Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Male abortion

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. with consensus for merge, when a suitable target is found. BJ^Talk 01:04, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Male abortion[edit]

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I did a quick Google search for "male abortion", and I usually came up with "male abortion rights" and a lot of blog hits. More than a few repeat hits, and one or two hits of very old material. What we have here is essentially a notability problem. Male abortion seems to be a term that some men's rights groups use back and forth as a short hand for arguments about men's rights, father's rights, and male reproductive right's, all of which should be covered in those articles. The page does not assert notability for the term, and I can't find it either, so I think it should be deleted or merged.--Tznkai (talk) 13:26, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. Not a notable term. ~~SIS~~ 15:04, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Neutral, but if deleted, I suggest merging with Dubay v. Wells. Most (all?) writing about "male abortion" is about that case. --Apoc2400 (talk) 17:28, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Please define what makes a term "notable". Is this what determines wikipedia entries? Even if the term isn't "notable". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and this is at least a verifiable term that has been used in the past by a number of groups. I feel it is worth keeping. Thank you. Jwri7474 (talk) 18:27, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Notability, within Wikipedia is defined at Wikipedia:Notability. --Apoc2400 (talk) 19:55, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Fr33kman. Jwri7474 (talk) 02:37, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't you already say you wanted it kept above? Perhaps you could put your comments together. It's a bit misleading otherwise.--Slp1 (talk) 02:41, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment refactored/reformatted for clarity--Tznkai (talk) 19:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep -- whilst certainly a controversial topic, it does have scholarly coverage; International Survey of Family Law, 2003,McCulley, Melanie G. (1998). "The Male Abortion: The Putative Father's Right to Terminate His Obligation to the Unborn Child". Journal of Law and Policy: 1, 2.. It also has coverage within the academic community surrounding family social work and law; Independent think-tank on Child Support. It also has additional coverage within "society's conversation" (blogs, open content etc.); Mr. Men's Rights Profile America Vote.com which, of course are not good sources, but do show that the public is talking about it and does recognize the term "male abortion" as referring to a man's right to disenfranchise himself from a birth. It is also the recipient of press coverage Western Courier Milwaukee Journal Sentinel National Review Online. The topic is referenced in different cultures also; Jewish World Review Male abortion is also a term used within population studies and medicine to denote a possible trend in some countries towards the aborting of males in favour of trying for female births. As such, regardless of opinion on the merits of the topic, it should be kept as a topic worthy of inclusion. Further, the term "male abortion" is used within plant studies Plant study use of male abortion The references for this term are many and varied. fr33k man -s- 18:53, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be two uses of the term "male abortion". One is the meaning described in this article (the opinion that men should not have to pay child support of unwanted children). The other is abortion of male fetuses. Two two are completely unrelated, so I don't think one article can describe both. When searching for "male abortion" there are also many irrelevant hits like "male abortion doctors". --Apoc2400 (talk) 19:55, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just because there are many irrelevant hits, does not invalidate the many relevant hits. Also, just because a topic is not liked, or is distasteful to some, does not mean it shouldn't be here. The term exists and is used in contemporary society and scholastic publications. fr33k man -s- 21:57, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. -- fr33k man -s- 19:07, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. -- fr33k man -s- 19:09, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. -- fr33k man -s- 19:10, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or Merge. A non-notable term used in this context by some men's/father's rights activists mainly in the US. What is striking about it that even the activists themselves (and others) often enclose the term in inverted commas implying that it isn't an accepted term per se. Googlehits in web/books/scholar sections include multiple false positives, in part because of what Fr33kman refers to above: the term "male abortion" also means the selective abortion of males (often because of genetic disorders) or in plants, meaning that the term is highly ambiguous. Limiting the search by including the term "father" leads to only one (non-citation) hit in google books, (with the term in inverted commas again)[1], two in google scholar [2][3] (both also used in inverted commas), and googlenews only 11, with 4 in inverted commas.--Slp1 (talk) 20:08, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that many false positives occur. Perhaps the article should be moved to "Male abortion (men's rights)" or some such similar? fr33k man -s- 21:59, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My point is not that there are many false positives, but there are very few true positives. I do not believe there is enough evidence of "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" to make it notable enough for a stand-alone article (per WP:NOTABILITY) --Slp1 (talk) 22:13, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I got that, I just think that the number shown above, and there are more, show that there is contemporary research and thought that has been done on the topic. I have no personal opinion on the topic, but do feel that it passes WP:NN and is certainly not a neologism. So if its not a neologism and there is sufficient sources for it, news reports on it, books that contain it, and law journals that discuss it and contemporary society is actually discussing it; why should it not be here: because we find it distasteful? It certainly is not only discussed in "biased" sources, I've shown that above. It should be expanded however, that much is clear fr33k man -s- 22:29, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think anybody has suggested that it is distasteful, have they? The arguments have been about notability, as far as I can see. The notability guidelines says we need to focus on reliable secondary sources, so the blogs/forums/webpages cannot influence the decision. (BTW, I would include the website you described as an independent think-tank[4] in this category. I can't see any evidence that this isn't just a personal website with a grand title [5].) To sum up, there was one article in a law journal "The Male Abortion: The Putative Father's Right to Terminate His Obligation to the Unborn Child" that actually coined the phrase, an article has been cited by others. Other that that, there is only one book, two journals, and 11 newspapers (including several opinion columns) that mention the term, and more than half of them put the term in inverted commas. Not enough to make it notable enough for its own article, in my opinion.--Slp1 (talk) 22:46, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, no body mentioned it as distasteful, that is an extrapolation on my part based on having read what is elsewhere on the subject in prep for commenting initially here; dangerous I know ;-). What number makes it notable? Does any number? What about borderline cases? Defining something by a number is dangerous (that's why we don't do "votes" here at Wikipedia, as you). Quality, not quantity? People are talking about this (blogs etc [and no, under NO circumstances are they reliable]) and reliable secondary sources can be found that also reference it. Just because they use inverted commas doesn't mean the term is superfluous or doesn't exist. It might just mean a personal opinion of the author? fr33k man -s- 23:05, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is, of course, no fixed number, and all we are asked for here is our personal opinions... mine is that it is not notable based on what I have found in reliable secondary sources, and you seem to have come to a different conclusion. C'est la vie. Others will add their thoughts and some poor admin will determine which arguments are the most convincing and decide accordingly. BTW, I agree that quality comes into it, and that is why I put such store in whether subjects are discussed in scholarly works and mainstream media, and in what depth. So far, what I have found is few mentions, very few in the higher quality sources, and the mentions are also often very brief.--Slp1 (talk) 03:10, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I make no judgements on male reproductive rights arguments or any of the rest, I think male abortion as a term doesn't pass muster to deserve its own article, but is more of a component of men's rights as a topic.--Tznkai (talk) 04:49, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If the consensus isn't to grant the term its own article, the term and all information should at least be moved to a subheading of a separate article. To delete the information entirely would seem to me like censorship simply because it is a small and controversial topic. I don't feel the information should be removed from wikipedia (relocated maybe), but not deleted. Thanks Jwri7474 (talk) 08:12, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep or Merge This article does have very good information, however, without major expansion, should be merged with the Men's Rights article. I would declare notability as being a serious stance of the men's rights movement, not by using ghits. Paranormal Skeptic (talk) 14:39, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I think we are seeing a growing consensus for a merge. How about Paternal rights and abortion?--Tznkai (talk) 15:25, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep is better than merge, but, I'd go for that. The term "male abortion" should be explained there, however, as it does enjoy some reliable usage. It should not be defined, but it should be explained. fr33k man -s- 16:33, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge The term is not used sufficiently in this narrow context to entitle it to more than a place on a disambiguation page. The arguments belong as a subset of parental rights or even men's rights in respect of fetuses. ៛ Bielle (talk) 22:01, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Joke -- I saw a cartoon once. It shows a young couple, on an excursion. The young mom is looking at her watch, while she addresses a comment to the young dad, who is holding a baby. She says something like: "Gosh honey, I am sorry to hear you are tired of carrying junior, but, by my calculation you still have another eight months, three weeks and five days to go." Geo Swan (talk) 08:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -- Real term, needs references, and possibly a rename to something like male abortion rights, as suggested above. Geo Swan (talk) 08:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.