prevents error categorization --> |last=Zack-Pakes |first=Joanne |date=31 July 1998 |title=Abortion in Israel |work=NCJW Journal |publisher=National Council of Jewish Women |location=New York |page=6 |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/229503392?sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals |access-date= |isbn= |issn=0161-2115 |oclc= }}

The anti-abortion movement in Israel is led by Efrat, a non-profit organization centered in Jerusalem. Public information campaigns encouraging continuation of an unplanned pregnancy as well as financial assistance to those women with an unplanned pregnancy are the main methods Efrat uses to influence women not to abort. Unlike the United States where violence has been used against abortion providers, the tactics utilized by Efrat are directed at the women seeking an abortion: instilling fear regarding the risks of abortion and its potential to make women infertile, and guilt regarding "killing" the unborn child. There have been several headline-making incidents of Efrat volunteers harassing women applying for abortions in hospitals by pulling out pictures of fetuses in order to intimidate them.

Religion

Imported problem definitions, legal culture and the local dynamics of Israeli abortion politics contains the following:

Speaking to the incentives to camouflage the religious motivations behind anti-abortion positions, a 1984 editorial in a newsletter published by Efrat, the primary group active in the anti abortion front, stated:

We should develop ideas and present facts before the general public. We should not use religious arguments in front of them. There are plenty of philosophical, moral, demographic and health reasons to oppose abortions. ... Religious justifications may lead the secular public to think that this is just another religious observance.

page 232

I'm not sure that the above quotation proves that they're secretly religious. It could equally be read to prove that they were promoting secularism 40 years ago. The last sentence in that quotation, for example, strikes me as saying this is a problem that affects all Jews, including the secular ones, so we shouldn't package it up like it's only something for religious Jews to care about.

Here's another source:

EFRAT is not explicitly religious....Ruti [an assistant director] also often fields these questions, and she answers, "No we are not a religious organization. We are a Jewish organization. What she means by this is that “we would never use religion as a reason. We would never come to women with a Jewish legal reason why she shouldn't have an abortion." Although they are concerned about abortion rates among Jews, this antiabortion organization is not concerned with the legalization of abortion or the procurement of an abortion because of religious or theological opposition to ending fetal life." [1] pg. 152

Overall, some of this reminds me of the If by whiskey problem with saying whether they're political. If by religious, you mean that the individuals involved are often religious themselves, then they're religious. Also, by that standard, the US Supreme Court is a Catholic institution, the Ivy league is (or was) Protestant Christian, and nearly every food bank in the US is a religious organization of one type or another. On the other hand, if by religious, you mean their day-to-day work is about spirituality and morality or religious rules (e.g., telling women that it's religiously wrong to have an abortion), then they don't seem to be religious at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:43, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I am pretty sure they are openly religious (hence the kippahs). Religious people can have an organization that uses non-religious arguments to argue against or in favour of something.

"secretly religious" sounds like they are trying to deceive us into thinking they are not religious people, and that is not the case at all.

Do you have access to the "Conceiving Agency"-book? I'd like to read it. Polygnotus (talk) 09:41, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I think we need to differentiate between "a religious person" and "a religious organization". Since wearing a kippah is common among Jewish men in Israel, and essentially universal among their main beneficiaries, it's hardly surprising that many of the men associated with the organization wear a kippah. But unless you also think a religious taxi driver automatically provides a religious ride to your destination, then we have no evidence that it is a religious organization. According to Religious organization, the primary work of a religious organization is to maintain a place of worship, to train and pay clergy members, to establish doctrine, to determine who belongs to the religion, and to discipline adherents who break with doctrine. I've seen no sources suggesting that they do any of this; have you?

I don't have access to the whole book, but between Google Books and Amazon, I've been able to read the cited pages. For example, page 153 describes what they mean by "unnecessary" abortions, and affirms their support for "necessary" abortions (also page 160). Page 155 says they tell women "how to procure an abortion" in case of a fetal anomaly, and page 158 has the donor-oriented advertisement. Page 161 could be used to support the story about the name of Miriam. Page 162 says each accepted woman is assigned a volunteer who "becomes a supportive friend" (it's mostly about the application process), and so forth. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:46, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Ad campaigns

Regretting Motherhood: A Sociopolitical Analysis

In practice, Efrat runs massive and wide-ranging campaigns in the press, on the radio, on billboards, and through pamphlets distributed to people’s homes and in hospitals —all of which are aimed at encouraging Jewish women to refrain from abortion.

p349

Polygnotus 22:27, 19 February 2024‎ (UTC)

I think this is an area that should be further developed, perhaps as a separate ==Section==. The recently removed information about slogans –

Their slogans include "A lack of money is no reason to end a life" and "We don't end a life because of money".

– fit in with this. They seem to do a lot of "hearts and minds" campaigning against obtaining an abortion for financial reasons. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:01, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Jewish Views on Abortion by Immanuel Jakobvits

The Criticism section contained the following

The latter criticism is directly contradicted by the facts — the religious stance of the organization{{fact|date=February 2024}} is that Jewish law ([[Halakha|halacha]]) actually ''requires'' abortion in a case that involves medical danger to the mother, as her life takes precedence over that of an unborn fetus.<ref>[[Immanuel Jakobovits]], [https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4366&context=caselrev Jewish Views on Abortion]</ref>

That PDF is interesting and worth reading, but it doesn't support the claim made in the article. Polygnotus (talk) 12:54, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

I glanced at that briefly once, and I don't remember seeing the organization's name mentioned anywhere in it. I have read many times that Judaism requires abortions in case of significant danger to the mother's life; in fact, this belief is the basis of a recent legal challenge against some legal restrictions in the US. I don't doubt that the statement is true overall, or that it's true with respect to this particular organization. However, I did not find that particular source to be appropriate for the implicit claim that this particular organization holds this particular view. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:55, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, we need to be careful with these things. There is no evidence that Efrat agrees 100% with this particular Rabbi. Jakobovits is also quoted in the Jewish views on homosexuality article by the way. Polygnotus (talk) 04:52, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Protests at clinics

The Criticism section contained the following:

Efrat does not station women outside of clinics where abortions take place.<ref name=":7">{{Cite news |last=Sales |first=Ben |date=26 February 2014 |title=Israeli group tries to prevent, not outlaw abortion: Efrat, whose leader describes himself as pro-choice, has never protested outside a gynecological clinic, nor does it plan to |url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-group-tries-to-prevent-not-outlaw-abortion/ |work=[[The Times of Israel]]}}</ref>

The article contains the sentence:

"Efrat has never protested outside a gynecological clinic, nor has it sought to restrict Israel’s fairly liberal abortion laws."

The TOI article, and this claim in particular, seems to be based purely on the word of Schussheim.

If we look at a more reliable source it says:

"Yaël Dayan, knessetlid en voorzitster van het knessetcomité voor de bevordering van de status van vrouwen in Israël, vindt dat er een wet moet komen die de wat zij noemt „commando's van Efrat” de toegang tot ziekenhuizen verbiedt. Ze zegt vele klachten te hebben gekregen van vrouwen die een abortus wilden plegen en werden lastig gevallen door de Efrat-activisten."

Which (Google) translates to :

"Yaël Dayan, Knesset member and chairwoman of the Knesset Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women in Israel, believes there should be a law banning what she calls “Efrat commandos” from entering hospitals. She says she has received many complaints from women who wanted to have an abortion and were harassed by the Efrat activists." Polygnotus (talk) 13:06, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

@Polygnotus, I really appreciate your help with this article. Can you tell me why you think a quotation from a politician in a 22-year-old article in the Reformatorisch Dagblad (a conservative Christian publication in the Netherlands) is "more reliable" than The Times of Israel for information about what happens in Israel?

I'm also a little nervous about assuming that a slangy reference to "Efrat commandos" actually means an activity organized by the organization itself, rather than people in the anti-abortion movement in general. For a while in the US, anti-abortion activists were commonly described as Operation Rescue protesters regardless of actual affiliation, and I believe something similar has been experienced by most groups with strong name recognition, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Greenpeace, ACT UP – even Wikipedia, which was blamed for Wikileaks' existence for several years. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:51, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

The TOI article seems to be based purely on the word of Schussheim. Which would not be a problem if everything Schussheim said was 100% correct and noncontroversial. The Reformatorisch Dagblad is known for being very nitpicky and precise. I don't agree with them on a religious and philosopical level, but they are not liars (to a fault). They would never make a joke if it was factually incorrect. Their article is based on The Jerusalem Report, which is "an editorially independent biweekly newsmagazine that offers original journalism from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world." & "Founded as an independent weekly publication in 1990, it now publishes 24 issues a year under the corporate umbrella of The Jerusalem Post Group, but remains editorially independent of The Jerusalem Post." https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report

PETA sucks. I am most likely not gonna quote the commandos thing verbatim. There are multiple sources that talk about Efrats activities in hospitals. Polygnotus (talk) 05:03, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

RD wasn't making the joke. They were very accurately and precisely quoting someone else who may (or may not) have been nitpicky and precise. If a politician tells a newspaper that unnamed women told the politician that they were, at some unknown point in time and at some unstated location(s), harassed by unidentified people whom the unnamed women allegedly believed were affiliated with Efrat, the newspaper is unlikely to track down the unnamed women and insist that the unidentified people be identified so that the newspaper can determine whether the unidentified people are really affiliated with Efrat. They're just going to be very picky about whether the politician really told the newspaper this. Fact checking for quotations isn't about whether the politician told the truth; it's about whether those words came out of the politcian's mouth.

The problem with these multiple sources is that AFAICT every single one of them is hearsay. Every single one of them says something like "She says she has received many complaints [from people who might be mistaken]", and not a single one of them says anything even remotely close to "I'm an Efrat volunteer, and we organized that protest" or "The investigative report says the police identified the anti-abortion activists and confirmed that they were associated with Efrat". (In the case of the teen attempted murder–suicide event, there was definitely at least one significant investigation.)

And we do have multiple sources saying things like "Efrat does not send representatives to visit pregnant women in hospitals" or that Efrat has never held a political protest. I am therefore not sure that we should be too confident that the unsupported allegations are accurate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:58, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Incorrect year in Awards

I can't access the source to pull the correct date, but the date is wrong in the Awards section. Maybe it was meant to say 2012? BaduFerreira (talk) 15:01, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

 Fixed, it was right at the end of 2012 Polygnotus (talk) 15:11, 19 February 2024 (UTC)