Talk:Family planning

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:

WikiProject Medicine (Rated Start-Class) This article is within the scope of WikiProject Medicine. Please visit the project page for details or ask questions at the doctor's mess. Start This page has been rated as Start-Class on the quality assessment scale High This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance assessment scale Associated task forces: Reproductive medicine task force WikiProject Sexology and sexuality       (Rated Start-Class) Sexuality portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Sexology and sexuality, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to human sexuality on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. If you are new to editing Wikipedia visit the welcome page to become familiar with the guidelines. Start This article has been rated as Start-class on the quality scale. Top This article has been rated as top-importance on the importance scale. Assessment comments This article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need. WikiProject Human rights      (Rated Start-Class) Human rights portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Human rights, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Human rights on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale. Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale. WikiProject Environment      (Rated Start-Class) Environment portal This environment-related article is part of the Environment WikiProject to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the environment. The aim is to write neutral and well-referenced articles on environment-related topics, as well as to ensure that environment articles are properly categorized. See WikiProject Environment and Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ. Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.

[edit] WP:NPOV

Just about every sentence under the "Components of family planning" subsections have "should" as a main verb. Sentences with "should" are never verifiable facts; they are normative statements (judgements, opinions). These should all be deleted, as Wikipedia is supposed to contain only verifiable fact. Any comment? --Coppertwig 03:14, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, I have cleaned up whatever was left of them (it seems that someone got to them before I did). Joie de Vivre 19:46, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

You may want to include information about the federal Title X program, specifically supporting family planning programs. Suggested links could include SIECUS, NFPHRA, Alan Guttmacher Institute. Also, there is a commonly-used statistic that every dollar spent on preventive family planning save 3+ dollars on medicaid births and health costs associated with unplanned pregnancies. The above-mentioned sources provide verifiable information.Go2India 23:20, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Hasn't family planning become a euphemism for abortion?--Mokru 18:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Groups who believe abortion is a reproductive right include it among family planning services, but the scope of the topic of family planning is certainly much broader than a single procedure. Lyrl^Talk _C 12:14, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

As an example, here's the English National Health Service's page about family planning clinics. There's a lot there that could be incorporated into this article. 86.132.141.139 (talk) 21:49, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

No, just as financial planning is not a euphemism for bankruptcy. Zodon (talk) 07:08, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

This article seems to misrepresent the topic. The phrase "family planning" has been called a euphemism: Even the phrase "family planning" is a euphemism, devised early in the history of the [birth-control] movement to put a respectable emphasis on reformers' activities and to desexualize an essentially sexual subject as much as possible.^[1] [[1]] Family planning clinics are viewed by many as abortion clinics, perhaps especially in the U.S. where Planned Parenthood clinics perform abortions. The Planned Parenthood link is broken, I believe [this] page may have been intended. I couldn't easily find anything about "family planning" on PP's site -- not in the menus, and not under "view all topics." The site prominently mentions birth control and abortion, among other services. Is that a what a family planning clinic is? The entire first paragraph of this article argues that family planning and birth control (and/or abortion) are not synonymous, but oddly stating explicitly that this is a minority opinion -- yet it is the opinion presented as being more valid. That is bizarre. It contradicts or at least flagrantly ignores reliable sources. The birth control article uses the phrase "family planning" as synonymous to "birth control." Is that article in error? Is this article a POV fork?

I believe this article, especially the lead, needs a major revision. My personal preference would be that the entire article redirect to birth control until some reliable sources can be found making the argument this article makes. If and when that happens, the birth control article could discuss varying points of view on the question of whether "family planning" is a euphemism for "birth control," a euphemism for "birth control and abortion," or something else entirely. Blackworm (talk) 06:38, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Oppose redirect. Agreed that it needs a bunch of work. But removing it won't help that. It is not at all the same thing as birth control. Birth control is a set of techniques and technologies frequently used as part of family planning. I just revised the lead to give it more depth, and include some of the other services commonly included in family planning. Will take a little bit to gather sources. Zodon (talk) 07:08, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Contrary to what is said above, the birth control article currently hardly uses the term family planning (except for 'natural family planning' - which is a name for fertility awareness, and the link that I recently added. Zodon (talk) 07:15, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

As I said on your talk page, the birth control article uses the phrase family planning without noting what its relationship is to birth control. This resonates with my belief, which is echoed by the source I cite above, that "family planning" is a substitute for the term, "birth control."

I oppose your edit, Family planning is most frequently used to mean that a couple plans when to have children, using birth control and other techniques to implement that plan. There is no cited source verifying this claim. Specifically, the claim that the phrase is "most frequently used" to mean what the article claims. "Family planning" and "family planning clinics" is synonymous with birth control, and to a lesser extent is associated with abortion, to many, if not most, English speakers, and certainly most Americans. Do you agree or disagree? Blackworm (talk) 09:10, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

As noted, the use of family planning clinic on the birth control page can at best suggest that they are associated (as in birth control services are among those commonly offered by family planning clinics), it need not imply that they are synonymous. The above quote is an observation about the history of the term, and does not speak to current usage.

Fixed the 'most frequently,' that was indeed unsourced and an error. (I was being too cautious about trying to come up with something that I thought would suite the tenor of this thread.)

It is possible that the majority of English speakers regard these terms as synonymous, I have no idea - I am no expert on demographics and public opinion. If most English speakers regard family planning as a synonym for birth control, that fact could certainly be germane for inclusion in the article (assuming the assertion was properly sourced). But just because something is "common knowledge" or common usage does not mean that it is verifiable, true, or worth emphasizing. So, I don't know what percentage regards these as synonymous, and it is not apparent why it is important.

This is an article about Family planning, not just a dictionary definition. So the uses that are common in the field (e.g. see citations WHO, US Health Dept, NHS) should be covered, and especially in a field that is fairly new and frequently misrepresented, they should be given reasonable weight. Just because people associate something with one of its aspects doesn't mean that one has to limit coverage of that thing to that aspect, or pro-rate coverage based on people's perception. Zodon (talk) 01:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

"Frequently used" is still unsourced. I believe you misunderstood my objection to "most frequently used." It is no better the way you have phrased it, whether it be "frequently used" or "always used" or "seldom used." No source is cited on the frequency of this usage, thus we cannot make a statement about its frequency. The most neutral thing to say is "was used by [source author]..."

I don't share your opinion that "expert views" on what a phrase really means is somehow more relevant than what the majority of laypeople believe it means. I believe if someone has been called an "expert on family planning," their opinions should likely be presented at this point in this article's development. But this has not been shown about your sources. IMO, just because sources discuss "family planning services" and what "family planning implies" doesn't make them experts on what family planning is. For that, one could perhaps refer to this source, a self-described medical encyclopedia on the National Institutes for Health website. As its entry for "family planning," it has, "Family planning and contraception see Birth control and family planning"). The entry it references says, "Alternative Names: Contraception; Family planning and contraception. Definition: Which form of birth control you choose depends on a number of different factors, including your health, how often you have sex, and whether or not you want children." (End of definition.) Seems like they're using it pretty much synonymously to me, in fact their cross-reference seems analogous to my call for an article redirect above. Now, I'm not insisting on a redirect because it's what this one source suggests we should do, but I think it behooves us not to regard the view as something to be argued against by this article.

Also at present, the article text sourced from the WHO and NHS does not seem to always follow from these sources, which would violate policy (No Original Research). This may simply be a question of a lack of clarity and I think I might be able to rephrase it in a way we can both agree on.

You can emphasize education, reproductive health services, and other aspects, or you can note them. Which do you believe this article does? I'm not against giving them reasonable weight, I'm against emphasizing them in the context of family planning. I believe that most people would agree with family planning to mean, fundamentally, "legal manipulation of the probability of the occurrence of healthy childbirth through various means" although it has not been phrased thusly to my knowledge. I believe that birth control is the most often used form of family planning, at least in the West, but on that my confidence is weaker. Do you challenge these statements? If so, I will, of course have to find more sources or concede that it is not the case as far as Wikipedia is concerned. Blackworm (talk) 03:04, 17 March 2008 (UTC)