Talk:Louise Brown

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A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on July 25, 2018.

The subject of this article is only notable because of the circumstances of her birth, and while she has been the subject of some further news coverage, most of it has been "human interest stories" and not real news. That she is a "normal person" despite the unusual circumstances of her birth is probably all that this article shows, and I don't see a reason for a whole article based on that. WP:BLP1E states that living people who are notable for only one event should be covered for the event, not the person. Somedumbyankee (talk) 15:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. There would be nothing lost if all this information, including her name etc., were merged to the other article and redirected. If there was ever a person known for only one event it is Mrs. Brown. Steve Dufour (talk) 04:39, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Absolument pas d'accord. WP:BLP1E stipule que "we should generally avoid having an article on them." Généralement, pas systematiquement! Dans le cas présent, Louise Brown est un personnage historique qui mérite sa page, même si elle n'y est pour rien, même si elle n'est notable qu'à cause des circonstances de sa naissance.

I strongly disagree. WP:BLP1E stipulates that "we should generally avoid having an article on them." Generally, not systematically! In this particular case, Louise Brown is an historical figure which deserve his page, even if is only notable because of the circumstances of her birth.78.113.23.15 (talk) 19:49, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Par ailleurs, il n'est pas inintéressant de savoir ce qu'elle est devenue, et de savoir si quelles furent les conséquences des circonstances de sa naissances sur son développement psychologique. C'est même quelque chose de très important!

Furthermore, it is interesting to know what she is becoming, and what kinds of consequence had the circumstances of her birth on his psychological development. It's even a very central point!78.113.23.15 (talk) 20:00, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Given that there really isn't anything much to say about her individually (without meaning any slight to Ms. Brown) I agree with the merge and redirect. -- SiobhanHansa 21:54, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree -- I think she is *so* well known for this one event (comparable to, say, Christa McAuliffe, who was completely nonnotable except for one event) that people will be looking for information about her. There is also substantial news coverage about Ms. Brown herself, not just about IVF. NawlinWiki (talk) 00:56, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The only possibly encyclopedic thing about her life is that she is a normal human being. Her personal details, work history, her family life... these aren't encyclopedic. The circumstances of the IVF procedure are the only things that are notable, and that is more important for the history of IVF. Salacious personal details are not the subject of reliable encyclopedias. SDY (talk) 01:24, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's false, and it's easy to prove it. From a scientific or ethical point of view, it's interesting to know what are the consequences of the IVF on a long run. For exemple, in this book, we can read that "today, we know that Louise Brown" has led a normal life, with no medical complications." It's not an insignificant information, because some scientists fears about possible epigenetic consequences of the IVF (see this article, which reminds of Louise Brown case).78.113.2.235 (talk) 08:40, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think anyone is saying that her "being normal" isn't of consequence to IVF - those of us suggesting a merge and redirect are simply saying it is better placed in the article about IVF. Something like "The first person born through an IVF procedure, Louise Brown, has had no identifiable medical consequences from the procedure and has successfully conceived and delivered a child naturally." And then we probably need to ensure scientific context along the lines of "Researchers have not found any harmful repercussions from the IVF procedure in the children born through it." (or whatever the facts support) because, after all, the fact that one is successful is never the whole story with medicine. But the details on this page - the fact that this particular woman now works in whatever profession, gained whatever qualifications, and married whatever person on whatever date, goes to whatever parties, or supports whatever causes - these things are not encyclopedic for this topic. And having this here encourages the collection of trivia about someone who is not a public figure, and fails to as effectively direct readers to the encyclopedic information on IVF itself and how Louise Brown fits in to that. -- SiobhanHansa 03:07, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any new comments? Is there any interest in pursuing dispute resolution? Flatscan (talk) 01:12, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently on March 10, 2009, User:CharlotteWebb nominated this page for deletion, with the comment: "this article violates WP:BLP1E in a pre-natal extreme; the subject is known only due to events prior to her birth" ; after which on March 11, User:Snigbrook replaced the WP:PROD template with a merge suggestion, "remove PROD, should be merged as suggested in WP:BLP1E".

I don't agree with the reasoning. Just from looking at the references, Ms. Brown has been written about in 2003, 2004, and 2008, by the BBC News, the Guardian, and Agence France-Presse, and they didn't only write about "events prior to her birth"; for example, one of the articles is about her becoming pregnant herself. It is true that she only became famous for one reason, but so do most people we have articles about. Unlike the cases covered by BLP1E, however, she herself has been extensively written about by reliable sources, and not just the circumstances of her conception. --GRuban (talk) 18:36, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, actually what it says is "Where a person is mentioned by name in a Wikipedia article about a larger subject, but essentially remains a low-profile individual, we should generally avoid having an article on them." Ms. Brown is not a "willing public figure" even by the JoshuaZ standard, the cited sources say as much. This recent coverage, the fact that she had a baby herself without any special help doesn't really prove anything except that infertility is generally not hereditary (and most of us women already guessed as much). The doctors already realized this too as younger test-tube babies had already had babies prior to Louise's pregnancy and nobody paid them any mind, so why hers was deemed newsworthy is anybody's guess. I don't think you can piece this together with the bit about her husband being a bouncer (whatever that has to do with anything) and come up with something resembling a biography. — CharlotteWebb 19:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I don't know what the quote "'willing public figure' even by the JoshuaZ standard" is. I couldn't find either one of them in WP:BLP1E. --GRuban (talk) 20:24, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't appear to be in the policy, but it is mentioned in a user essay User:JoshuaZ/Thoughts on BLP. —Snigbrook 00:24, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah. Thanks. Well, examining that essay, Ms. Brown seems to fall into the category "willing to be interviewed by various newspapers", repeatedly, over a large span of years, in fact. That said, the essay doesn't come to a conclusion, and is still an essay, while I don't see "willing public figure" being a criterion anywhere in the actual policy. This isn't some person who is being pursued by little local papers or cheezy supermarket tabloids, we are talking about the BBC and Agence France Presse, respected major international media outlets. --GRuban (talk) 14:20, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to the comment "...doesn't really prove anything except that infertility is generally not hereditary":

1. Infertility is generally not hereditary yet because dominant genes that cause infertility couldn't be inherited when an infertile person couldn't have biological children. (Recessive genes could, because most carriers of the genes for a recessive trait don't have the trait.) But now that IVF is becoming more common, mutations that cause infertility will be inherited, and their incidence will increase generation after generation, perhaps becoming common eventually. It is even (theoretically) plausible that after enough generations of infertile couples conceiving with IVF the genes for natural fertility could disappear from the human genome and the species would be able to reproduce only through IVF.

2. Her ability to give birth doesn't really prove that infertility is not hereditary because hereditary traits aren't inherited by every child. If the trait is dominant and only one parent has it, and has only one gene for it, then only half of children inherit it. If it's a recessive trait and only one parent has any genes for it, then no children inherit the trait, although half are carriers.47.139.46.84 (talk) 18:13, 15 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think some of the content could be merged and there should be at least a redirect, however I agree with User:CharlotteWebb about the "essentially remains a low-profile individual" part, and that a biographical article is not needed. The mention in WP:BLP1E of "well-documented historic events" could be relevant, but I think in this case it could be marginal whether it applies or not. —Snigbrook 00:24, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone find it ironic that we're talking about merging away an article about an essentially low profile person mostly famous for one thing that wasn't under her control (being born) on a day when the Wikipedia:Today's featured article, Lazare Ponticelli, is about an essentially low profile person mostly famous for one thing that wasn't under his control (not dying for a long time)? --GRuban (talk) 17:39, 12 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not really, as this old man was also the recipient of four medals of honor in WWI and as the successful post-war businessman who founded Ponticelli Frères (major French metalwork contractor [1]). Either of these things by itself would probably have earned him an article, even if he'd died a long time ago. While I would argue that most people have at least some degree of control over their longevity—there's a lot to be said about healthy lifestyle choices—I should add that there are plenty of people known to have lived longer than Ponticelli but for whom there is no article, due to lack of [information pertaining to] other achievements, ones who accomplished less but had more time to do it in (to paraphrase Heywood Banks' "famous dead guys" ditty)

Certainly Louise Brown was conceived in [what was at the time] a highly unusual fashion, but from that point forward there was nothing to set her apart from any other baby (and even now there is nothing to make her a distinguished adult), so I don't see this as a meaningful comparison.

Sure the first successful operation of its type is always an important part of medical history, but the test subjects are generally no more notable than Ruth Tucker (first kidney transplant) or Timmie Jean Lindsey (first silicone breast implants). Tommy John (first ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction) is exceptional, having been quite famous before the operation.

As for this, the first in-vitro fertilisation, the test subject was in fact Louise's mother. The operation was complete and success was evident well before the baby was born and named Louise.

— CharlotteWebb 08:10, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Whoo. So many well-written arguments, and all wrong. :-) If you read more carefully, you'll see Ponticelli got his medals for living a long time too. The most important one is the Légion_d'honneur: "the highest decoration in France ... In 1998, all surviving veterans of the First World War from any allied country who had fought on French soil were made Knights of the Légion if they were not so already, as part of the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the war's end. In December 2004, on the occasion of his 110th birthday, France's oldest surviving veteran of the war, Maurice Floquet, was promoted to Officer." There's another article about a person notable for only one thing, by the way. The other medals are merely for participating in WWI, so again, any veteran surviving to a specific point got them. You'll notice a distinct lack of war heroism in Ponticelli's article. Neither would I agree that there are that many people who lived to be 110 that we don't have articles on, there haven't been that many, and we've got quite a few. Extreme longevity tracking says "the first validated 110-year-old was in 1898, but as recently as the 1970's the 'oldest person' was as young as 109", so I wouldn't be surprised if we do have the complete set. Ponticelli Freres does seem to be a notable company, but if being a founder of it were independently notable, then the other two Freres would also be notable, n'est-ce pas? On that theory, I tried Googling for either Celeste or Bonfils Ponticelli without the results being primarily about Lazare. It's instructive. And as for this article and who was or was not "the test subject", well, it's nice that you personally think the mother was the important one, but based on the coverage we have, our Reliable Sources seem to disagree. And if success were that evident before the baby was born, you're saying it would still have been a success if she had miscarried? Surely not. --GRuban (talk) 18:42, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The following would add strength to the argument about eliminating the WP article «Louise Brown». For the sake of privacy I am prevented from disclosing details.

In Auckland, New Zealand, they were experimenting in the early 70s with ovarian stimulation using Clomid. This was obviously before the eventual procedure was legalized internationally and definitely before a successful result could possibly be published. When a baby girl was actually born May 11, 1974 as a result of an IVF process – the mother being a specialized healthcare worker of 38 – this was completely off the record – and it has remained so ever since.

The discrepancy of 1536 days between unofficial and official achievements is certainly no exception in science.

The Auckland girl in question is now a mother of two children and a perfectly healthy individual. To make a WP article about her – unless her personal exploits should once reach the level of general interest – would be preposterous.

So, what’s the fuss about Louise Brown ? – no blame intended ! Hirpex (talk) 12:45, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We can only create articles based on published sources. If, as you say, this was completely off the record, then there's nothing we can do about it, because for all we know, you're just a dog who is using his human's computer. —howcheng {chat} 16:21, 25 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]