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

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, this discussion will take place for one month. In that time, 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. When the possible titles are finalised, the issue will be put to a vote; this will be closed by three neutral administrators whom the Arbitration Committee will appoint.

Being a structured discussion, it is expected that a certain level of decorum will be maintained, and that discussion will stay on topic. The format of the discussion is relatively simple, and will be conducted in two stages. The three proposed variants of titles will be presented, and members of the community may add reasoned arguments in the appropriate section in favour of that title variant, which is to be backed up with policy, and references, as appropriate. After a period of time, the community will be asked to vote on the titles; three administrators (HJ Mitchell, Black Kite and EyeSerene) will close this vote and the result will be binding for a period of three years.

It is advised to maintain decorum on this page, discussing issues in a civilized manner and staying on topic. If you have any questions about the process, feel free to leave a message on our talk pages, or at Misplaced Pages:Arbitration/Requests/Clarification. Regards, Steven Zhang (talk · contribs) and Whenaxis (talk · contribs)

Arguments and policies in favour of Pro-choice movement / Pro-life movement

Sources

Policy based arguments

On the other hand, we use anti-nuclear movement rather than disarmament movement.
  • Straight Google for pro-life +abortion gives 61 million hits.
  • Straight Google for pro-choice +abortion gives 31 million hits.

Arguments and policies in favour of Abortion-rights movement / Anti-abortion movement

Sources

  • BBC (UK) "Apple denies claims that Siri is anti-abortion"
  • Economic Times (India) "Some suspected Siri of being anti-abortion but Apple rallied to explain that the innovative "personal assistant" in iPhones is a work in progress"
  • Fox News (USA) "Apple's Siri Is Not Anti-Abortion"
  • The Guardian (UK) "Except it isn't. Anti-abortion that is."
  • Straits Times (Singapore) "Apple's voice software Siri irks abortion rights advocates"
  • South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) (As above for pro-choice) "There are hundreds of ways to make a political, anti-abortion statement."
  • The Hindu (India) "The letter said that first of all abortion should not be referred to as foeticide, which had anti-abortion implications"
  • The Economist (UK) "In April 2011 he signed a broad anti-abortion bill." and "Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights."
  • New York Times (USA) "a rule that anti-abortion forces hope will cause some women to change their minds"
  • China Post (Taiwan) (same as above) "Organizing the anti-abortion protest was March for Life"
  • The Star (Malaysia) "Apple's Siri irks abortion rights advocates"
  • ArsTechnica (USA) "the company was showing an anti-abortion stance in its search results"
  • AFP "like the anti-abortion crusade and limits on gay marriage are written into the law of the land"
  • Indian Express (India) "Tech glitch, or is Apple’s Siri anti-abortion?"

Policy based arguments

  • Preferred by the AP Stylebook - "Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice. Avoid abortionist, which connotes a person who performs clandestine abortions."
  • Abortion rights is more precise than pro-choice as pro-choice is used to refer to things other than Abortion. A straight Google for pro-choice -abortion gives 230 million results, vs only 30 million with the word abortion. The top hit for me (I'm in the UK) is for a recruitment firm in Nottingham.
  • Anti abortion is a bit more precise than pro-life. A Straight Google for pro-life -abortion gives 788 million hits, and although quite a few are about conservative groups they aren't explicitly about abortion - although the top hit for me (I'm in the UK) is for a gym in Glasgow. Pro-life also refers to opposition to stem cell research.
  • A Straight Google for anti-abortion gives 103 million hits, more than for pro-life +abortion.
This is not necessarily accurate; see discussion here.
  • A Straight Google for abortion-rights gives 173 million hits, more than for pro-choice +abortion.

Arguments and policies in favour of Support for the legalization of abortion / Opposition to the legalization of abortion

Policy based arguments

  • Meets WP:NPOV by not using names that are considered bias.
  • Not objectionable to anyone.
  • Less concise than the other options.
  • Overly precise – exclude content on support and opposition for criminalization of abortion (in locales where abortion is legal).

Other descriptions

  • Xinhua (China) "Thousands rally against abortion", "Mary Ellen Douglas, national organizer of the Campaign Life Coalition, said she believed about 60 out of Canada's 308 members of parliament were opposed to abortion, too."

Discussion

Please keep discussion focused, and on topic

  • 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)
  • (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 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)

Comments by the community on proposals

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.

  • "Pro-life" and "pro-choice" are both euphemisms. "Pro-abortion" and "anti-abortion" are more specific. Regarding "pro-life": Everyone wants to think he is "pro-life," though some are not universally pro-life, as when a legal death penalty has been rendered. Fetuses are "life" (as are gametes before fertilization), but the legal question is not "life" but "personhood," and opinions vary as to the proper dividing line. On the other side, everyone wants to be "pro-choice," a fact that the "pro-choice" side has used to advantage even when advocating funding by the unwilling for medical procedures performed by the unwilling. Spike-from-NH (talk) 02:27, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
I think the above proposal is for "abortion-rights", not "pro-abortion". What do you think about that? --Cerebellum (talk) 02:37, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for the focus. Indeed, a problem with "pro-abortion" that I did not note above is that most "pro-abortion" advocates claim they are asserting no opinion on abortion itself (many, notably candidates, insist that they personally would like it if not many abortions occurred). I find "abortion rights" inherently vague as it varies from advocacy that the government not restrain abortion, to advocacy that government mandate funding of abortions, which I do not view as a (natural) "rights" question. I have no solution, as a catch-term that avoids this problem might be anything but concise. "Anti-abortion," for its part, has no such ambiguity. Spike-from-NH (talk) 03:17, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Pro-abortion is out of the question, so there is no point in arguing for it. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:40, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  • The terms "pro-choice" and "pro-life" are both a) rallying-cries much more than they are objective and b) are hugely emotionally loaded, which I suspect is what lead to this discussion taking place at all. "Abortion-rights movement" and "Anti-abortion movement" are less loaded terms. However the term "movement" to me implies unity of purpose and unity of methods to a greater extent than I think it is right for us to presume. The titles "Support for the legalization of abortion" and "Opposition to the legalization of abortion" are far more neutral (NPOV as mentioned above). The subject of abortion vs anti-abortion is and will remain fraught with questions of conscience, with emotion and with political maneuvering. The titles "Support for the legalization of abortion" and "Opposition to the legalization of abortion" insert Misplaced Pages into the debate to a lesser degree than the other options offered. Wanderer57 (talk) 03:43, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
    • But do we really discuss opposition to or support for abortion rights except insofar as people who hold those views act on them in organized ways? "Movement" doesn't seem inappropriate, whichever adjective we decide to use. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 03:49, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Why not a compromise arrangement: "Abortion rights (pro-choice) movement" and "Anti-abortion (pro-life) movement"? It would allow both sides of the POV labelling to be aired and thus cancel out, and would also allow for maximum "google recognition" titling. Grutness...wha? 05:00, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment. A compromise arrangement I see like this: Pro-choice is what I have always heard and what has always 'rung' in my ears best. I say we use that. However, Anti-abortion strikes me as wrong, because those views cover more than abortion- they cover women's birth control rights in general, in most people's minds at least. Problem is, rejecting anti-abortion AND pro-life as grossly politically incorrect, I don't know what we'd use for that. What about Anti-choice? ADDENDUM: Yes, I like those two. Pro-choice and Anti-choice strike me as fair, accurate and encyclopedic. In addition, they are in no way judgmental, merely logical with "choice" as the root, thus you have "pro-" and "anti-". Logical and simple.--Djathinkimacowboy 05:09, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Addendum to comment for clarification: Let's look at the 3 picks. You have "abortion", pro- and anti-, which is loaded automatically. You have "life", as in "pro-life" vs. "pro-choice" which is imbalanced and reminds too many people of "abortion". Now, we want to be balanced and encyclopedic. You then have "choice" which is a clear, accurate and impartial reflection of the issue. So I repeat, the only logical and non-judgmental course is to use Pro-choice and Anti-choice, and that is doubly good to the purpose since "pro-" and "anti-" are nothing but descriptive; they're not loaded no matter what.--Djathinkimacowboy 05:19, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Originally I was going to side with the "support and opposition", as they fit the NPOV the best out of the three original options, though after Haymaker's suggestion for "pro and anti-choice", I think that would truly fit better than any of the three options listed. Can it be added as a fourth option? Pro-Choice and Anti-Choice would more clearly reach the NPOV and define the rules of engagement for any editors to those articles.
After all, the "Pro-Choice" movement isn't for abortions, they are for the right to choose the option of an abortion if you want or need one. The "Pro-Life" movement doesn't want to 'end abortion' per say, they want people to choose life over abortion. On sktool, it looks like anti-choice gets 6,600 global searches a month. Not quiet as traffic gaining as anti-choice or pro-life, though definitely more accurate and more neutral. Which is what we're striving for, isn't it? =)
If we can't add this fourth option, I would side with support for the legalization of abortion and opposition to the legalization of abortion. --Bema Self (talk) 06:43, 23 February 2012 (UTC)