This article is within the scope of WikiProject Feminism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Feminism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.FeminismWikipedia:WikiProject FeminismTemplate:WikiProject FeminismFeminism articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women's History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Women's history and related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Women's HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject Women's HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Women's HistoryWomen's History articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Conservatism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of conservatism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ConservatismWikipedia:WikiProject ConservatismTemplate:WikiProject ConservatismConservatism articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Sexology and sexuality, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of human sexuality on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Sexology and sexualityWikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and sexualityTemplate:WikiProject Sexology and sexualitySexology and sexuality articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Human rights, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Human rights on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Human rightsWikipedia:WikiProject Human rightsTemplate:WikiProject Human rightsHuman rights articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Death, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Death on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.DeathWikipedia:WikiProject DeathTemplate:WikiProject DeathDeath articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women's Health, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Women's Health on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Women's HealthWikipedia:WikiProject Women's HealthTemplate:WikiProject Women's Healthwomen's health articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Christianity, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Christianity on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ChristianityWikipedia:WikiProject ChristianityTemplate:WikiProject ChristianityChristianity articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject New York (state), a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of New York on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.New York (state)Wikipedia:WikiProject New York (state)Template:WikiProject New York (state)New York (state) articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Abortion, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Abortion on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AbortionWikipedia:WikiProject AbortionTemplate:WikiProject AbortionAbortion articles
The contentious topics procedure applies to this page. This page is related to abortion, which is a contentious topic. Please consult the procedures and edit carefully.
Dannenfelser said that while the anti-abortion cause was not "the issue that earned Susan B. Anthony her stripes in American history books, historians would be wrong to conclude that Anthony was agnostic on the issue of abortion". She quoted Anthony's business partner, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as saying, "When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit." Attempts to authenticate this quote, however, have been unsuccessful. After Thomas notified the FFL in 2011 that she could not locate the source for this alleged quote, the FFL acknowledged the problem by saying that, "Earlier generations of pro-life feminists informed us that these words were written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in a letter tucked into Julia Ward Howe's diary on October 16, 1873," but that they could not locate the letter. The FFL said that Howe's diary entry for that date indicated that she had argued about infanticide with Stanton, who, according to Howe, "excused infanticide on the grounds that women did not want to bring moral monsters into the world, and said that these acts were regulated by natural law. I differed from her strongly". Thomas added that the disagreement occurred during public discussion at a women's conference in New York City.
Dannenfelser's Stanton quote reasonably could be interpreted that (if the quote is accurate) the latter was anti-abortion. Yet FFL quotes Howe's diary entry, which says that Stanton "excused infanticide." If Stanton excused infanticide, how could she have been against abortion? These depictions of Stanton in the same paragraph are contradictory and the contradiction is not explained at all. Rontrigger (talk) 06:50, 24 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The statement claimed to have been made by Stanton in a private letter whose existence has never been proven does indeed contradict what, according to Howe, Stanton said in a public meeting. If a claim has been demonstrated to be true or false, it is proper to document that in Wikipedia. But a claim involving the content of a letter whose very existence cannot be demonstrated cannot, by its nature, be given any sort of definitive treatment. A "dispute" article like this one, in my opinion, does better by documenting the various claims and statements without necessarily trying to resolve any resulting contradictions. Bilpen (talk) 17:30, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with your points, particularly about resolving the contradictions. But what I tried to say was that the contradictions were not even acknowledged. FFL based their position on Stanton's anti-abortion views on this dubious letter, and then noted something (Howe's diary) that flatly contradicted the letter (assuming that the letter existed). What I found mystifying was that nothing in the text of the article pointed out that these assertions contradicted each other, and thus that FFL's argument regarding Stanton made no sense. Rontrigger (talk) 18:13, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it makes no sense, FFL making contradictory assertions about Stanton. Perhaps we should downplay the interchange between FFL and Thomas because of the contradiction. On the other hand, Stanton was mercurial; she wanted to shake the world up, and in retrospect the things she wrote and said at various times include some contradiction. Binksternet (talk) 18:21, 25 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Good points from both of you. Thanks for your time. Rontrigger (talk) 07:24, 26 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
.svg){kind=small}
