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==Photo==
On Reardon's , there is a photograph, described as a "media photo." Does this imply that it is a publicity photo intended for use in the media, and, could we thus use it to illustrate this article under such a ] rationale? -] (]) 16:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
:It doesn't matter since we can't use publicity photos in the manner you proscribe. Check out the fair use pages ] 06:56, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


{{Archives|auto=long|search=yes|index=/Archive index}}
== NZ Study ==
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== Book reviews ==
The article claimed that the authors of the NZ study had set out to disprove Reardon's findings. In fact none of the 2 reliable sources support this claim. One of them says that the researchers has expectations which turned out to be not true. But this is rather different from saying they set out to disprove anything. In fact, the references support the idea that their primary goal was to do high quality research in this area which they found lacking ] 06:52, 10 April 2007 (UTC)


Earlier I asked if anyone was aware of book reviews of Reardon's books. Well, I've just done a quick search in Google books where four of his books appeared, and in Google for the fifth book. I'm afraid that I've opened a can of worms; I didn't want to introduce another source of controversy but it seems unavoidable.


This article is about Reardon, which means it's about his work. His books are part of his work so it seems appropriate to say something about them in this article - and we do say a little about some of them. (I know nothing about his books; is there any dispute that they are a sufficiently large part of his work that they deserve mention?)
RESPONSE
The introduction and conclusion of Fergesson's paper includes a summary of Reardon's studies and Brenda Major's challenge that the findings would be explained away by preexisting psychological factors. In the paper, but more explicitly in his interviews, Fergusson indicates that it was his and this teams expectation that their analysis would produce results that would support Major's hypothesis rather than Reardon's. For example, in the cited interview ''Abortion increases mental health risk: study'' Fergusson states: "We were indeed surprised by the results. Our expectation was that we would find that young women who had abortions had higher rates, but that was due to selection factors, that is the background of young women predisposed them both to abortion and to mental health problems, and we found that that was not in fact the case."


I thought (and I suppose still think) that book reviews are the natural way to summarize what is in the books. I don't want to read them myself and try to summarize them (and it would be very hard to avoid OR if I did so) so I hoped that a book review would be a source of about a paragraph-long summary of each book.
Given Fergusson's insistance that his ideological stand was in line with Majors, being pro-choice, it is not an exaggeration to say that he hoped his data would settle the debate between Reardon and Major by "disproving" Reardon's hypothesis, or conversely, proving Major's hypothesis. The goal of "disproving" a wrong hypothesis is not biased, it's good science. The use of the word "disprove" does not diminish the integrity of Fergusson's intent to do "high quality research."


The can of worms is that from a cursory glance of the reviews all of them appear in pro-life publications. I'm not worried about NPOV: "The policy requires that where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic each should be presented fairly." The topic at hand is his books and there don't appear to be multiple or conflicting perspectives about that topic apparently because opponents have chosen to ignore the books. If the topic were abortion in general then certainly there would be multiple perspectives to balance, but we're not here to write about abortion, only about Reardon and his work and I don't see conflicting perspectives so NPOV is not a problem.
In any event, to clarify Fergusson's effort to test both Reardon and Major's hypotheses, I rephrased the sentence to read:
"In response to the controversy and challenges presented by Reardon's research, a group of New Zealand researchers recently undertook a study to test Major's argument that psychological differences between women with a history of abortions and those with no history of abortion can be best explained by more pre-existing psychological disorders among the types of women most likely to undergo an abortion." It's a long sentence, but accurate and avoids the phrase "disprove"


The problem might be RS. Are other editors going to complain that the sources of these book reviews are not reliable? My goal is simply to get a short but accurate summary of what is in each book. I don't care what that summary says, only that it fairly represents what is in the book itself. If I go to the trouble to read through the book reviews and write one paragraph about each book, will other editors complain that I don't have a reliable source for the book summary? That may be hard to answer ''a priori'' but I would like to get some sense of whether I would be wasting my time to go ahead. Will you trust me to honestly try to write an accurate summary of what is in each book? And it shouldn't really matter whether you trust me; will you accept that the sources are sufficiently reliable as to result in a fair summary of each book?
Having fixed these objections, I'm removing the neutrality concern. (See also Response to NPOV)


Maybe I'll just go ahead with one of the books and take a stab and see what you think. ] (]) 01:30, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
POINT OF COMMENT


:It depends to some extent on what kind of pro-life sources we're talking about. Reviews by major pro-life organizations may be notable, in the same way that a review by Planned Parenthood (for example) would be notable. In other words, we should make clear in the text of the article that the reviewer is affiliated with a pro-life advocacy group, but we can still consider including the review as it speaks to how his work is perceived within the pro-life community. Reviews by minor or fringe organizations are probably not so encyclopedic or worthy of inclusion. As to a summary, it would help to have specific wording to discuss (do you want to list the reviews here?) - I'm fine with anything that reads neutrally and doesn't present as fact something which is opinion or argumentation. ''']'''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 06:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I think all of this business about the New Zealand article should be moved to a section titled New Zealand article. For instance, nobody knows who Fergusson is, and this is only tangentially related to the topic of a biography of David Reardon. This entire description of what did or did not happen with the New Zealand situation deserves to be removed from the main article and placed into a section. ] 03:45, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


== NPOV == == Proposal for reorg ==


I'd like to reorganize the article:
I added the NPOV check because some of the sources used need to be scrutinsed carefully. One of them in particular afterabortion which is run by the Eliot Institute the organisation which David Reardon works for, seems highly dubious to me and someone needs to check it's usage in each instance is appropriate. It's probably fine for mentioning David's POV but shouldn't generally be used for anything else. I removed one usage where it was unneeded but I strongly suspect other some instances need to be removed too. For example, it's used to support the claim that the NZ team 'scolded' the APA. A better reference probably needs to be found for this or it should be removed ] 06:55, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
*I think the Press coverage section should be merged into the Biography. I can't think of any other biography that has a "Press coverage" section. The norm is for statements in the article to be footnoted to press sources.
*I propose a section on books or (non-technical) articles with subsections for individual books.
*I propose a section on peer-reviewed papers with subsections for selected papers.
*I would merge the criticism sections into the relevant subsections. In other words, the criticism would be associated directly with particular studies or articles.
*After the reorg, I'd add more book reviews and probably a few more peer-reviewed papers and critical commentary.


I have a very rough draft of the reorg at ]. The words are 99% the same as today's article, just rearranged. ] (]) 20:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)


:I like it, especially the first few sections. I'm strongly in favor of doing away with "criticism" and "press coverage" ghettos and integrating the press coverage and criticism into a single narrative, which you've done. I think it's OK to have a separate section on specific studies which provoked comment, rebuttal, mainstream press coverage, etc - which seems to be what you're going for. I'm a little more on the fence about the books - if we could find mainstream reviews (or even reviews from large pro-life groups), then we could break out the individual books, but I don't know how much we can say if there's no reliable outside coverage or discussion of one of his books. Probably focusing on selected books (those with the most related secondary sources available) would make the most sense. I've made a few edits (largely copyedits) to the draft - hope that's OK. ''']'''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 22:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
RESPONSE
I clarified reference as per Nil Einne's request, pointing to the Washington Times article which quotes Fergusson's paper. The best citation is to Fergusson's article itself, but it is not readily available online without a subscription.


::I'm very glad that you like the idea. The rough draft was a fairly quick copy and paste and needs a lot of work. Do you think we should move it into the article, then fix it up, or fix it up in the draft, then move it? (And when I say "move" I mean copy and paste - we don't want to replace the old edit history at all. This is just a big edit to the existing article.) ] (]) 23:29, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Regarding Nil's general objection to links to afterabortion.info, the pages cited all include citations to any research published in peer reviewed journals. Again, many of these journal articles are not readily available without subscription -- and are therefore difficult for the average WIKIPEDIA user to check. I see no reason why articles from the Elliot Institute website should be classified as more "dubious" than articles from the Washington Times, the Washington Monthly, or Brenda Major's commentary in CMAJ.
:::I think it's an improvement over the existing article, so I'd be fine with moving it now or whenever. It's been mercifully quiet around here recently, but if anyone objects later on, the article can always be reverted back to its prior form. ''']'''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 23:42, 13 March 2008 (UTC)


::::Done. You've made a good start on copyedits to Biography section - much better than I could have done. I'll work on books and studies sections. ] (]) 00:19, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
COUNTER
The Washington Times links aren't working anymore. I can't tell if the language in the section near the Washington Times section is a direct quote of the article, a direct quote of the actual research, or the invention of the Misplaced Pages author who wrote this section. Regardless, the flow of the article is bad. If there is a need for a criticism, and a response, and a response to the response, these should be broken out of the main article and put into a section for easier reading. ] 03:42, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


::::Nice reorg. Thank you.--] (]) 19:01, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
== Criticism ==


== Reardon's Responses ==
I added a criticism section at the bottom of the page, and put some criticisms into this area. The article as it stood was more of a treatise than a wikipedia article, and is in substantial need of revision. I also revised some strong affirmative language about the validity of a certain study that I feel wasn't actually claimed by the description of the study, and therefore the article didn't match what was said in the description of the study. I think the best thing for the article would be to add a biography section near the top of the page, ideally with a picture, and anything else about the subject's credential's beside the already-criticized Ph.D. in bioethics. ] 04:28, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


I added Reardon's BMJ and CMAJ responses to the respective sections.
== Cut Washington Times section ==


Overall, I think the reorganized article is much better. Thanks Sbowers for all the work you've done on it.--] (]) 20:58, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
I cut this, due to NPOV and lack of citation:


:I think that rather get into an endless back-and-forth, we should restrict any "debate" to presenting the article in question and other articles/editorials in the peer-reviewed literature which directly address them. If we get into letters to the editor, website posts, and BMJ E-letters (which are essentially lightly moderated blog feedback), then the article is going to lose focus and degenerate back into a battleground. I think Sbowers' approach was fine - he included Reardon's article on the NSLY and the subsequent article reanalyzing the same database. Similarly, including the CMAJ study and the corresponding editorial is appropriate, but getting into letters to the editor is lowering the bar more than would be healthy for the article. ''']'''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 21:15, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
The findings were so unexpected that in the conclusions section of their paper Fergusson's team criticized the ] (APA) for its one sided reviews of abortion complications<ref> The Washington Times, January 21, 2006.</ref> and specifically for the APA's failure to cite and discuss the findings of researchers like Reardon. Following media coverage of this criticism, the APA withdrew a position paper on abortion from their website <ref> www.afterabortion.info</ref> and has created a new task force to report on the mental health effects of abortion.<ref> Warren Throckmorton, PhD., The Washington Times, May 18, 2007 Viewed 5/18/07</ref> In response to Fergusson's criticisms, an APA spokesperson stated that Fergusson's research would have no effect on the APA's official stand on abortion because: "To pro-choice advocates, mental health effects are not relevant to the legal context of arguments to restrict access to abortion." <ref> The Washington Times, January 21, 2006.</ref>


::No one is suggesting and "endless back-and-forth." My snippets of Reardon's responses are published by the journals. BMJ's rapid response is more than a blog. It is reviewed. While I agree we don't want to get into every letter writer's opinions, it would be quite appropriate to cover both Reardon & Russo's give and take because both are recognized experts in the field and particularly Reardon is the subject of this article. Unless you are suggesting that someone else submitted the BMJ response pretending to be Reardon, it is a reliable source. (As you know, self-published material and even the blog of an expert is acceptable as reliable material if the person is indeed recognized as an expert.) Moreover, it is surely reasonable to show that Reardon has responded to these criticims and to point readers to his responses. Otherwise you are implying that these criticisms are "unanswerable" and have "stunned him to silence." In fact, Reardon's response to Schmiege and Russo is very important as it points out significant differences in the analyses and therefore the interpretation of both team's results. --] (]) 15:23, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
end-snip


:::Rapid Responses are very lightly moderated blog commentary. They are not reviewed in any meaningful sense, and they are problematic as sources - for example, the BMJ's Rapid Response section was seized briefly by AIDS denialists in 2003 to disseminate their message with the imprimatur of the BMJ (see {{PMID|14628006}}). I'm interested in focusing on the point/counterpoint in the peer-reviewed journal. If we include what is essentially blog commentary, then we open the door to an endless round of back-and-forth; we have to set the bar somewhere. It is unclear to me why Reardon's blog commentary should be the "last word", given this lack of equivalence in sourcing, or why my edit implied that Reardon was "stunned into silence" while yours does not leave the same impression of Russo et al. It's very simple: let's stick to what's peer-reviewed - otherwise the article will end up a mess. Also, the paper was a brief report, as you yourself pointed out above, so I'm not clear why you've reverted this. ''']'''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 16:31, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
The only sources for this are the Washington Times, and both articles cited here aren't available anymore. Even if a similar source could be found, the link title for these sections is entitled "commentary", and these comments are more opinion about what a study said than statistical figures drawn from the study, or at least from the abstract of the study. For instance, an opposing commentary would point out the study called for further study, that the sample size was only 500 women, that late teenage years are the times that many mental illnesses are first detected, and the big one: that association is not the same as correlation. So I cut that paragraph, as the important thing about the study was the numbers and the discovery of an association between abortion and mental illness among the patients in the study. ] 04:27, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


::::It is not a "blog comment." One letter is published in CMAJ the other is posted on the online letters and comments of BMJ. As noted above, even a blog of an expert is acceptable to Misplaced Pages if the person is recognized as an authority. Reardon, the subject of this article, is at least an authority of his own views. Also, it is customary in peer reviewed journals to allow authors of articles to respond to criticisms. You are arbitrarily deciding that readers should not be told of Reardon's responses. I do no necessarily say Reardon should have the last word. If you want to give Russo's response to Reardon, that's fine. Your complaint that allowing Reardon to respond to critics would make a "mess" of the article is unconvincing.--] (]) 20:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)--


:::::BMJ e-letters are lightly moderated, like the average blog comments section. If you want to talk about the CMAJ letters section, you might want to note that most of the letters therein are critical of Reardon's methodology and his biases. I ''don't'' want to include Russo's response to Reardon's response to Russo's response - that's exactly the point. One of the basic tenets of ] is that disputes are ''characterized'', not ''re-fought'', on Misplaced Pages. Let's not re-fight it through proxies. ''']'''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 22:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)


==A request for small edits==
== Removed unsupported arguments posed as criticisms ==
This may seem a strange request from someone who made a major reorg, but I'd like ask editors to make small edits. If you're modifying several sections or several paragraphs, it would help if you made them in separate edits instead of all in one big edit. Alternatively (and this is what I did), propose your edit here or on a subpage, before inserting into the article. The reason for my request is to make it easier to see exactly what has changed, and to make it possible to revert part of an edit instead of the whole thing. We all know that some edits are going to be controversial but often parts of a large edit are not controversial. We shouldn't have to lose the good parts when reverting the not-so-good parts. ] (]) 16:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)


:Regarding Reardon's BMJ study, the current descripiton is inaccurate and misleading because the scope of the investigation is very narrowly defined. I suggested:
Criticisms should be found in published statements of experts in the field.


::Reardon coauthored a study published in 2003 in the '']'' reporting his analysis of depression rates among women whose first pregnancy was unintended using the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY) database. After controlling for a pre-pregnancy measure of psychiatric state, the researchers found that an average of eight years after the pregnancy married women who carried their unintended pregnancy to term were significantly less likely to have depression than similar women who aborted the unintended pregnancy.<ref name="bmjreardon">{{cite journal |author=Reardon DC, Cougle JR |title= |journal=BMJ |volume=324 |issue=7330 |pages=151–2 |year=2002 |pmid=11799033 |doi=}}</ref>
An editor added a number of his or her own novel arguments attacking the credibility of Reardon and Coleman which are not based in any referenced criticism of an expert...or even a journalist. As a reference work, this section of the article is supposed to reflect the criticisms of experts, such as Brenda Major, whose criticms are rightly summarized here. This is not the place for non-expert Misplaced Pages commentators to post "here's another agument against Reardon" arguments.


:Regarding Reardon's response to Schmiege and Russo I added:
For example, following the notice that Reardon has a Ph.D. in biomedical ethics, the editor adds several sentences arguing that it is therefore misleading for Reardon to coauthor articles related to the psychology as if this implies he is a psychologists. Besides the fact that these articles include coauthors who are psychologists, it is very common for journal articles to be coauthored by parties whoh are not experts in the particular branch of knowledge covered by the journal. The most obvious example is that statisticians are coauthors of studies in every field of research even though they may have no expertise in medicine, chemistry, or psychology. Peer review journals do not judge the degrees or universities of contributors....the work must stand on its own merits in terms of the quality of data and methodology. This is why even Brenda Major has not attacked Reardon's credentials...only his perceived anti-abortion bias...because the issue of credentials are not a strong argument in the world of peer reviewed research.
::In response, Reardon wrote that Schiege and Russo's redefinition of coding variables did not contradict his findings and also introduced coding changes which tended "to muddy the data and increase the likelihood that any statistical comparisons will not detect significant results."<ref>Reardon, DC. BMJ.com accessed March 19, 2008</ref>


:Similarly, I added a summary of his CMAJ response to Major & others.
Put another way...academics who read peer reviewed papers regularly know that the actual field of training and expertise of any author or coauthor should not be presumed just from the topic of the paper. That's a very rookie mistake. Unless there is evidence that Reardon has beed describing himself as a psychologist, the argument that some people may assume that he is a psychologist is as silly as the claim that any biomedical ethicist who publishes papers on euthanasia is likely to be perceived as an anesthesiolgist.


::In a response published in the same journal, Reardon noted that his methodology was identical to that of another record based study by one of Major's colleagues, Henry David, which was highly praised by the APA review team on which both Major and David served. Furthermore, if Major's "hypothesis that mentally disturbed women are more likely to choose abortion" is true "this argument merely strengthens our conclusion that a history of abortion is a marker for mental illness." He also noted that one of Major's own studies had demonstrated that "abortion can be the direct cause of post-traumatic stress disorder."<ref>Reardon DC. CMAJ • July 22, 2003; 169 (2) accessed March 19, 2008</ref><ref>Major B, Cozzarelli C, Cooper ML, Zubek J, Richards C, Wilhite M, et al. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2000;57(8):777-84.</ref>
This or another editor also inserted a paragraph criticizing Coleman...who is not even a subject of this article except incidentally being "guilty by association" with Reardon as a coauthor. These arguments assert that since Coleman has served as an expert witness in legal cases she too is "biased" and must be motovated by a desire to restrict abortion rights. Again, this (1) has nothing to do with an article on Reardon and (2) is an uncited criticism which has not been made by experts in the field but only by a Misplaced Pages contributor. It also infers a whole lot about Coleman and her motivations and even about the uncited cases in which she was an expert. The fact that she probably was paid over $300 per hour as an expert may be sufficient motivation for anyone to testify about the facts as they see them. But that too is irrelevent.


:As noted in my conversation with MastCell, I believe his responses are clearly relevent and verifiable. His BMJ response is actually much more detailed, but I suggest this short summary is probably sufficient. Omission of these responses biases the article by depriving response to criticisms.--] (]) 20:40, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Finally, in the same section I removed a paragraph about the APA's denial that post-abortion syndrome exists because this is not an article about post-abortion syndrome, where such a paragraph rightly belongs. Moreover, if you look at Reardon's articles, he avoids the term "post-abortion syndrome" and but prefers to speak more generally of specific symptoms rather than a set "syndrome" consisting of a complete set of symptoms. So this paragraph is also out of place and appears to be advocating a point of view since it is not even placed in context of a position that Reardon is known to advocate. <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 22:27, August 21, 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned -->


::See above thread. ''']'''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 22:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
==Pro-Life Activist==


{{reflist-talk}}
Anonymous 131.216.41.16 has repeatedly inserted the following highly perjotative introductory paragraph to this biography.


==Internal Links==
<blockquote>
Maybe an internal link to the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, a group with similar views to Elliot Institute, but filled with members who have had the first-hand experience of abortion. ] (]) 02:29, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
David C Reardon, is a pro-life activist, who received his degree in biomedical ethics from Pacific Western University, an unaccredited correspondence school. Reardon is the director of the on-line Elliot Institute. The institute has no buildings or facilities.
</blockquote>


== Peer-reviewed studies ==
Objections:


I have expanded and trimmed this section. Because Reardon has 25 cites in PubMed I thought there should be more than two of his papers in his section. To decide which ones were more notable, I counted how many times each paper was cited elsewhere in PubMed. It turned out that the two most cited papers were already in our article. I added the next most cited article and I added his earliest paper, notable only for being his first paper.
1. The term "pro-life activist" is a label, not a profession. Since the citations do document that Reardon describes himself as a "pro-life activist" it is inappropriate to apply this potentially perjotive term to him as if it were a fact rather than an opinion. For example the phrase "pro-life activist" implies that Reardon has been involved in sit-ins, ralleys, or at least political activism. But the record indicates no activism in the form of rallys or sit-ins and that the only legislation Reardon has advocated is legislation that would help women who are at higher risk of suffering complications to abortion or are at risk of being pressured into unwanted abortions. In his book Making Abortion Rare, he appears to argue on a woman centered rather than fetus centered argument against abortion, even proposing a redefinition of "anti-abortion" in the sense of "anti-this-unsafe-medical-procedure" as a separate argument about abortion as distinct from the pro-life and pro-choice arguments.


I trimmed the summaries to just a few sentences, for the most part taken from the abstracts. I didn't want to get into a lot of details or a long back and forth. Abstracts should be a fair summary of what the author thinks most important, helps to avoid cherry-picking, and retains verifiability for readers who might not have access to the full papers. ] (]) 15:23, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
2. Criticism of the source of Reardon's degree is properly placed and more completely discussed elsewhere. The phrase "correspondence school" is perjotive and even "unaccredited" needs to be placed into a context that identifies accreditating sources. As noted in the corrected article, while Pacific Western University is not accredited by one of the members of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation it is a licensed university and the degrees it issues have proper legal standing. One can argue about the quality of his higher education, but not that he has a degree from an institution authorized to grant Ph.D.s. Also, as biographies do not normally begin with identifying the source of one's degree with a transtion into a discussion of the school's quality this is totally out of place. It is clearly just thrown in here to advance a POV intended to frontload the biography with criticsms of the subject.


:I went ahead and reformatted some of the citations. The summaries look fine to me at a glance; I'm getting a bit of tunnel vision on these articles so I'm going to give it a few days and come back and look again more closely. ''']'''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 17:58, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
3. The claim that "The institute has no buildings or facilities" is also perjotive and unsupported by the citation. First, this article is about Reardon, not the Elliot Institute. Second, the citation simply does not support the statement or address the facilities rented or owned by the Elliot Institute in any way. Thirdly, whether or not the Elliot Institute owns any buildings is irrelevant. But if one calls the office, they clearly have an office (possibly rented) and staff, and "facilities" in the form of equipment typical of offices.


== Nonneutrality of "pro-life" and "pro-choice" ==
4. All of these criticims also apply to 131.216.41.16's biased attempt to describe the Elliot Institute as nothing more than an "online" entity. That the Elliot Institute has a significant online presence does not mean that is the "only" form of it's functioning as it is clearly a legal entity incorporated in the state of Illinois.


"Pro-life" and "pro-choice" are propaganda terms rather than neutral descriptives. Terms such as "anti-abortion" and "abortion rights" are more neutral. Is there a page for a global discussion on use of these terms?
In short, the edits of 131.216.41.16 do not contribute facts regarding the subject, David Reardon, but are POV efforts to dismiss him, his degree, and the Elliot Institute in the very first sentence of the biography. The valid issue surrounding his degree from a non-accredited institution is properly placed in the criticims section and should be presented in a non-perjotive fashion. ] 16:51, 9 November 2007
Granted these are the terms preferred by the respective movements, but they also make more or less false claims. In such a case more neutral terms would be better.
] (]) 00:19, 5 September 2011 (UTC)


"Abortion rights" is a propaganda term as well. The terms "anti-abortion" and "pro-abortion" are more factual and neutral.] (]) 02:32, 12 February 2013 (UTC)


"Pro-abortion" is only "factual and neutral" if you're describing a movement with its goal that everyone who is pregnant must have abortions. Nice try though.
::1. Pro-life activist is how Reardon describes himself on his website. Pro-life is, therefore, not pejorative.
(]) 20:28, 2 October 2013 (UTC)


== Sad commentary ==
::2. The phrase "unaccredited correspondence school" is not pejorative if it is an accurate description of his academic credentials.
I wrote the following before the current reversion. My concerns with this piece have been addressed. Evidently those more wiki-skilled than I know how to manage puffery.
"Mr. Reardon's views and research are maverick science, not part of the scientific consensus (as is documented in some of the included references). Unfortunately, a naive reader of this article would get the opposite impression. Given the political intensity of Mr. Reardon's supporters, Misplaced Pages operating procedures make it very hard to correct that error. A true encyclopedia ought to do better."
] (]) 23:06, 4 May 2016 (UTC)


== External links modified ==
::3. The claim that "The institute has no buildings or facilities" is accurate and supported by the citation to Reardon's website.


Hello fellow Wikipedians,
::4. There is no bias if the description is accurate. The intent is to point out that the institute is not a research facility.


I have just modified {{plural:2|one external link|2 external links}} on ]. Please take a moment to review . If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit ] for additional information. I made the following changes:
::The descriptions are not criticisms. Therefore the descriptions belong in the first paragraph.--] 00:53, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080404034430/http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.mooney.html to http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.mooney.html
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080404034430/http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.mooney.html to http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.mooney.html


When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the ''checked'' parameter below to '''true''' or '''failed''' to let others know (documentation at {{tlx|Sourcecheck}}).
1. Untrue. Ues of the term "pro-life" on the Elliot Institute's website does not constitute a claim or admission that Reardon is a "pro-life activist." Give the exact citation and quote to support your claim that he describes himself as a "pro-life activist".


{{sourcecheck|checked=false}}
2. Untrue. Give a citation from Pacific Western University, or Reardon, describing it as an "unaccredited correspondence school" All schools involve correspondence...that's the nature of communication...and there are many accredited "correspondence" schools.


Cheers.—] <span style="color:green;font-family:Rockwell">(])</span> 10:00, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
3. Untrue ... or at least undocumented by the page you cite. Give the citation to exact page and a quote from the website. You can't just point to a whole website and say the evidence is in there somewhere when the page you link to says nothing to the point you claim.


== Reardon's birth year ==
4. I don't even know what you mean by "it is not a research facility." Do you mean they don't have a chemical laboratory or neutrino accelerator? Clearly Reardon and the Elliot Institute have conducted research that has been published in peer reviewed medical journals, ergo they do research. If you cannot see the bias in your attacks on Reardon and the Elliot Institute, your extreme POV has muddled your ability to be objective. The fact that you keep posting these characterizing and belittling "corrections" without any factual support for them underscores that you are trying to advance an agenda. <small>—] 16:51, 12 November 2007 </small><!-- Template:UnsignedIP -->


It seems odd to have a biography that doesn't cite a year of birth. However I could not find a source for Reardon's birth date. Does anyone know of one?
:: 1. How interesting! The Elliot Institute website recently changed it's content - most of the information about abortion has been removed. However, a few of the pages on David Reardon's website have not changed, and these show his institute is a pro-life advocacy organization: and . Also (and this is an aside), the Reardon's coalition members include the "Life Issues Institute" and the "Society of Catholic Social Scientists."
] (]) 18:43, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
:: 2. The ''New York Times'' confirms that Pacific Western is an unaccredited correspondence school.
:: 3&4. The website for Reardon's Elliot Institute gives this information: "At this time, the coalition building project is being led by the Elliot Institute for Social Sciences Research is a 501(c)3 organization with offices in Springfield, IL and St. Charles, MO." This shows the Institute does not currently have a research facility. A research facility includes libraries (the kind with books), and/or scientific laboratories. --] 05:59, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


== "Framing" ==
Anonymous 131.216.41.16 continues to post a strongly POV opening paragraph to this biography and is ignoring the basic distinctions discussed in my first explanation of why his POV opening paragraph is inappropriate.


by ] is both factually incorrect and tendentious. The links in question do not belong to "pro-abortion" websites or organizations, and the use of the term "pro-abortion" is unencylopedic and partisan. These organizations support the right to abortion, but are not "pro-abortion" nor is it appropriate to describe them as such in a neutral encyclopedia. Reputable sources generally use factual terminology such as "abortion-rights supporters" and "abortion-rights opponents" to describe the two sides of this issue. Elizium has already reverted twice, and I'm not interested in edit-warring, but I'm also not OK with inappropriately partisan, unencyclopedic terminology. ''']'''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 05:36, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
Firstly, this bio is about Reardon, not the Elliot Institute or Pacific Western University. If these affiliations are to be discussed, it should not be in the opening paragraph.
:{{u|MastCell}}, I'm not OK with it either, and your addition of the term "pro-choice" is framing, partisan, and unencyclopedic. ] (]) 12:40, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

::I think I fixed it for the both of you, although I'm not sure we even need to separate out the links with any labels. Couldn't they all just be listed together with no labels? Better yet, a lot of them look pretty low quality, so most of them could probably be culled from the article altogether. ] (]) 15:39, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
Secondly, an institution may have different views and purposes than an individual. You cannot conflate information about the Elloit Institute with a biography about Reardon but must say, for example, "Reardon works for the Elliot Institute which has expressed support for pro-life views." avoiding the perjotive phrase "pro-life activists", for example. It is not "Reardon's Institute."
:::Thanks, ]. That looks fine to me. I'm certainly not wedded to using the term "pro-choice". Many reputable sources use the language that I suggested above, and that Marquardtika installed, and characterize the two sides of the issue in terms of support for or opposition to abortion rights. Describing abortion-rights supporters as "pro-abortion", however, is deceptive, factually inaccurate, and unencyclopedic, which was my objection to the initial edit. To Marquardtika's other point, I agree that the links in general aren't particularly useful and could probably be removed ''en masse'' without any decrement in the article's quality. ''']'''&nbsp;<sup>]</sup> 16:48, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

::::Looks like {{ping|Avatar317}} took the axe to the further reading section. Good riddance, I say! ] (]) 02:54, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
A unbiased biography should not label someone an "activist" unless he or she labels himself that. That Reardon has pro-life views is not in dispute, the issue is whether this is the defining characteristic of this man. As noted elsewhere, this is certainly a label that he would deny as he has repeatedly asserted that his views are an attempt to define an ethic of medical proactice that respects both pro-woman and pro-life views. (See Making Abortion Rare) And as noted above, there is evidence that he has been a protestor -- which is what most people assocaite with an "activist." As a well published researcher, Reardon is at least obstensibly an academic involved in the discussion of ideas. One is free to argue otherwise, but that should be in the criticims section...not the first paragraph.

This anonymous editor should read the Misplaced Pages section to see how it is proper to raise the assertion and discuss the claim that Reardon is a "pro-life activist." Following that principle is the best way to raise questions about Reardon's neutrality / authority on the abortion issue. Others have already followed this formulation rule as seen in the discussion of Brenda Major's criticisms of Reardon's work.

This anonymous editor's assertion above that since the Elliot Institute has offices in Springfield, IL and St. Charles, MO, "This shows the Institute does not currently have a research facility. A research facility includes libraries (the kind with books), and/or scientific laboratories" is patently absurd. That Reardon engages in research and has published research is indisputable -- look his studies up on PubMed! The editor's absurd definition of a "research facility" is nonsensical and has no place in this biography.

Finally, the Elliot Institute's website devoted to abortion issues, www.afterabortion.info, remains up and has hundreds of pages STILL devoted to abortion issues. While I haven't done a page by page comparison, all the pages I'm familiar with are still on the website. This critic's charge that the Elliot Institute has changed it's website is simply bizarre. Websites are constantly being changed, so what is your point!? And the author doesn't even site particular pages that have been changed. Pointing to pages that indicate that the Elliot Institute or even Reardon supports pro-life views still fails to justify labeling either as a "pro-life activist." A more neutral form would be that "Reardon supports a pro-life viewpoint" or "supports pro-life laws," etc. Still, these indications of his orientation on the abortion issue, which are prefectly fair, do not belong in the first paragraph. <small>] 20:55, 14 November 2007 (UTC)</small>

==Elliot Institute is Explicitly Pro-Life==

::Hi, You do have a point. One should not be called an "activist" unless it is a self-imposed label. For that reason, I took out the word "activist." However, the fact that the Elliot Instititute (of which Reardon is the director and possibly sole employee - no others are listed) is a pro-life and anti-stem cell research foundation. This is a pertinent fact and integral to any discussion of Mr. Reardon. It should also be made clear at the beginning that Reardon does not have vetted academic credentials. (Yes, I'm aware that he has published in academic journals - but this is a separate issue from his academic credentials.) As demonstrated by the research done by ''New York Times'' reporters, the Elliot Institute exists because Reardon is pro-life. (Logical inference: if Elliot institute -> pro-life, if David Reardon -> pro-life)--] 22:44, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

==Reardon's Credentials==
Glad to see a little progress. As you are concerned about the Ph.D., I also propose removing the designation from the first line, simply giving his name. That eliminates giving Reardon what is arguably undue credence in the first line of the biography. It avoids also your rather controversial assertion that you or anyone should be in charge of determining what constitutes "vetted academic credentials." In most universities, publications matter more than the source of one's degree. ("Publish or perish") Output is more critical than background. That is why I consider criticisms of where Reardon got his degree, or "degree" if you prefer, really a red herring. His work has been published in many top medical journals, therefore publishers and peer reviewers in the academic community consider his work to be up to par with all the other authors they accept.

Clearly the Pacific Western controversy is deserving discussion, but as provided by Misplaced Pages rules it should only be discussed in a form in which you are discussing the Mooney article which raises the question and concern. Actually, unless you can find a source where Reardon discusses that he has a degree from Pacific Western University, Mooney's report may not even be correct... but let's go ahead and assume it is.

As pointed out in Misplaced Pages section you have a right to raise controversies but only by means of citing a verifiable source of the person raising the controversy.

Basic rule for editing: You should not insert your own arguments...you need to find some reasonably credible source outside Misplaced Pages who has raised these arguments (like Mooney) and cite his criticisms. I've done this in the appropriate section for criticisms.

This applies to your Elliot Institute inference. But since I know it is important to you, I also added the Elliot Institute argument you made and clarified the position on the cited page to the criticms section. But really this should also be referenced to some other publication of someone criticizing Reardon and the Elliot Institute for a pro-life bias and raising the issue that this anti-human engineering proposal is evidence of a pro-life bias.

Again, my main objection to your edits is that you are trying to front load three criticims into the first paragraph which are your arguments and inferences which fork into dual criticims of Reardon and Pacific Western and Reardon and the Elliot Institute. There is room for raising these issues, but they should be dealt with in the body of the article, not the first paragraph whcih should be limited to Reardon.


::1. Pacific University was forced to shut down by the state of California. And, in fact, there are specific criteria for vetting someone's academic credentials. Simply because one publishes in a peer reviewed article does not mean that person has a PhD from an accredited university. That does not follow logicly. (Case in point: ] She published peer reviewed articles without a PhD).
::2. I don't see any mention of Reardon being a psychologist.
::3. You are right not to reference "port-abortion syndrome." However, the APA also states that "research with diverse samples, different measures of response, and different times of assessment have come to similar conclusions. The time of greatest distress is likely to be before the abortion. Severe negative reactions after abortions are rare and can best be understood in the framework of coping with normal life stress."--] (]) 00:23, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


Your new material asserts that Reardon claims to have had his degree from Pacific Western University but you have no citation from Reardon for this. The only claim for this is from Mooney.

The status of Pacific Western is unrelated to this biography as we have no idea when or if Reardon received his degree there.

Why should there be a reference to Reardon as a psychologist?

Your assertions and inferances are not contributing to a factual report and your attempt to front load the article with as many negatives as you can imagine is disruptive to the effort of those other editors, such as myself, who are attempting to create a NPOV article which includes appropriate places (two in this case!) for raising criticims that have been directed at Reardon. As stated above, as an editor it is your obligation to find people who have raised these criticims and to site THEM rather than to insert your own criticims presented as facts.


::1. Please don't delete anything until it has been discussed here. I have included within the article citations for everything.
::2. The citation for Reardon's claim to his degree comes from both The Washington Times as well as the New York Times. These have are recognized sources by the vast majority of Wiki editors.
::3. I don't think that there should be a reference to Reardon as a psychologist. I don't see where the article does say that. Please point it out. We should edit that, certainly.
::4. I am not making any inferences. I am also '''not''' making NPOV edits. --] (]) 03:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)


2. These articles assert he has a degree from Pacific Western, but do not state that Reardon told them this was so. And if you believe it is so, it should not be stated as if this is just what "Reardon claims." You are inserting doubt to discredit...which is the whole problem with your edits...they are all geared to discredit Reardon in the first paragraph.

3. You are the one who wrote "::2. I don't see any mention of Reardon being a psychologist/" here in the discussion section... a few paragraphs above.

4. You bias is screaming out.

::1. You have not made a convincing case that my edits are biased - or even in what way they are biased. I asserted above, "I am also '''not''' making NPOV edits. "
::2. I see no where in the article where Reardon is referred to as being a "psychologist."
::3. According to the ], a fact is "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." Several journalists have reported that Reardon himself says he has earned a Ph.D. from ]. Also, we have several sources that clearly point to the fact that Pacific Western is an unaccredited correspondence school that was closed as a "degree factory" by the state of Califnornia.--] (]) 04:15, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Here is a page about Reardon from on a Pro-Life forum. Several of the posters question his qualifications. '''Obviously these pro-life pages do not meet the standard for citation within the David Reardon article; ''however'',''' it shows that even those with a seemingly pro-life "bias" question Reardon's qualifications. It also seems to point to the fact that David Reardon has been referring to himself as a Dr. in many pro-life forums (both in person and on-line).
What "Laura" writes in her post is the interesting part: http://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2007/07/weekend_reads_1.html)--] (]) 04:44, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

:This is a forum that allows and publishes postings from people of any bias. There is no evidence at all that Laura has a pro-life bias...in fact if you track her down to her own blog you will see she favors abortion rights and attacks Reardon because he promotes views and evidence that disagree with her position.

Last, let's try to avoid a revert war by not removing factual, cited information without discussing it on the talk page first. --] (]) 19:10, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

::P.S. "Laura" didn't give a link to a website she claims is her own. How were you able to track her down and determine she is "pro-choice"? My point earlier is that one does not have to be an "abortionist" to agree on the fact that Reardon does not have the Ph.D. he claims he does, or that the Elliot Institute does not have any facilities. And that just because one is critical of Reardon does not mean that one disagrees with the pro-life movement. These are separate issues.--] (]) 19:26, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

:::P.P.S. Just a point of clarification: A is not the same as your every day, . --] (]) 19:32, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Your introduction is biased, a rambling attack on the Elliot Institute and Pacific Western, and has been thoroughly discussed above and you continue to ignore my suggestions that these points should be confined to the sections relative to the criticims of Reardon and cited to sources other than your own inferences. I'm tired with arguing with you about it and will continue to revert the introduction to an unbaised format without further arguements with you. If you can't see the bias in your statements you are an ideologue who has lost all sense of objectivity. <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 21:32, 19 November 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

::Reardon claims to have received a Ph.D. from the unaccredited correspondence school, ] which was forced to close by the state of California. Ref: , ref: , ref: <br />
::Both of these statements are factual according to Misplaced Pages standards. The citations for them are the Elliot Institute website itself, the Washington Monthly, and The New York Times. Thank you for your rational understanding.
</li>--] (]) 23:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
</ol>

Stop repeating your arguments and carefully read the sources you cite. Show me the link and give an exact quote from the Elliot Institute web site saying Reardon claims to have a degree form PWU.

Also, read carefully and report carefully what Mooney writes. Mooney does not report that "Reardon claims to have received a Ph.D..." etc. Mooney reports that Reardon does have a degree from PWU but he does so without any citation or confirmation as to where he got this information. He never says he interviewed Reardon and it is evident that he probably did not, but instead just read some articles by or about Reardon from which he formulated his attack piece. You're free to quote Mooney's attacks, as per Misplaced Pages's recommendations for raising controversy by quoting others, but you should not create your own attacks and you should closely track or quote exactly what Mooney said without elaborations which even Mooney might reject as over the top inferences.

Also, the New York Times article is from 1994. It does not mention Reardon, and you have no idea when Reardon received his degree from PWU, and an attempt to close PWU was apparantly rejected by the courts since it stayed in existence and just recently changed its name...see ]. Perhaps after being investigated by the state, PWU improved its program to meet state standards and Reardon received a "good" degree, according to California, even if an unaccredited degree.

Stick to the facts relevent to Reardon. If you want to attack PWU, put your New York Times article on the PWU page. ] (]) 04:16, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

==Elliot Institute==
Anon 131.216.41.16 claim that "the Elliot Institute has no buildings or facilities, and is not a research facililty" is unverfied and ludicrous. Why not just have an opening paragraph that reads: "David Reardon is a flim-flam artist who pretends to work with the Elliot Institute, which is a meaningless shell, and has somehow convinced dozens of peer reviewed journals to publish his nonsense." <small>] (] • ]) 15:11, 19 November 2007 (UTC)</small>

::With regards to the "Elliot Institute" - the definition for "institute" is the building occupied by a society or organization for carrying on a particular work, as of a literary, scientific, or educational character. It is clear that the Elliot Institute does not fit that definition. On their own website at one point, they said that they "currently have no building." The current posting on the Elliot Institute website says they are trying to raise funds for a building. (Please see links above).--] (]) 19:10, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Your personal definition of an "Institute" is irrelevent as is your petty and unsupported statement that "The Elliot Institute has no buildings or facilities, and is not a research facililty." That it is looking for funding is also irrelevent to this biography -- and is typical of all institutions.

Look up the Misplaced Pages definiton for ]. Also, I have to laugh, I looked at your link to support your "they have no building" claim, http://www.elliotinstitute.org/coalition.htm, and see that you have no understanding of the term "coalition building" as used on that page. Ha Ha Ha! This page doesn't say thay have no buildings or offfices or libraries! It says they are working to build (verb) a coalition (noun) by inviting other groups and organizations to join the effort of banning human engineering and that they hope or intend that once this coalition is built to form a new coalition organization rather than have the Elliot Institute serve as the ongoing organizing force behind their effort. You cite this as supporting the idea that they are raising funds for a "Coaliton Building"! You're hilarious...and wrong as usual.] (]) 18:43, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

<ol>
<li> It was not my personal definition of institute. It is the dictionary definition of institute. Again, my dictionary says, "the building occupied by a society or organization for carrying on a particular work, as of a literary, scientific, or educational character."</li>
<li> The "Elliot Institute" is not merely looking for funding; it is (or at least was) looking for funding to build a building. At one time, this page "http://www.elliotinstitute.org/coalition.htm" said the "Institution" was seeking money to build a building. Most of the site changed within the last month - and seems to be undergoing continual change. You'll note that the reference to that line was to the Elliot Institute webpage published before February 11. 2007. (Please don't be condescending to me - we can be respectful of eachother) Further, Mooney does write that the Elliot Institute has no buildings or facilities - so there you go.</li>
<li> Last, please stop removing these sentences that have been referenced and verified by several writers, and are, therefore, acceptable as facts on Misplaced Pages: '''David C Reardon''', is the director of The Elliot Institute, a ] and anti-stem cell research foundation. ref: , ref: , ref: <br />--] (]) 23:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
</ol>


You need a better dictionary. All of the following definitions of Institute are nouns (see http://www.answers.com/topic/institute):

1. Something instituted, especially an authoritative rule or precedent.

2. A digest of the principles or rudiments of a particular subject, especially a legal abstract.

3. An organization founded to promote a cause: a cancer research institute. (Maybe as anogther example, A POST-ABORTION RESEARCH INSTITUTE!)

4. An educational institution, especially one for the instruction of technical subjects.

5. The building or buildings housing such an institution.

6. A usually short, intensive workshop or seminar on a specific subject.

To argue that the Elliot Institue is not a "real institute" because it doesn't have (you claim without support) buildings lacks even minimum level of credibility. Besides, what does it matter what the Elliot Institute's real estate holdings are?

Your argument about buildings and your immediate attack on PWU actually come across as petty, silly, and loaded with a desire to immediately bias readers against Reardon with ad hominum and guilt by association attacks.

You are actually weakening your arguments in the way you present them. Don't try to front load the article with attacks, especially abbreviated ones that digress off onto attacks on PWU's credibility and the Elliot Institute.

Please stop distorting what should be a simple introduction which explains that Reardon has come to be of some note because of the studies he has published related to a controversial topic, abortion, which has resulted in additional controversy around Reardon himself. There is plenty of space in the body to present criticims of Reardon and the Elliot Institute by citing facts and sources of those who have raised these criticims. But even then, do so without your inferences--no matter how solid you think them to be. See Wiki policy on "no original research" http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:No_original_research which encompasses what you are doing when you say here's fact one, here's fact two, therefore this is my summary of the meaning of these facts (or in your case, allegations by third parties--such as Mooney).

I'm not your enemy. You can find proper ways to present the facts you feel are pertinent, but I won't stand by and let you distort the facts with inferences and deducations of your own or to front load the article with non sequiters.

Find someone to read what you are writing who is not quite as passionately hostile to Reardon who can help you moderate your approach.] (]) 18:43, 20 November 2007 (UTC)



::1. '''You are putting words in my mouth, and inferring things that aren't there.''' Please stop. I have never claimed, or written in the article that the Elliot Institute is not a "real institute," or that it is an inferior institute. What I wrote is that ''The Elliot Institute does not have a building and is not a research facility''. In fact, I don't go any where near what Chris Moony wrote in the <i></i>:<br />
<blockquote>
''...Reardon founded his own '''quasi-academic think tank, the Elliot Institute for Social Sciences Research'''. At the time, Reardon had a background in electronic engineering; he's since acquired a Ph.D. in biomedical ethics from Pacific Western University, an unaccredited correspondence school offering no classroom instruction.''
</blockquote></li>--] (]) 21:29, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

==Deletion of information from the Article==

::: This discussion of your edits has taken far too much space on the general discussion page for this biography. Please direct any further comments to me to my talk link, as I have also sent you a response to your own link.] (]) 15:38, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

:My talk page is a wholly inappropriate place to discuss the David Reardon Article. I've broken up the above correspondence into more readable chucks (by adding section titles). Please remain engaged on this page rather than posting on my talk page. --] (]) 17:55, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

==Audio of Reardon==
I just finished listening to the audio of Reardon's speech. He seems a genuinely compassionate man. It is worth listening to, and is located here: http://www.nprcouncil.org/radio/5drdavidreardon.ram . --] (]) 00:46, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

==Please stop deleting cited information from the article==
<OL>
<li>Fact: "The Elliot Institute is a pro-life and anti-stem cell research organization." References:<br />
*
*
*
*
*
</li>
<li>Fact: David Reardon claims to have received a Ph.D. from the unaccredited correspondence school, ] which was forced to close by the state of California. References:
*
*
*
* </li>
</ol>

Last, who Emily Balezon is related to does not belong in an article about David Reardon. If you want to make the case that what Balezon writes is incorrect, please do so on the talk pages. But it is misleading to imply that because Betty Friedan is Balezon's cousin, Balezon is an activist like Friedan was. This section should be removed. <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (]) 21:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:UnsignedIP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

==Edit war==
"Pro-life" is the term by which the pro-life movement ] so it isn't in any way pejorative — a pejorative term for "pro-life" would be "anti-choice." I understand that the term "activist" carries with it an implication of involvement in grassroots-level advocacy like vigils, demonstrations, or handing out leaflets, so perhaps a more general term like "advocate" would be appropriate. The fact that Reardon is pro-life is supported by statements he has made in the past, particularly during , and I definitely think it is worth noting somewhere in the article. I'm just not certain where.

I think it is redundant to cover the issue of whether Pacific Western University is accredited or unaccredited in the introduction when it is already handled elsewhere in the article (see ] for a similar example). -] (<small>]</small>) 22:19, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

::Thanks for your excellent edits Severa. Very well done. I added back the information about Reardon's academic credentials later in the article. I believe it is acceptable because it is well sourced. --] (]) 22:40, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

:::There has been a lot of back-and-forth and it's hard to keep track of it all. A few edits unrelated to the dispute might have slipped through the cracks. I think we should all step back from editing for now so that we can begin to get a clear perspective of the issue as a whole. It's not a question of ''whether'' the information on Reardon's credentials and personal views should be covered — it's just a question of ''where'', and ''how.'' We have our sources and now all we have to do is work out how we're going to fit everything together in the article. -] (<small>]</small>) 23:17, 20 November 2007 (UTC)



Hmm, you've made quite a few more edits and indeed left some things out. How long should we wait to include them back? The following are my concerns:
<ol>
<li>It seems to me that the "Public Appearances" title does not adequately describe Reardon's involvement in the Pro-Life movement:
<blockquote>
According to the Elliot Institute website, Reardon "is a frequent guest on Christian radio and Christian television talk shows and has been a frequently invited speaker state and national conventions for crisis pregnancy centers and pro-life organizations" and "Dr. Reardon's three-pronged strategy for ending abortion by helping women has already been adopted by many pro-life organizations at the local, state, and national levels. It appears certain that the popularity of this new compassionate approach to the abortion conflict will continue to grow and become a permanent part of pro-life activities." <ref> Retrieved November 19, 2007</ref> David Reardon has also addressed the ] convention in 1998, where he advocated the need to minister to women who have had, and that abortion leads to "]." <ref> Retrieved November 19, 2007</ref> <ref> Publication: National Right to Life News</ref>
</blockquote>
</li>
<li>The "Academic Criticisms" section should probably go directly under the "Abortion Studies" section</li>
<li>As you stated above, there are several things that have been left out: <br />
*Reardon's claims to his academic credentials
*Reardon's beliefs about the abortion debate:<br />
::Ex: he writes "Pro-lifers who say, ‘I don’t understand how anyone could have an abortion,’ are blind to how hurtful this statement can be,” Reardon writes on his Web site. “A more humble pro-life attitude would be to say, ‘Who am I to throw stones at others?'"<ref>Bazelon, Emily. ''The New York Times Magazine''. </ref><br />
::''and''<br />
::In regard to the political debate surrounding abortion, Reardon has argued that (1) the traditional pro-choice perspective on abortion ignores the long term impact of the abortion experience on women's lives and (2) the traditional pro-life perspective should be replaced by a "pro-woman/pro-life" approach which recognizes the authentic needs of both women and their unborn children.<ref> </ref><ref> an excerpt from <i>Making Abortion Rare</i></ref> He describes his own position on abortion as being both "pro-life" (believing the unborn human fetus is deserving of protection) and "anti-abortion" (believing abortion hurts women).<ref>David C. Reardon. Making Abortion Rare: A Healing Strategy for a Divided Nation (1996) Acorn Books.</ref></li>
</ol>
--] (]) 03:48, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

:::::I didn't mean to suggest that we should avoid editing ''entirely'' — only that the rapid back-and-forth that has been going on between Strider12 and yourself over the past couple of days makes it hard to follow changes to the article and that we should try to slow things down. I think, if we work to address concerns one-by-one, then we'll arrive at a version which no one feels needs to be undone.
:::::The "''Pro-lifers who say...''" sentence is included in the Emily Bazelon quotation under "Criticism in the press: The New York Times Magazine" and the "''In regard to the political debate...''" paragraph has been transplanted to "Studies on abortion." I've tried to stitch everything together thematically, and, as Reardon's studies have pertained to abortion, I felt the political debate paragraph would probably fit best there. I'll move the "''According to the Elliot Institute website...''" paragraph to the "Studies" section for the time being as well.<br />
:::::Having "Academic criticism" as a sub-section of "Studies on abortion" is a good idea and would help to tie things together even further. I'll dig through the diffs and try to locate the stuff related to credentials, which would probably fit under "Academic criticism," too.
:::::Do you have any comments or suggestions on the organization of this article, Strider12?
:::::-] (<small>]</small>) 04:44, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


I would also like to add that within any explanation of the Elliot Institute, the fact that it is a pro-life advocacy organization needs to be made clear.

Also, the fact that Reardon has a Ph.D. from what is commonly termed a "degree mill" is not an "academic criticism." However, it is a valid criticism mentioned in at least two of our cited references. Therefore, I'm going to add it as a special section. --] (]) 19:26, 21 November 2007 (UTC)


: It is a fact that the Elliot Institute is seeking to attract the interest and support of those who are "pro-life" with their efforts at pro-woman advocacy against, for example, coerced abortions and unsafe or unnecessary abortions. And clearly Reardon feels comfortable with both the labels pro-life and pro-woman. But it is also clear that he is arguing to pro-lifers that these two concerns belong together, and therefore he would likely object to being characterized as just "pro-life" since a major part of his argument in "Making Abortion Rare" is that pro-lifers need to be both pro-woman and pro-life, meaning they should recognize and be concerned about the harm abortion does to women.

:That said, it is inappropriate to try to pigeon hole either the Elliot Institute or Reardon with the charge that they are a "pro-life advocacy" group. They have multiple interests, concerns, and "biases" and it is not fitting for ANON to force a label on them. Let the facts, fully and impartialy presented, speak for themselves.

: But more importeantly, in regard to all of the studies are published in peer reviewed journals on which Reardon is a co-author (along with other Ph.D.'s and M.D.'s), we should assume that Reardon is reporting just the facts...in just the same way as other scientists (and reporters, and encyclopdia editors) routinely set aside their personal beliefs to report the facts that they find. Indeed, as a peer reviewer myself I respect that it is one of the key jobs a peer reviewer to make sure that only facts are reported and not biases. If in other contexts Reardon wants to express his personal views for example, his view that the association between abortion and depression is likely causal), he should be free to do so without his studies being dismissed out of hand as simply an expression of biased opinions.

: It is noteworthy that American Psychological Association has clearly adopted as pro-choice position as a civil rights policy, and a spokesperson for the APA has stated that the research on abortion complications is irrelevent to it's political position on abortion as a civil right. Should we then conclude that all studies published by APA members are biased (as Anonymous suggests we should do with Reardon)?

:I think criticims of Reardon's degree from Pacific Western should be limited to what is stated in Mooney's article, and referenced as such, and kept in the section related to Mooney's criticims. It should not put into a separate section at the top of the article just to front load the article with ANON's criticims and ANON's new research and expanded criticism of Pacific Western, which violates the "no new research" policy of Misplaced Pages. Let Mooney speak for himself and include a link to the PWU article on Misplaced Pages.

:Finally, I was especially shocked last week to see how Anon's effort to discredit Reardon has turned into an attempt to "purge" any study in which he is a co-author from the ] article.

:To quote from

::In theory, I agree with you. However, the director of the Elliot Institute (David Reardon) is the author of a majority of the "studies" referenced in the wiki article. The question we should probably answer is - should we purge all references from the Elliot Institute and David Reardon?--] 00:03, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

:::Yes why not? We can only use reliable, neutral sources here. Of course it might be different when we specifically say "pro-life organizations" or "proponents of PAS" claim that so and so are the symptoms. ] 04:58, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

:::::Go for it. Though, I think we will have to be vigilant against Reardon studies sneaking back into the article. --] 18:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

:In my view, openly discussing an effort to "purge" information from peer reviewed medical journals because one of the author's is pro-life (and therefore "biased" against the pro-choice POV of the editors) should itself be grounds for blocking these "editors" who are "viligent against Reardon studies sneaking back into the article."] (]) 16:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

== Criticism of Reardon's credentials ==

Anonymous 131 continues to insert inferences and inappropriately cited material just for the sake of attacking Reardon. To whit:

::David Reardon refers to himself as "David C. Reardon, Ph.D.", and says he received a Ph.D. from ] However, Pacific Western University was closed by the State of California for being a "worthless diploma school." Pacific Western did not provide on-line or in class instruction, and did not receive any accreditations.

1. Citation 5 does not refer to Pacific Western University. Nor does Mooney report that he ever interviewed Reardon.

2. The criticism is raised by Mooney and should be cited as one raised by Mooney.

3. The New York Times article describes an investigation and attempt to close, not that it was closed.

4. Misplaced Pages reports in a disputed article that ] has been a licensed degree granting school in two states, California and Hawaii, and that the California school is still operating (and licensed to grant degrees) but is now operating under the name California Miramar University.

5. It is unknown when Reardon received his degree, whether before or after controversies arose in California leading to the investigations. Nor is there any evidence that he did not complete program work appropriate to his degree.

This is all a guilt by association argument. His research, published in peer reviewed journals, and in collaboration with a number of other Ph.D's and M.D.'s who may have done much or most of the research, stands on it's own merit.

It is fair to point out that Mooney has raised this criticism, but it is not appropriate -- and is a violation Misplaced Pages's "no new research" policy to try to insert additonal arguments against PWU into an article about Reardon in an effort to undermine Reardon. Mooney's allegations tell the story and it is a fact that Mooney has made these allegations.

Therefore I have put this section as follows:

::In a Washington Monthly article criticizing studies published in peer reviewed journals by Christian conservatives, Chris Mooney reports that Reardon received a Ph.D. from ] which Mooney describes as a "unaccredited correspondence school." (cite)

The link to Pacific Western University is sufficient to lead the reader to learn more about the PWU controversy if they desire. <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 15:11, 26 November 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

== Problematic issues ==

I've reverted a series of edits by ] for the following reasons:
* Reardon is a pro-life advocate. His role as such is well-documented by reliable sources to be at least as notable as his role as a scientific researcher, and thus it needs to be mentioned in the lead. Per ], the lead should briefly summarize all notable aspects of the subject. To leave out Reardon's pro-life activism is to omit a notable aspect.
* The Boston Globe article is not an "opinion piece". It's newspaper reporting, in a respected paper with high editorial standards.
* The sourcing in general is ''way'' inappropriate. Most of the sources are to pro-life activist organizations. ''These'' are the inappropriate sources, not the ''Boston Globe''. We need more reliable, third-party, independent sources like the Globe or NY Times, and less partisan sourcing.
* Reardon's books are at least as notable as his journal articles, and should be mentioned in the same section. There's no need to split them off.
* The quotes I've included from Reardon's books were not quote-mined. These were quotes that a reliable secondary source (PBS) chose as significant and representative.
* Please, please read ]. Views need to be presented in proportion to, and in the context of, their acceptance by experts in the field. We cannot describe Reardon's views at length while ignoring the well-documented fact that his findings conflict with the majority of scientific evidence and opinion, or that his findings have been discounted by reliable expert panels because of methodological problems.
* The ''Annals of Internal Medicine'' piece does not reflect the personal opinions of David Grimes. It is a peer-reviewed article in one of the most respected medical journals in the world, summarizing the current state of medical knowledge on the topic, and attempting to spin or undermine the article's findings by citing priestsforlife.org is transparent and inappropriate.
* When we use reliable secondary sources, we can cite them without giving them their own section ("Boston Globe Article"). Otherwise the encyclopedia would be entirely unwieldy.
I hope that sheds some light on the specific issues behind my reversion. ''']''' <sup>]</sup> 06:24, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


Disagree on all counts. All newspaper articles are the works of a journalist, columnist, who may or may not be successful in eliminating their own POV. All three of the media articles cited, including the Boston Globe, have no internal evidence to support the idea that the writers ever even interviewed Reardon. That they "characterize" Reardon as wanting to "impose strict bans on abortion" is their own interpretation of the matter. It is well known, and accepted, that journalists and editors will work for a "slant" in their stories that make them more compelling. You are free to report the slant, but do not charcterize it as "fact." You are naive if you think that PBS did not mine quotes for their own end, and once again are trying to claim that "a reliable second source" trumps everything which comes from "biased pro-life sources."

All of Reardon's studies cited in here are also peer reviewed articls, therefore Grimes' and Reardon's articles should be treated with equal weight. It is very appropriate to list Grime's credentials and to site transcripts from a federal case regarding his work as an abortion provider and abortion activist. That I linked to a pro-life site that has the document is not inappropriate, but feel free to replace it with a link to a federal court archive if you can find it. Since the whole field of abortion and mental health is very controversial topic and both sides will have opinions, and people like Fergusson (a pro-choice atheist who has done the best longitudinal study on this issue) are siding with Reardon rather than the abortion advocacy groups. It is inappropriate for you to decide which of those in this controversy is right and to hide attributions and criticisms for that side of the debate, and to argue that Reardon and anyone else who sides with him is "biased", out of touch with "the real experts" and to pretend that journalists at papers which regularly publish editorials in favor of abortion are "reliable" "neutral" sources, while every source that supports Reardon's views should be dismissed or treated with suspicion.

One of the weakness of the pro-abort's position, which continues to exist in this article, is that there is a lot of hand waving and ad hominum attacks on Reardon himself, but no discussion of the actual statistics he has published. When you read Majors' CMAJ, editorial for example, doesn't dispute the actual statistics reported by Reardon but is instead a long explanation about her worry that people might interpret these findings as a straight forward causal link rather than as an entirely incidental phenomena, as she does.

I'm reverting to a better version of the article. Please try not to delete any of the material I have added. Also, the full bibliography is appropriate and should not be remvoed. Feel free to insert new material in an appropropriate place, but purging material is inappropriate. And I will continue to insert appropriate material citing who said what and what their affiliations are.] 19:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

:Misplaced Pages is a tertiary source. It looks to reliable secondary sources to determine which quotes are important, which viewpoints have what support, and so on. The ''Boston Globe'' and PBS are reliable secondary sources. Their ''interpretation'' of events will be given quite a bit of weight on Misplaced Pages as a result. It's useless to accuse them of "quote-mining", and would be more productive to come up with other, equally reliable secondary sources which reach different conclusions. I am indeed claiming, as you derisively put it, that material from reliable secondary sources trumps that from partisan pro-life webpages. Our policies on ] and ] may shed some light on why I hold such a view.
:Grimes' article is a ''review'' article, and hence a significantly higher level of source than a primary study. There are dozens of primary sources, including Reardon's articles. Review articles ''synthesize'' these studies into a coherent whole. A review published in ''Annals of Interal Medicine'' is a rock-solid source for current medical opinion - AIM is one of the top medical journals in the world, and the authors' summary of evidence was passed through the journal's editors and peer reviewers. Individual primary articles from Reardon do not outweigh a literature review in ''Annals'', in terms of ].
:All of your language is inflected with oppositional terms. Fergusson is not "siding" with Reardon. He's reporting his findings - in this case, they are closer to Reardon's than the APA's. In another case, he found that young women who had abortions had significantly ''better'' psychosocial outcomes than those who carried their pregnancies to term (PMID 17355376). But I don't see you repeatedly inserting text on how he "strongly criticized" Reardon's findings there. Fergusson is a researcher, not a partisan figure, though you're attempting to appropriate him as one.
:Numerous criticisms of Reardon's methodology have been published. Also, criticisms of researchers' credentials and conflicts of interest are not necessarily "ad hominem handwaving". But there has ''also'' been real, notable criticism of his methodology. ''']''' <sup>]</sup> 21:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Give me a listing of the peer reviewed articles which specify the "numerous criticisms of Reardon's methodology" other than Brenda Major CMJ article. All the rest are letters to the editor (which are not peer reviewed for content, such as the BMJ" or from reporters who never interviewed Reardon and have no expertise in research methodology in general or post-abortion research specifically. Most of the criticims are ad hominum or general dismissals. Also, please give an exact quote of Grimes discussing Reardon's studies (as the cite given does not appear to suggest that Grimes--an obstetrisian--conducted a lit review of mental health studies or Reardon in particular, but instead appeared to simply reiterate the standard claim without addressing the research published since 2000.

Your position that one should ignore primary sources and instead quote only from "reliable secondary sources" --- combined with your provision that all sources from those with a pro-life view are "unreliable" (such as court transcripts available from Priests for Life" --- is simply unsupported by any Misplaced Pages policy.

Regarding Fergusson's second study, if you read the study, not just the abstract, you will better understand the meaning of what is said in the abstract: "Adjustment for confounding factors indicated that most of these differences were explained by family, social and educational characteristics that were present prior to pregnancy." In other words, all of the possible benefits turn out to be more related to factors other than abortion. So your statement "he found that young women who had abortions had significantly ''better'' psychosocial outcomes than those who carried their pregnancies to term" is a misrepresentation -- a common problem. What you CAN properly say is that he found that "even after adjustment for confounding factors, young women who had abortions had higher levels of subsequent educational achievement than those who became pregnant but did not have abortions." In other words, continued education was the only postive factor significantly associated with abortion. But even that positive finding is unlikely to "chalk one up for abortion" since those who had abortions were just more likely to finish high school or college compared to those who had their babies and took time off from school to be with their children. This is NOT the same as saying they had "significantly better psychosocial outcomes" -- but it is the type of overgeneralization typical of Russo, Major, and Stotland. <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 22:52, 3 December 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
] 22:27, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

:I'm not interested in arguing the topic with you in this forum, nor am I trying to "chalk one up" for anyone. I read the entire Fergusson study, and you are once again cherry-picking to support your conclusion. The authors concluded in the abstract that "Abortion may mitigate some effects of early unplanned pregnancy." Specifically, "Our results clearly suggest that having an abortion mitigated the educational disadvantage associated with early pregnancy."
:Your constant harping on "the reporters didn't interview Reardon, so it's not a reliable source" is ridiculous. At least in the case of the PBS piece, Reardon refused numerous requests to be interviewed.
:Priestsforlife is not a reliable source. If you're unclear on that, go to the ]. I do not advocate "ignoring" primary sources (that's a strawman argument) - I just don't like seeing them spun and cherry-picked to further an editor's ] of the data.
:Grimes stated, in a review article in ''Annals of Internal Medicine'', that there is no convincing evidence that a "post-abortion syndrome" exists. That is as simple and authoritative a statement of medical consensus as you can get, and your ] criticisms of it do not undermine its ] as a source here. ''']''' <sup>]</sup> 23:39, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they found educational advantages...only...so you should report in the article ONLY educational advantages and not misrepresent broader mental health benefits which they reported were NOT statistically attributable to abortion.

The fact that these reporters haven't interviewed Reardon, which I haven't even tried to put into the article, is clearly pertinent to how the article should be presented as it underscores that their characterizations of his positions are not his own self description but are their characterizations...and should therefore be attributed to them.

Grimes statement is his own, and no more authoratitive then any other statement in a peer reviewed journal. And the article isn't even primarily about mental health nor does it pretend to be a complete review (such as the APA task force is now undertaking). Nor was the article commissioned by Annals, nor should it be suggested that they "stand behind" it as the last word, nor does it represent the official position of any expert body other than Grimes and his co-author. The article you cite is just a overview for internists from an aging abortionist trying to encourage other doctors to join the club. Of course he will say there are no psychiatric problems, it's what the abortion industry has been saying for thirty years, but that doesn't make it a fact .... nor even the opinion of the majority of physicians, who since most have not studied the issue or the recent glut of studies since 20000, really isn't worth much anyway. I'll grant that the opinion of the expected new APA task force report will at least have the merit of being informed by a review of the literature.

This is a complex and controversial issue. Why do you feel a need to purge my clarifications of who says what, unless it is because you are trying to make the opinions of the "experts" you prefer sound like objective facts?

Is your case so weak that you can't just accept the importance of attributing generalizations about Reardon or post-abortion mental health to the people making them? (Our dispute about referencing the statement to the Boston Globe reporter, being another example.) Why resist what are clearly appropriate clarifications about who says this about Reardon and who says what about the issue of abortion maladjustments? I don't take out any of the points of controversy you are trying to insert, I'm just attributing them to who said them.] 19:27, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

:OK. Every statement I've inserted ''is'' attributed to exactly who said it. That's what the little footnotes are for. As to "objectivity", I see an invited, comprehensive review published in ''Annals of Internal Medicine'', one of the handful of most respected medical journals in the world. Whereas you see "an aging abortionist trying to encourage other doctors to join the club", who's simply repeating "what the abortion industry has been saying for thirty years." Your personal views about the evidence are what they are, but they don't override Misplaced Pages's policies on ] and ]. I'm sorry. ''']''' <sup>]</sup> 23:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

::http://www.afterabortion.org is not a reliable source - it is not peer-reviewed (it doesn't even say who runs it) and has no reputation for fact checking. Furthermore, Elliot Institute publications should be treated as self-published or vanity sources. Reardon started the institute (though somehow the article fails to mention this) and it has no independent review system. If material is cited in a reliable and verifiable source it should be included in proportion to weight. As Reardon does not constitute an expert (he has no legitimacy in the scientific community), and his research has been widely dismissed, his views are that of the fringe. There is no established evidence proving PAS, but there is a large body of respected literature that agrees, PAS is a myth promoted for pro-life agendas. It is not unreasonable to cite scientific consensus as fact, particularly when it is documented. ] (]) 05:22, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

See below. Reardon is an expert in the field as verified by numerous peer reviewed journals. Your statement that "he has no legitimacy in the scientific community" is simply false. At best you can cite a number of scientists--Major, Russo and Stotland--who are all on record as opposing abortion regulations arguing that he overstates his evidence and is working to stop abortion. That does not consitute the views of "the scientific community" much less "scientific consensus." See the editors of the CMAJ's editorial. Consider also that Reardon has co-authored his studies with a half dozen or more other Ph.D.'s and M.D.'s who are part of the scientific community. Together with dozens of peer reviewers who have examined his work, they affirm that he is an expert. Your arguments regarding PAS have no place here as there are no cites that Reardon even advocates for that definition.

Afterabortion.org material is the official website for the Elliot Institute, run by Reardon, and is a reputable source precisely because Misplaced Pages policy also provides that:

::Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications.

It is certainly fair, however, to require that the TEXT of the article should include mention that what is presented is from Reardon or the Elliot Institute (if not attributed to Reardon on the web page) since they are both accused of bias. Editors should not PURGE information from experts, like Reardon, simply because others have accused them of bias. Simply make sure that the information on both sides is attributed (in the text, not just the foontnotes) to the persons making the charges. <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) 14:05, 5 December 2007 (UTC)</small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

:A more relevant part of the ] policy here is ], which covers the specific issue of "Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves." Specifically, policy suggests we should avoid using such material in cases where it is contentious, unduly self-serving, involves claims about third parties. Most importantly, it is mandatory that the article is ''not based primarily on such self-published sources''. The article, like all articles, should be based primarily on published, reliable secondary sources. Incidentally, I'm going to stop engaging with you if you're unable to stop calling this a "purge" (also, stop shouting in all caps please). You seem determined to remove all mention of Reardon's pro-life advocacy from the lead, despite the fact that it's extremely well-documented, relevant, and uncontroversial. Yet I somehow manage not to accuse you of "PURGING" material you find inconvenient. I'm just asking you, below, to explain why you think it's not relevant to the lead, using ] as a starting point. ''']''' <sup>]</sup> 17:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

== Reliable Sources -- Misplaced Pages Policy re Reardon Studies ==
{{RFCbio}}{{RFCsci}}
Misplaced Pages policy on reliable sources states that
::

1. From this it follows that all of the studies published in peer reviewed journals in which Reardon is lead or co-author should be treated as reliable sources and should be included in any "weighting of viewpoints." Editors in the purging campaign who have decided to eliminate peer reviewed articles simply because they are associated with Reardon are simply not justified in treating these works as unreliable.

2. As Reardon is clearly an established expert in this field, having published dozens of studies in peer reviewed journals, it follows that the material he publishes through the Elliot Institute must also be accepted as reliable (at least in reporting a view of some experts) since Misplaced Pages policy also provides that:

::Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable

In other words, numerous third-party peer reviewed journals (including both editors and reviewers) have already verified the reliability of Reardon as a researcher and have accepted him as an expert in his field. In addition, Reardon is one of many scientists who are publishing articles showing links between abortion and mental health problems (including, Coleman, Fergusson, Gissler, Rue, Shuping and others). As an established expert in this field, material published by the Elliot Institute, of which he is the director, is also "relevent," especially when attributed to him.

3. Misplaced Pages policy also states that In other words, the text, not just the footnote, should attribute who says what. This is especially important given the contentious nature of post-abortion issues and the fact that the "sources" (those on either side of this debate) appear to disagree on nearly everything.
Both sides accuse the individual researchers and reporters covering this issue of bias. Indeed, we editors are accusing each other of POV bias in the posts for this article. Since we cannot eliminate everyone's bias, we should carefully identify who is saying what so any bias, generalization, or inference is properly attributed to the source.

Thus, we should accept as a foregone conclusion that everyone who cares enough about this issue to write about it has a POV which colors their word choices and judgments regarding the evidence for or against the "post-abortion syndrome" theory.

Therefore, in keeping with Misplaced Pages policy, the editors of this article should be careful to ATTRIBUTE IN THE TEXT any generalizations about the research or individuals (such as media characterizations of Reardon) to the individual authors who have published these views. Editors should not declare as a "fact" that research showing higher rates of psychiatric admissions following abortion (Reardon, CMAJ) are wrong. Good editors will instead meticulously cite and name the person who criticizes a particular study (for example, Major CMAJ) and QUOTE her comments while carefully avoiding any embellishment or inferences. ] (]) 16:28, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

:Strider, can we have a clear and ''concise'' statement of specific changes you'd like to see in the article, to make it easier on anyone stopping by to render an opinion? ''']''' <sup>]</sup> 17:03, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

== Specific issues - briefly ==

OK, before the article ends up protected - I think the only way this will get worked out is if we take issues one at a time. It's impossible to have a dialog by alternating 40kb posts addressing dozens of issues at a time, accompanied by edits which insert many disputed edits simultaneously. Let's start with the lead. Strider12 has mention from the lead that Reardon is a pro-life adovcate in favor of strict barriers to abortion. I believe this is well-documented in reliable sources, including by Reardon himself, and an essential and notable part of his biography, without which any contextualization is incomplete. His role as an advocate is at least as notable as his role as a researcher, and this is documented by reliable sources. ] indicates that all ''notable'' sapects of the subject should be covered in the lead. Could Strider12 explain why s/he feels the lead should not make mention of Reardon's pro-life advocacy? ''']''' <sup>]</sup> 17:08, 5 December 2007 (UTC)


===Regarding Introduction===
Okay. First, I think it unnecessary to load the first paragraph with "context" regarding how others perceive his pro-life and political views. These can and should be dealt with more thoroughly in the main body. of the article. While there have been improvements on this front, see as an example of front loading the article with bias, unverified inferences, guilt by association and other nonsense.

But if there is a consensus that his political views need to be stated in the very first paragraph, it should be contextualized either by the simple expedient of attributing this characterization to a person making the generalization or drawing from Reardon own sources regarding how he has characterized his position, which is more complex than what is typically considered the "pro-life" advocacy view. (Indeed, he has been criticized by several pro-life publications for his "too pro-woman" views.)

For reference, here is the current lead:

:David C. Reardon, director of the Elliot Institute, is a biomedical ethicist specializing in research and education related to the effects of abortion on women, as well as a pro-life advocate in favor of strict barriers to abortion.

Alternate #1, which clarifies that Kranish is characterizing Reardon's position:
::David C. Reardon, director of the Elliot Institute, is a biomedical ethicist specializing in research and education related to the effects of abortion on women. He has been described by a reporter for the Boston Globe as a "pro-life advocate" in favor of "strict barriers to abortion."

Alternate #2, which is, as best as I can read it, how Reardon characterizes his position:
::David C. Reardon, director of the Elliot Institute, is a biomedical ethicist specializing in research and education related to the effects of abortion on women. He is an advocate of what he calls a new "pro-woman/pro-life" approach to the abortion issue. He argues this approach offers "common ground" between moderate pro-choice and pro-life proponents who should be able to agree that women should not be coerced into "unwanted abortions" and that all abortions should be as safe as medically possible. Toward this "common ground" he advocates for laws that would hold abortion doctors "properly liable" to screen for statistically validated risk factors, including coercion, which identify which women are most likely to experience severe psychiatric reactions to abortion.<sup>(ref Making Abortion Rare)</sup> He believes that "proper screening" will dramatically reduce abortion rates by preventing "unwanted" and "contraindicated abortions."<sup>(ref Making Abortion Rare, and The duty to screen, JCLHP</sup>

Alternate #3: Briefer--but still unlikely to satisfy those who want to pigeon hole Reardon right up front:

::David C. Reardon, director of the Elliot Institute, is a biomedical ethicist specializing in research and education related to the effects of abortion on women. He is an advocate of what he calls "pro-woman/pro-life" approach to the abortion issue(ref Making Abortion Rare) and believes that abortion doctors should be held "properly liable" to screen for coercion and other risk factors which may indicate that abortion is "contraindicated." (ref, Making Abortion Rare and The duty to screen, JCLHP)


--] (]) 00:29, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

:Reardon's views are accurately ''summarized'' by the term "pro-life"; subtler points that distinguish him from other pro-life advocates can be made later in the article. No, it is not necessary to say that "a reporter from the Boston Globe called him pro-life." A reliable source (actually, many reliable sources) call him pro-life, and he seems to self-apply the term as well. I could live with saying that "He is an advocate of what he calls a "pro-woman/pro-life" approach to the abortion debate, and advocates strict barriers to abortion." How about that? It specifies his self-identification and covers the relevant issues. We should cite the Boston Globe or some other reliable ''independent'' source, though, rather than citing Reardon at every turn (per ]). I'm not sure what you're trying to imply by "those who want to pigeonhole Reardon" - the purpose of a good lead is to summarize its subject. I'm trying to summarize him. ''']''' <sup>]</sup> 03:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Policy for lead suggests that That he advocates a "pro-woman/pro-life" approach as you word it is acceptable and notable because it invites the reader to learn how and why he distinguishes this from a pro-life approach.

It is unacceptable however, to characterize him as "advocating strict barriers to abortion" as that is a reporter's characterization, not Reardon's description. He would deny that he is erecting any barriers to abortion, but is instead simply advocating that doctors should be held properly liable for injuries caused by abortion. Making Abortion Rare does not advocate a ban or barriers. The claim he "advocates strict barriers" pigeon holes him as an anti-abortion extremist rather than an advocate for listening to women hurt by abortion, which is how he portrays himself, and as I and many post-abortive women see him. --] (]) 03:53, 6 December 2007 (UTC)


MastCell--you are apparantly an expert on Reardon, so please provide the quote from Reardon in which he "self-identifies as an adovcate of strict barriers to abortion." As noted above, your continued insertion of this without attribution to the writer who makes this assertion is in violation of Wikipeida policy.] (]) 04:51, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

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Book reviews

Earlier I asked if anyone was aware of book reviews of Reardon's books. Well, I've just done a quick search in Google books where four of his books appeared, and in Google for the fifth book. I'm afraid that I've opened a can of worms; I didn't want to introduce another source of controversy but it seems unavoidable.

This article is about Reardon, which means it's about his work. His books are part of his work so it seems appropriate to say something about them in this article - and we do say a little about some of them. (I know nothing about his books; is there any dispute that they are a sufficiently large part of his work that they deserve mention?)

I thought (and I suppose still think) that book reviews are the natural way to summarize what is in the books. I don't want to read them myself and try to summarize them (and it would be very hard to avoid OR if I did so) so I hoped that a book review would be a source of about a paragraph-long summary of each book.

The can of worms is that from a cursory glance of the reviews all of them appear in pro-life publications. I'm not worried about NPOV: "The policy requires that where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic each should be presented fairly." The topic at hand is his books and there don't appear to be multiple or conflicting perspectives about that topic apparently because opponents have chosen to ignore the books. If the topic were abortion in general then certainly there would be multiple perspectives to balance, but we're not here to write about abortion, only about Reardon and his work and I don't see conflicting perspectives so NPOV is not a problem.

The problem might be RS. Are other editors going to complain that the sources of these book reviews are not reliable? My goal is simply to get a short but accurate summary of what is in each book. I don't care what that summary says, only that it fairly represents what is in the book itself. If I go to the trouble to read through the book reviews and write one paragraph about each book, will other editors complain that I don't have a reliable source for the book summary? That may be hard to answer a priori but I would like to get some sense of whether I would be wasting my time to go ahead. Will you trust me to honestly try to write an accurate summary of what is in each book? And it shouldn't really matter whether you trust me; will you accept that the sources are sufficiently reliable as to result in a fair summary of each book?

Maybe I'll just go ahead with one of the books and take a stab and see what you think. Sbowers3 (talk) 01:30, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

It depends to some extent on what kind of pro-life sources we're talking about. Reviews by major pro-life organizations may be notable, in the same way that a review by Planned Parenthood (for example) would be notable. In other words, we should make clear in the text of the article that the reviewer is affiliated with a pro-life advocacy group, but we can still consider including the review as it speaks to how his work is perceived within the pro-life community. Reviews by minor or fringe organizations are probably not so encyclopedic or worthy of inclusion. As to a summary, it would help to have specific wording to discuss (do you want to list the reviews here?) - I'm fine with anything that reads neutrally and doesn't present as fact something which is opinion or argumentation. MastCell  06:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Proposal for reorg

I'd like to reorganize the article:

  • I think the Press coverage section should be merged into the Biography. I can't think of any other biography that has a "Press coverage" section. The norm is for statements in the article to be footnoted to press sources.
  • I propose a section on books or (non-technical) articles with subsections for individual books.
  • I propose a section on peer-reviewed papers with subsections for selected papers.
  • I would merge the criticism sections into the relevant subsections. In other words, the criticism would be associated directly with particular studies or articles.
  • After the reorg, I'd add more book reviews and probably a few more peer-reviewed papers and critical commentary.

I have a very rough draft of the reorg at /Reorg. The words are 99% the same as today's article, just rearranged. Sbowers3 (talk) 20:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I like it, especially the first few sections. I'm strongly in favor of doing away with "criticism" and "press coverage" ghettos and integrating the press coverage and criticism into a single narrative, which you've done. I think it's OK to have a separate section on specific studies which provoked comment, rebuttal, mainstream press coverage, etc - which seems to be what you're going for. I'm a little more on the fence about the books - if we could find mainstream reviews (or even reviews from large pro-life groups), then we could break out the individual books, but I don't know how much we can say if there's no reliable outside coverage or discussion of one of his books. Probably focusing on selected books (those with the most related secondary sources available) would make the most sense. I've made a few edits (largely copyedits) to the draft - hope that's OK. MastCell  22:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm very glad that you like the idea. The rough draft was a fairly quick copy and paste and needs a lot of work. Do you think we should move it into the article, then fix it up, or fix it up in the draft, then move it? (And when I say "move" I mean copy and paste - we don't want to replace the old edit history at all. This is just a big edit to the existing article.) Sbowers3 (talk) 23:29, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I think it's an improvement over the existing article, so I'd be fine with moving it now or whenever. It's been mercifully quiet around here recently, but if anyone objects later on, the article can always be reverted back to its prior form. MastCell  23:42, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Done. You've made a good start on copyedits to Biography section - much better than I could have done. I'll work on books and studies sections. Sbowers3 (talk) 00:19, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Nice reorg. Thank you.--IronAngelAlice (talk) 19:01, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Reardon's Responses

I added Reardon's BMJ and CMAJ responses to the respective sections.

Overall, I think the reorganized article is much better. Thanks Sbowers for all the work you've done on it.--Strider12 (talk) 20:58, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that rather get into an endless back-and-forth, we should restrict any "debate" to presenting the article in question and other articles/editorials in the peer-reviewed literature which directly address them. If we get into letters to the editor, website posts, and BMJ E-letters (which are essentially lightly moderated blog feedback), then the article is going to lose focus and degenerate back into a battleground. I think Sbowers' approach was fine - he included Reardon's article on the NSLY and the subsequent article reanalyzing the same database. Similarly, including the CMAJ study and the corresponding editorial is appropriate, but getting into letters to the editor is lowering the bar more than would be healthy for the article. MastCell  21:15, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
No one is suggesting and "endless back-and-forth." My snippets of Reardon's responses are published by the journals. BMJ's rapid response is more than a blog. It is reviewed. While I agree we don't want to get into every letter writer's opinions, it would be quite appropriate to cover both Reardon & Russo's give and take because both are recognized experts in the field and particularly Reardon is the subject of this article. Unless you are suggesting that someone else submitted the BMJ response pretending to be Reardon, it is a reliable source. (As you know, self-published material and even the blog of an expert is acceptable as reliable material if the person is indeed recognized as an expert.) Moreover, it is surely reasonable to show that Reardon has responded to these criticims and to point readers to his responses. Otherwise you are implying that these criticisms are "unanswerable" and have "stunned him to silence." In fact, Reardon's response to Schmiege and Russo is very important as it points out significant differences in the analyses and therefore the interpretation of both team's results. --Strider12 (talk) 15:23, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Rapid Responses are very lightly moderated blog commentary. They are not reviewed in any meaningful sense, and they are problematic as sources - for example, the BMJ's Rapid Response section was seized briefly by AIDS denialists in 2003 to disseminate their message with the imprimatur of the BMJ (see PMID 14628006). I'm interested in focusing on the point/counterpoint in the peer-reviewed journal. If we include what is essentially blog commentary, then we open the door to an endless round of back-and-forth; we have to set the bar somewhere. It is unclear to me why Reardon's blog commentary should be the "last word", given this lack of equivalence in sourcing, or why my edit implied that Reardon was "stunned into silence" while yours does not leave the same impression of Russo et al. It's very simple: let's stick to what's peer-reviewed - otherwise the article will end up a mess. Also, the paper was a brief report, as you yourself pointed out above, so I'm not clear why you've reverted this. MastCell  16:31, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
It is not a "blog comment." One letter is published in CMAJ the other is posted on the online letters and comments of BMJ. As noted above, even a blog of an expert is acceptable to Misplaced Pages if the person is recognized as an authority. Reardon, the subject of this article, is at least an authority of his own views. Also, it is customary in peer reviewed journals to allow authors of articles to respond to criticisms. You are arbitrarily deciding that readers should not be told of Reardon's responses. I do no necessarily say Reardon should have the last word. If you want to give Russo's response to Reardon, that's fine. Your complaint that allowing Reardon to respond to critics would make a "mess" of the article is unconvincing.--Strider12 (talk) 20:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)--
BMJ e-letters are lightly moderated, like the average blog comments section. If you want to talk about the CMAJ letters section, you might want to note that most of the letters therein are critical of Reardon's methodology and his biases. I don't want to include Russo's response to Reardon's response to Russo's response - that's exactly the point. One of the basic tenets of WP:NPOV is that disputes are characterized, not re-fought, on Misplaced Pages. Let's not re-fight it through proxies. MastCell  22:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

A request for small edits

This may seem a strange request from someone who made a major reorg, but I'd like ask editors to make small edits. If you're modifying several sections or several paragraphs, it would help if you made them in separate edits instead of all in one big edit. Alternatively (and this is what I did), propose your edit here or on a subpage, before inserting into the article. The reason for my request is to make it easier to see exactly what has changed, and to make it possible to revert part of an edit instead of the whole thing. We all know that some edits are going to be controversial but often parts of a large edit are not controversial. We shouldn't have to lose the good parts when reverting the not-so-good parts. Sbowers3 (talk) 16:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Regarding Reardon's BMJ study, the current descripiton is inaccurate and misleading because the scope of the investigation is very narrowly defined. I suggested:
Reardon coauthored a study published in 2003 in the British Medical Journal reporting his analysis of depression rates among women whose first pregnancy was unintended using the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY) database. After controlling for a pre-pregnancy measure of psychiatric state, the researchers found that an average of eight years after the pregnancy married women who carried their unintended pregnancy to term were significantly less likely to have depression than similar women who aborted the unintended pregnancy.
Regarding Reardon's response to Schmiege and Russo I added:
In response, Reardon wrote that Schiege and Russo's redefinition of coding variables did not contradict his findings and also introduced coding changes which tended "to muddy the data and increase the likelihood that any statistical comparisons will not detect significant results."
Similarly, I added a summary of his CMAJ response to Major & others.
In a response published in the same journal, Reardon noted that his methodology was identical to that of another record based study by one of Major's colleagues, Henry David, which was highly praised by the APA review team on which both Major and David served. Furthermore, if Major's "hypothesis that mentally disturbed women are more likely to choose abortion" is true "this argument merely strengthens our conclusion that a history of abortion is a marker for mental illness." He also noted that one of Major's own studies had demonstrated that "abortion can be the direct cause of post-traumatic stress disorder."
As noted in my conversation with MastCell, I believe his responses are clearly relevent and verifiable. His BMJ response is actually much more detailed, but I suggest this short summary is probably sufficient. Omission of these responses biases the article by depriving response to criticisms.--Strider12 (talk) 20:40, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
See above thread. MastCell  22:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

References

  1. Reardon DC, Cougle JR (2002). "Depression and unintended pregnancy in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth: a cohort study". BMJ. 324 (7330): 151–2. PMID 11799033. {{cite journal}}: External link in |title= (help)
  2. Reardon, DC. Study Fails to Address Our Previous Findings and Subject to Misleading Interpretations BMJ.com accessed March 19, 2008
  3. Reardon DC. Abortion perils debated. CMAJ • July 22, 2003; 169 (2) accessed March 19, 2008
  4. Major B, Cozzarelli C, Cooper ML, Zubek J, Richards C, Wilhite M, et al. Psychological responses of women after first-trimester abortion. Arch Gen Psychiatry 2000;57(8):777-84.

Internal Links

Maybe an internal link to the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, a group with similar views to Elliot Institute, but filled with members who have had the first-hand experience of abortion. Ste11aeres (talk) 02:29, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Peer-reviewed studies

I have expanded and trimmed this section. Because Reardon has 25 cites in PubMed I thought there should be more than two of his papers in his section. To decide which ones were more notable, I counted how many times each paper was cited elsewhere in PubMed. It turned out that the two most cited papers were already in our article. I added the next most cited article and I added his earliest paper, notable only for being his first paper.

I trimmed the summaries to just a few sentences, for the most part taken from the abstracts. I didn't want to get into a lot of details or a long back and forth. Abstracts should be a fair summary of what the author thinks most important, helps to avoid cherry-picking, and retains verifiability for readers who might not have access to the full papers. Sbowers3 (talk) 15:23, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and reformatted some of the citations. The summaries look fine to me at a glance; I'm getting a bit of tunnel vision on these articles so I'm going to give it a few days and come back and look again more closely. MastCell  17:58, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Nonneutrality of "pro-life" and "pro-choice"

"Pro-life" and "pro-choice" are propaganda terms rather than neutral descriptives. Terms such as "anti-abortion" and "abortion rights" are more neutral. Is there a page for a global discussion on use of these terms? Granted these are the terms preferred by the respective movements, but they also make more or less false claims. In such a case more neutral terms would be better. Burressd (talk) 00:19, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

"Abortion rights" is a propaganda term as well. The terms "anti-abortion" and "pro-abortion" are more factual and neutral.Ste11aeres (talk) 02:32, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

"Pro-abortion" is only "factual and neutral" if you're describing a movement with its goal that everyone who is pregnant must have abortions. Nice try though. (talk) 20:28, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Sad commentary

I wrote the following before the current reversion. My concerns with this piece have been addressed. Evidently those more wiki-skilled than I know how to manage puffery. "Mr. Reardon's views and research are maverick science, not part of the scientific consensus (as is documented in some of the included references). Unfortunately, a naive reader of this article would get the opposite impression. Given the political intensity of Mr. Reardon's supporters, Misplaced Pages operating procedures make it very hard to correct that error. A true encyclopedia ought to do better." Burressd (talk) 23:06, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

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Reardon's birth year

It seems odd to have a biography that doesn't cite a year of birth. However I could not find a source for Reardon's birth date. Does anyone know of one? Burressd (talk) 18:43, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

"Framing"

This edit by Elizium23 is both factually incorrect and tendentious. The links in question do not belong to "pro-abortion" websites or organizations, and the use of the term "pro-abortion" is unencylopedic and partisan. These organizations support the right to abortion, but are not "pro-abortion" nor is it appropriate to describe them as such in a neutral encyclopedia. Reputable sources generally use factual terminology such as "abortion-rights supporters" and "abortion-rights opponents" to describe the two sides of this issue. Elizium has already reverted twice, and I'm not interested in edit-warring, but I'm also not OK with inappropriately partisan, unencyclopedic terminology. MastCell  05:36, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

MastCell, I'm not OK with it either, and your addition of the term "pro-choice" is framing, partisan, and unencyclopedic. Elizium23 (talk) 12:40, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
I think I fixed it for the both of you, although I'm not sure we even need to separate out the links with any labels. Couldn't they all just be listed together with no labels? Better yet, a lot of them look pretty low quality, so most of them could probably be culled from the article altogether. Marquardtika (talk) 15:39, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Marquardtika. That looks fine to me. I'm certainly not wedded to using the term "pro-choice". Many reputable sources use the language that I suggested above, and that Marquardtika installed, and characterize the two sides of the issue in terms of support for or opposition to abortion rights. Describing abortion-rights supporters as "pro-abortion", however, is deceptive, factually inaccurate, and unencyclopedic, which was my objection to the initial edit. To Marquardtika's other point, I agree that the links in general aren't particularly useful and could probably be removed en masse without any decrement in the article's quality. MastCell  16:48, 25 September 2020 (UTC)
Looks like @Avatar317: took the axe to the further reading section. Good riddance, I say! Marquardtika (talk) 02:54, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
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