Talk:Abortion doping

Nandrolone

I don't see any mention of nandrolone in the article. Perhaps the single greatest advantage of abortion doping is passing tests for this steroid as during pregnancy it is produced by the body and thus its presence in women who have recently aborted is treated as natural by testers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.85.57.51 (talk) 11:40, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Plagerism

This appears to be a somewhat rearranged copy of the text from the first reference. Needs rewrite. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.86.145.15 (talk) 03:02, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

The first paragraph of the first section is the only part of the article that relies heavily on the first reference. I have reworded it further now that you have pointed this out. Others are welcome to do the same if they think it still needs improvement. You could always try and improve it yourself. Freikorp (talk) 22:50, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

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Good resource on history

This resource contains some research about the history of such claims:

• https://journals.ku.edu/jis/article/view/10118/9548
• Sorensen, E. A. (2009). Debunking the Myth of Pregnancy Doping. Journal of Intercollegiate Sport, 2(2), 269–285. https://doi.org/10.1123/jis.2.2.269

Please note that the title of this study, "the Myth of Pregnancy Doping", does not mean that the authors believe that pregnancy doping is a myth. Rather, the study is about the myth that athletes can be accused of pregnancy doping if they become pregnant during training. --leuce (talk) 18:31, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

Not illegal where?

The article currently says "The practice is not considered illegal by the IOC. Prince Alexandre de Merode has stated the organisation does not 'police motherhood'", citing Mikkleson's Snopes article of 2007. However, that information is practically a direct quote from one of the article's sources (Abortion part of training regimen? Mary Ormsby, Toronto Star, 29 June 1988), where the full text is thus:
Merode verified stories that some Eastern European athletes do get artificially inseminated and then abort the fetus after two or three months in an attempt to enhance their athletic performance. The prince said a Swiss doctor was the first to implement the practice of abortion as a way to improve sports results, although it is unclear what beneficial effect it has on women other than changing their hormone profile.
The practice is not illegal and de Merode said the IOC will not be policing motherhood.
The article mentions that the conference was co-chaired by Merode and by the Canadian sports minister. The position of the quote in the Snopes article implies that "it is not illegal" refers to "in the IOC", but the Toronto Star article does not imply that. It could mean that it is not illegal in Canada (since this was a report for Canadians), or that it is not illegal in Switzerland (since the doctor who is claimed to have started it was a Swiss doctor). I think the Wikipedia article should be clear *where* it is not illegal, or otherwise remove that comment.--leuce (talk) 18:04, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Would you be satisfied if we reworded it to simply say the procedure is not banned/enforced by the IOC? I would assume they're using the term 'not illegal' in a broad context regarding whether its explicitly prohibited somewhere. Obviously, no country where abortion is legal has a specific law criminalising abortion if it is done for this explicit rumoured practice. Damien Linnane (talk) 22:31, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Journalists sometimes add statements like "but it is not illegal" for dramatic effect, so I'm really not sure what the author meant here (and the position of "and de Merode said" in that sentence is somewhat suspect, although English journalistic style isn't strictly "logical", so it's hard to tell).
The fact that the issue was on the agenda of the conference but did not make it into the final charter implies that the conference concluded that it is such an unlikely practise that it is not necessary to specifically prohibit it. Alternatively, it could be that they felt that it would be very difficult to judge whether an athlete who got an abortion had gotten it specifically as a performance enhancer.
The IOC no longer makes its own rules on doping (like it used to until the mid-1980s, I believe) -- they leave doping matters up to the WAMA, so it would be unsurprising if the IOC itself currently make no specific statement about it. WAMA is already mentioned in this section, and the "policing motherhood" statement can also stay in this section. We could add that it wasn't mentioned in the final charter either.--leuce (talk) 09:48, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure if we need to mention it's absence in the final charter. Also I feel it's always better if we cite sources that explicitly say something, rather than noting something does not appear in a source (there might a policy on how appropriate that practice is that I'm not aware of). Anyway I'm happy for you to modify the current wording of that section though and just take it from there. Damien Linnane (talk) 22:30, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Skeptical of Sunday Mirror quotes

The article currently says: According to the fact-checking website Snopes.com, media reports following this claim were skeptical of it, and "it is not clear if Erkola would have had any first-hand knowledge of Soviet doping practices". However, I have yet to see an example of a media report shortly after the Sunday Mirror story that is critical of the claims made in that story. I have seen several examples where the story was reported on and quoted from, but without casting any doubts on its veracity. What would it take to be able to safely say that the Snopes author was mistaken? --leuce (talk) 18:48, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Hundreds if not thousands of sources from the period will not be digitised and readily available online, so I'm not overly surprised you haven't found something in a day. Snopes is an established source that satisfies WP:RS and (not surprisingly) has an extremely high reputation for fact-checking. I have personally spent many weeks scouring offline sources, sometimes just to verify a single statement. And that's just as a hobby. I can only presume Snopes, a website that has build a reputation (and income) primarily on the back of their fact-checking, put in considerable more effort that I do. To safely say they are wrong, I think you'd need not one but a consensus of several highly reliable sources concluding that. Or course, a single source could be used to counter their claims (though not remove them entirely). Incidentally have you considered emailing Snopes and asking what their source was? Obviously if they do not reply (which to be honest I presume they will not) that has no bearing on determining if they were indeed correct. I mention this as I have in the past reached out to journalists to ask what their source was, and sometimes they are more than happy to forward that information on. Damien Linnane (talk) 22:43, 21 October 2021 (UTC)