Saanvi Kumar
GT-ILA 8 Advanced
Ms. Arndorfer
10 March 2023
Rhetoric in Pro-Life Claims
Debated throughout the last century, abortion has drawn a thin line between human rights and murder. In the 1973 Supreme court case Roe v. Wade, Norma McCorvey, also known as Jane Roe, challenged Henry Wade about the legal status of abortion. Abortion’s status changed from illegal to legal after the closing of the case. However, in 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the decision, causing a divide within the country and resulting in pro-choice and pro-life beliefs. Chuck Fleischmann, a congressman from Tennessee, and the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), compellingly communicate with viewers about pro-life views using emotional appeal to convey feelings
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A print advertisement by the National Abortion Federation (NAF) claims that “77% of anti-abortion leaders are men. 100% of them will never be pregnant.” Due to the facts and figures presented, viewers will easily understand and remember the message delivered. However, the claim lacks credibility and uses a red-herring fallacy to draw away from the main point of the issue: the legal status of abortion, instead accentuating an unrelated point with the people who believe abortion should stay illegal. The rhetoric simply does not weigh enough in response to comparing numbers to human life. The two ideals completely differ because human life will always take precedence over …show more content…
They assert, “We don’t see a potential life. We see life with potential.” while having an image of a fully-grown fetus in the center of their advertisement. The rhetoric incites hope within viewers. It invokes a desire to protect the unborn while also making the NRLC seem clever by maneuvering words in their favor, subtly implying that pro-choice considers babies negligent.
Pro-Life conveys its standpoint through emotional rhetoric. Since many cultures and religions view life as the purest thing in the world, broadcasting babies' potential and making pro-choice look heartless allows pro-life to appear engaging to its audience of internet users and the general public. The use of emotional appeal causes viewers to feel sympathy for the baby, even before it enters the world, with the natural instinct to protect babies taking over. Although abortion still divides the country, pro-life’s influential claims have compelled many viewers to join their
Pro-Life vs Pro-Choice It seems that in today’s media there is a constant battle between the pro-life and pro-choice organizations, each of which have their own side and story to tell. “I Was Pro-Life Until I Became a Nurse” by Carrie Denny is an article written by woman who agreed with the Pro-Life movement until she attended nursing school. Denny’s nursing instructor one day shared with her an experience that left her believing she needed to reevaluate her beliefs and where she stood on the issue of abortion. I find Carrie Denny’s story about her transition of beliefs very heart-touching and I hope that her article can also help others realize what it means to be pro-choice.
Rather than stating the argument, Willis poses it as a question, “Are the fetuses the moral equivalent of born human beings?” (Abortion Debate 76), thus showing how modern feminists can only support one side of the argument in their chosen stance, and cause limitations by doing so. In doing so, Willis shows how to some “extent… we objectify our enemy and define the terms of our struggle as might makes right, the struggle misses its point” (Ministries of Fear 210), which implies that feminists have completely missed the point of the argument by getting caught up in an answer. Rather than looking for a compromise or gray area, they exert their stance as the only solution that woman can have. Willis also shows how feminists fundamentally “see the primary goal of feminism as freeing omen from the imposition of so called ‘male values’, and creating an alternative culture based on ‘female values’”
In the summer of 2013, Texas senator Wendy Davis stood on her feet for thirteen hours (with no restroom breaks) to fight against a bill that would close numerous abortion clinics in Texas. During the filibuster, Davis presented an important question: “What purpose does this bill serve? And could it be, might it just be a desire to limit women's access to safe, healthy, legal, constitutionally-protected abortions in the state of Texas?” (Bassett, “Wendy Davis …”). For centuries women have struggled for adequate access to birth control and resorted to abhorrent means of abortion when they face unwanted pregnancies.
She tries to convince the reader that although the woman may think that she has no other option, there will always be something more appropriate than abortion. In summary, the author says that it is wrong to act impulsively and that women need to think about the consequences before attempting the termination of her child. She explains how the small human inside is “alive and growing” (P 23). Mathewes-Green addresses the concept of the child being “unwanted”, and how that is not true because “we are valuable simply because we are members of the human race” (P 21). The language the writer uses has a strong effect on a woman's heart, especially future and current mothers.
In June of 2022, The United States Supreme Court ruled for the overturn of Roe v. Wade - a decision that was made in January of 1973 that is responsible for the decriminalization of abortion across the whole United States. For nearly 50 years, this ruling has guaranteed the women of America a constitutional right for an abortion. Since the verdict, there have been many legal battles concerning its overturning with people who are more in favor for women in America to be able to have an abortion and those who choose to stand with the most recent verdict. An abortion is the termination of a human pregnancy, and has definitely been the most heated debate topic of our time. Abortion should remain accessible and allowed for women for many
In 1973, after Roe v. Wade was passed, the rate declined by 50%” (Roe v. Wade Overturned). Not only are abortions part of a woman’s basic reproductive rights, access
In the article, “The Abortion Clinic Across the Street”, Kathryn Joyce accounts these “sidewalk consolers” and the tactics they use to enforce reproductive oppression. Some of the strategies the “sidewalk consolers” use are, “Providing misleading information about women pregnancy status or due date, or suggest unproven links between abortion and cancer, infertility and suicide” (Joyce 427). This misinformation may make pregnant women feel that they have no choice but to have the baby. A reproductive justice framework works to relieve these feelings. Planned Parenthood offers support and services to help with an unwanted pregnancy as well as medically accurate information about the results of receiving an abortion.
An article from Adoption Statistics, for example, stated that 2% of unmarried women decided to place their children in adoption. More specifically, an even smaller percentage of black unmarried women and white unmarried women chose adoption over abortion. While this pro-life argument has good intentions, it does not apply to every woman’s
Bauer’s credibility centers on the fact that she is a Washington post reporter and bureau chief. Although she is not an expert in abortion related issues, her own education and experience gives her enough credibility to offer a reasonable opinion on the topic. She can therefore, assume that her audience will listen, if not wholeheartedly embrace her ideas. Ethos can also be noted when she stated that her own daughter has Down syndrome (par.2). This shows that she’s writing from a more personal and experienced level and helps her earn the trust of her readers.
Everyone is entitled to a panel and to express their opinion. In the cases of abortion, the fetus does not have a voice, this image supports the fact that fetuses do havea right to be born and to a chance at life. The image itself does not specifically say that abortion is wrong, it just brings an ethical and emotional appeal to the audience. The audience for this image spans to those who are contemplating abortion, are against abortion, who study and are advocates for the law and protection of human rights, those who do not know whether to support abortion or not, and it can also reach out to those who have had an abortion. The design would appeal to all of those forms of an audience.
Before Roe v. wade the number of deaths from illegal abortions was around 5000 and in the 50s and 60s the number of illegal abortions ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year. These illegal abortions pose major health risks to the life of the woman including damage to the bladder, intestines as well as rupturing of the uterus. The choice to become a mother must be given to the woman most importantly because it’s her body, her health, and she will be taking on a great responsibility. A woman’s choice to choose abortion should not be restricted by anyone; there are multiple reasons why abortion will be the more sensible decision for the female.
The term “pro-choice” has fallen out of favor when the American public. Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) recently discovered that the word just does not seem to have the power to motivate the general population in the way it did when it was first coined. And while other pro-abortion groups may continue to use it, Planned Parenthood is attempting to cast a wider net by abandoning it all together. In the modern media culture, the term “pro-choice” has been used for everything from abortion-on-demand to giving parents the option to choosing what kind of school their child can attend throughout their life.
Annotated Bibliography "Abortion ProCon.org." ProConorg Headlines. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
[They hope for “pro-lifers” to join pro-choice activists in preventing unwanted pregnancies.](Wolf, 1997). They feel that a common ground can be met to which these debates will no longer exist. They realize the other side’s arguments and understand some of the cruelty. They still believe in a woman’s choice but wish to prevent pregnancies all together and stop all of the arguments. Abortion has many sides, but a woman’s choice is what needs to be protected.
A second reason why abortion is wrong is because it deprives the fetus from his future. When we decide to kill a fetus then we are taking away from him a future like ours. The argument is as follows : (1) it is impermissible to kill humans, who if lived, would have a future like ours, (2) if abortion is not done, the fetus would have future as we do have, (3) so it is wrong to kill the fetus (4) therefore abortion is impermissible. A similar argument was given by Don Marquis in his article “Why Abortion is Immoral”. He stated that what makes killing wrong is neither the effect on the murder, nor the effect on the victim’s relatives or friends, but the effect is on the victim himself.