Template talk:Abortion in the United Kingdom

Scope

Hello Torchist and thanks for creating this valuable template. I wonder about how best to define its scope. There are people included who spent their whole careers or at least large sections of them focused on abortion, like Simms, Paintin and Diggory on the pro side and Jepson, Scarisbrick and Alton on the anti side. Then there are people like Dorries, Rees-Mogg and Coffey, who haven't focused on abortion, who are best known for other reasons, but who are significant politicians who have expressed varying degrees of opposition to abortion. I think there's a danger of recentism here: Coffey is in the news this week because of her views on abortion, but she hasn't actually done anything notable to change the legal status of abortion. The same can be said of Dorries and Rees-Mogg.

I suggest it would be better to keep the template more selective, so drop, e.g., Dorries, Rees-Mogg, Coffey, Flello, Knight, etc., maybe Lo too. Bondegezou (talk) 11:22, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

You raise a good point. With Rees-Mogg/Coffey, their personal view on abortion is certainly something which they have been asked about numerous times, but don't appear to be actively lobbying one way or another. With Flello and some of the others, they have a history of involvement with the All-Parliamentary Pro-Life Group (current membership listed here) which may be different and worthy of inclusion here. Torchist (talk) 14:32, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I don't have a strong view on where precisely to draw the line. You've looked into the topic more than I have. I think membership of an All-Parliamentary group alone doesn't indicate much given how ad hoc All-Parliamentary groups can be, but I've not researched Flello's career enough to take a broader view. Bondegezou (talk) 13:49, 9 September 2022 (UTC)