Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
There is a legitimate medical term for this procedure, which goes back to before the anti-choice movement politicized it: intact dilation and extraction. That some people haven't heard the term doesn't mean we can't use it.
I agree. "Partial-birth abortion" simply is too POV for us to use because of the use of the word " birth." This negates our "common use" naming convention in a similar way as "Eskimo" is depreciated in favor of the less widely-used "Inuit" ("Eskimo" is a derogatory term meaning "eaters of raw fish" while "Inuit" means "the people"). Might was well also swap the word "abortion" with "murder of the unborne" since "birth" has very clear baby-related connotations. "Intact dilation and extraction" is an accepted medical term that is dryly descriptive.
So if I can't say that Pol Pot was a genocidal maniac responsible for the murder of over 2 million of his own people and have to instead dryly state that "During his rule up to two million Cambodians were killed", then I don't think we can use "partial-birth abortion" as an article title about the procedure (maybe, if we get enough material, we could have an article at [[partial-birth abortion]] about the term and the controversy surrounding the use of the term).
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Daniel Mayer wrote:
I agree. "Partial-birth abortion" simply is too POV for us to use because of the use of the word " birth."
Agreed. But of course we do need an article on 'Partial-birth abortion', an article distinct from an article about any medical procedure, explaining what the term is, how it is used, and why.
This negates our "common use" naming convention in a similar way as "Eskimo" is depreciated in favor of the less widely-used "Inuit" ("Eskimo" is a derogatory term meaning "eaters of raw fish" while "Inuit" means "the people").
Presumably, though, we should have an article "Eskimo" about the word, linking to "Inuit" the people?
So if I can't say that Pol Pot was a genocidal maniac responsible for the murder of over 2 million of his own people and have to instead dryly state that "During his rule up to two million Cambodians were killed",
Is that a specific example? I don't think that there would be much controversy in attributing those deaths to Pol Pot's decisions and policies, would there? Even Noam Chomsky would likely admit that much.
--Jimbo
On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, Jimmy Wales wrote:
Daniel Mayer wrote:
So if I can't say that Pol Pot was a genocidal maniac responsible for the murder of over 2 million of his own people and have to instead dryly state that "During his rule up to two million Cambodians were killed",
Is that a specific example? I don't think that there would be much controversy in attributing those deaths to Pol Pot's decisions and policies, would there? Even Noam Chomsky would likely admit that much.
Actually, I did encounter a writer who claimed that there was no factual & objective basis for the Khmer Rouge's systematic murder of their own people. (It was in the Portland, Oregon _Willamette Week_, stated as part of a summary of the movie "Swimming to Cambodia".) I remember it quite well because I wrote a scathing letter to the editor about that claim -- which was published, to my surprise. The writer was given some room to respond, & claimed that he had based his statement on an article that suggested that the PTB in Washington were attempting to blacken Pol Pot's name & avoid responsibility for events in Cambodia in _The Nation_ . . . written by Noam Chomsky.
I guess Revisionist History also includes Cambodia, despite uncountable eyewitness accounts there too. :-(
Geoff