Talk:Susan Wicklund

"Abortion provider"?

Is "Abortion provider" the correct term that should be used here? Surely "abortion doctor" would be more suitable, would it not? --Connelly90[AlbaGuBràth] (talk) 15:56, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I believe "abortion provider" is preferred. Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:27, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

"Great article!"

Good work on this one, Rosc! unitas (talk) 15:16, 25 December 2011 (UTC)12/25/11

Thanks! –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:21, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Style issues

Not trying to be pedantic, but the article still has a ways to go. I'll make some edits and see what you think. Badmintonhist (talk) 21:47, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Rephrasing for style is unhelpful when you change the meaning to something incorrect. Please revert your edit of the part about midwifery and Wicklund's acquaintance who recommended that she become a physician; they are not the same person. (I'd also appreciate it if you'd restore "chose to learn"; the source treats it as significant and presumably medical students were given the option of not learning them.) –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 05:22, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Look, I've tried to be nice but now you're acting as if if you own the article. Nobody owns anything here. The article is written in a testimonial style that is inappropriate to any encyclopedia. When you use sources that are either testimonial in style or self-serving (as pretty much all of your sources are) you don't try to duplicate the testimonial or self serving style of your sources. Badmintonhist (talk) 14:27, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

It's not about style. The material you added was factually wrong. I don't really care what your personal feelings about me are - they don't give you permission to introduce factual inaccuracy to an article. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:09, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I just changed the "midwife versus acquaintance" problem. The "choosing" to learn to perform abortions bit should stay out. Learning how to perform an abortion is not that unusual for a medical student even if he/she has the option of not learning the procedure. Putting it in makes the narrative stilted sounding for an encyclopedia if not for a NARAL or NOW puff piece. Badmintonhist (talk) 15:27, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Okay. Let me reiterate: I would appreciate if you would refrain from introducing factual inaccuracy to the article. Because of 1RR, I can't keep up with you, and it's lowering the quality of the article. The sources don't attribute Wicklund's divorce to anti-abortion protestors, but rather to her long hours and traveling for work which took her away from her family. Rephrasing for style is laudable, but if you can't do it without changing the meaning of the sentence and if you don't want to read the sources to make sure you're keeping to them, you should stop. Perhaps you can list issues that you see on the talk page, so that other people can fix them without this problem. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:34, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Ahh, you're kidding, right? Right? Here's what the Washington Post, Emily Bazelon book review, your source here, says:

Over the years, Wicklund endured stalking and physical threats. She wore a bulletproof vest and carried a gun. One desperate morning in 1991, she woke to the sound of protesters chanting "Susan kills babies! outside of her rural home. They stayed for weeks; Wicklund's daughter had to ride to school in a police car. And her marriage fell victim to the work and strain. "I have to recognize the truth," she writes "My commitments have demanded a great deal fro the people I love."

And your conclusion is that it is incorrect to mention the protests in connection with her divorce; only the travel and long hours which are emphasized less???? Badmintonhist (talk) 18:04, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm looking at the autobiography, which is the source of the quote. It is clear that the "work and strain" referred to by Bazelon are the work hours and travel, since that is what Wicklund talks about when discussing the divorce and the toll on her family. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:21, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Yeah but that's not the source you provided in the Wiki article, Ros. By the way, if you're going to base everything in the end on her autobiography, a primary source you've got to handle the information very differently than the info from a reliable secondary source. Badmintonhist (talk) 18:39, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Bazelon is the source for the work causing her divorce, precisely because secondary sources are to be preferred. But we cannot deliberately put in incorrect information because a user believes a secondary source is unclear, when the primary source clears up all ambiguity. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:43, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Secondary sources are preferred for the reasons that they are supposed to be more objective, often better researched, and less self-serving than primary sources. What does Bazelon being more melodramatic than Wicklund herself say about the quality of that source? Badmintonhist (talk) 18:59, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that Bazelon, in a book review of Wicklund's book, somehow discovered a more accurate fact about Wicklund's divorce than Wicklund herself knew? Or that the Washington Post is an unreliable source because it isn't sufficiently anti-abortion (which I hear often from troublesome users)? Both are silly arguments and we should not waste our time with them. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 14:24, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I think what I'm suggesting is pretty clear to a pretty clear mind. Bazelon, regardless of her Washington Post pedigree, is a lousy source here. She is a lousy source because she embellishes Wicklund's tale by making the protests a major factor in Wicklund's divorce. The Washington Post is blameworthy here not because it is "insufficiently anti-abortion" but because it selected a reviewer who distorted the facts. Badmintonhist (talk) 23:49, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

When given a choice between the New York Times and some guy named "Badmintonhist", I usually go with the former. How about you? 24.45.42.125 (talk) 05:17, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

When given a choice between Badmintonhist and some guy/gal named 24.45.42.125 who probably lost his/her privileges to edit under an earlier name, I go with Badmintonhist. But getting back to substance, what is your rationale for including information from a fundraising letter, for example? Roscelese hasn't been fighting my recent edits. Probably because she realizes that they are valid. Badmintonhist (talk) 05:47, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

PS: It was ROSCELESE, not I, who insisted that The New York Times writer Emily Bazelon was WRONG in connecting Wicklund's divorce to the abortion protests. SHE insisted that it did not jibe with Wicklund's account of the divorce in her memoir. Badmintonhist (talk) 05:58, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

No, the IP was quite correct in restoring the material. If you think it's a problem that these secondary RS writers are reporting based on Wicklund's accounts, you must insert language to qualify the statements, not remove sourced material. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:19, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Roscelese, YOU are the editor who changed the information about Wicklund's divorce based on what was in her memoir as opposed to what was in Bazelon's review of her memoir. I edited that information to reflect Bazelon's statements strongly implying that the anti-abortion protests contributed to the divorce. YOU changed it back again because you didn't think it was consistent with Bazelon's own account of the divorce. I then observed that if Bazelon embellished the causes of the divorce, as YOU claimed she did, then she's not an especially good source. Badmintonhist (talk) 18:20, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Bazelon specifically states that the work and strain caused Wicklund's divorce. If your interpretation differs from both Wicklund's account and Bazelon's reporting, that is not my problem. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:33, 15 July 2012 (UTC

Have you read the article lately?? The information about the divorce in the article now IS EXACTLY AS I EDITED IT and EXACTLY WHAT YOU OBJECTED TO WHEN I, RATHER THAN YOUR IP COMRADE-IN-ARMS, edited it. He/she changed it back to what I wrote, CHANGING WHAT YOU WROTE. You are now defending exactly the same language about the divorce that you objected to when I wrote it. Badmintonhist (talk) 18:45, 15 July 2012 (UTC) PS: Just three days ago in reference to this wording you said "but we cannot deliberately put in incorrect information . . . when the primary source clears up all ambiguity." Badmintonhist (talk) 19:12, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I didn't actually catch that the IP had restored that clause as well; I was saying s/he was correct in restoring material about Wicklund's firing, etc. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:47, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Outstanding!! Better late than never. Wicklund's firing is a minuscule point, but we'll talk more about "etc." later.Badmintonhist (talk) 22:29, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Wow, a personal attack against me for choosing not to create an account. I wonder how many rules that broke. Then again, you're already guilty of edit warring, so you can't possibly care about the rules. You're also fond of speaking for others who are more than capable of speaking for themselves. In total, you have offered nothing of substance and much to apologize for. 24.45.42.125 (talk) 16:09, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

"Without Wicklund . . . "

The last paragraph of the of the "Practice" section opens with the sentences: "Without Wicklund, women in North Dakota would not be able to obtain abortions. (1993 source) No North Dakota doctors perform abortions, so the clinic in Fargo, the state's only, must fly physicians like Wicklund in." (1993 source) These sentences are problematic for a number of reasons. Let's start with their "reliable sources" which are now nineteen years old. This is the kind of information that becomes stale very quickly and one reason among others that Wikipedia is not supposed to be a newspaper or news journal. Wikipedia is also not supposed to be a nineteen year old crystal ball. The problem with a "fact" such as "Without Wicklund . . . ," even were it to appear in a source such as NPR in 2012, is that it is pretty much unverifiable. "Without Wicklund" another doctor might very well take her place, we really don't know, but supply tends to follow demand. Finally a statement like "Without Wicklund . . . " is unencyclopedic. It has a testimonial, promotional tone that encyclopedias are supposed to eschew. Badmintonhist (talk) 16:10, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I think you're exaggerating the problem here. Why not suggest alternate wording that preserves the sourced facts (Wicklund is/was the only doctor providing abortions in ND, but doesn't live there)? I looked for more recent material on abortion in ND; they still have only the one clinic, and it seems that there are still no local doctors who do surgical abortion so they have to fly people in, but as these two people come from states other than Montana I don't think Wicklund is still one of them. We can rephrase the paragraph to recognize that it was true at the time the sources were written without removing it. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 19:45, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Fine with me. I'll work on it.

How about replacing the two sentences in question with something like the following and placing it in the second paragraph of the section just before the sentence about her divorce?

For a number of years Wicklund was the sole abortion provider for women in North Dakota where no resident doctors performed elective abortions (source); its one clinic in Fargo flying providers in (source).Badmintonhist (talk) 22:25, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I've used your first sentence. The second is still currently true as written, so I've left it for now (with a few tweaks, removing "like Wicklund" and adding "surgical" as a probably-unnecessary qualifier). What do you think? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:26, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Not bad. I still think we need a newer reliable source for the "No North Dakota doctors perform abortions" sentence to replace the nineteen year old source there now. Otherwise change it to "No North Dakota doctors performed abortions . . ." past tense. Also, and this is a bit nitpicky, it might be better to qualify what North Dakota doctors don't do. I'm sure some have performed emergency abortions at one time or another. Even anti-abortion senator/doctor Tom Coburn has performed abortions. Badmintonhist (talk) 15:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

We could use this source for the continued absence of ND residents? I don't think a qualifier is necessary, however; when we refer to an abortion provider, we don't typically imagine that it includes an emergency room surgeon who has performed one or two emergency abortions, so I think we're fine. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:47, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I would substitute the newer source for the older one. The info is hardly coming from a neutral observer but on a simple factual matter like this I don't imagine that it would fib. Badmintonhist (talk) 19:48, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The material from the clinic fundraising letter?

Surely we cannot include as facts in Wiki's voice the naughty things that opponents of Wicklund's new clinic were supposed do be doing according to a friggin' fundraising letter (pardon my emphasis) reprinted in Katha Pollitt's Nation column. It's bad enough using an opinion column in an opinion periodical as a source for facts, but a reprinted fundraising letter? Badmintonhist (talk) 20:49, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I believe I misread it at the time I was writing the article and thought more of it was by Pollitt than is actually the case. It's undoubtedly sourceable that the opening was delayed (as we have a March '08 source projecting its opening in June, and then other sources about its opening in February 2009); shall we attribute the rest? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:47, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Even if the information had all seemed to come directly from Pollitt the MOS says that facts from an opinion piece should be attributed to the author in-text. Unless we can find a reliable source for "intimidation of landowners and construction firms by abortion opponents" (not exactly neutral phrasing by the way) it needs to go. The opening of a business can be delayed for all sorts of reasons. Badmintonhist (talk) 04:50, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Someone to check out audiovisual sources

I still have a number of audio and video sources for this article that I haven't been able to examine due to various technical and scheduling issues. Would anyone like to take a look at them and see if there is anything to add? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:51, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

What materials? Online? Binksternet (talk) 03:53, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Do you want me to e-mail 'em? Or if other people express interest I'll link them here, I guess –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 06:02, 17 July 2012 (UTC)