Rhetorical Analysis of “When Abortion Suddenly Stopped Making Sense” Imagine being presented with an unplanned child and you are analyzing the options; people all around you are screaming one of two choices. Those options are to keep the baby- your own flesh and blood- or get an abortion, both of which promote arguments within this country. Because of this controversial topic, people have been categorized into “pro life” and “pro choice” groups who support completely opposite values. In “When Abortion Suddenly Stopped Making Sense”, written and published in January 2016 in The National Review, Frederica Mathewes-Green successfully persuades citizens advocating for or against abortion about why she changed her perspective by utilizing personal …show more content…
The first point is a counterargument to pro-life antics; the baby is “a blob of tissue...not recognizable as human or even alive” (P 3), but later states that no matter the size, all people are people and that “big people have no more value than small people” (P 20). Mathewes-Green successfully tugs at the reader’s emotion by appealing to their sense of pity. No one can deny life from a person, no matter how …show more content…
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. Once she appeals to mothers, they will reach out to the rest of the world and make an impact. Initially, the appeal to emotion and pity that Mathewes-Green utilizes in this article digs deep into a person’s mind and convinces them about the importance of life and the value of a human being in the
A great number of women today are facing the issue unplanned pregnancies. Abortion is one of the most controversial issues in the world today. Valerie Tarico, the author of the article, “I Am Pro-Abortion, Not Just Pro-Choice: 10 Reasons Why We Must Support the Procedure and the Choice,” challenges to address issues that women face when going through an abortion. In her article, Tarico uses rhetorical strategies such as ethos, pathos and repetition to make her argument inducing. In her text, she addresses the common issues around abortion, arguing that abortion should be allowed, and is the right thing to do.
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’”
1). Marquis believes that the future-of-value principle applies to fetuses because they have the potential to develop into fully conscious human beings with their own experiences and accomplishments (Marquis, p. 5). Marquis further emphasizes that abortion is “presumptively very seriously wrong” (Marquis, p. 8), however, the killing can be justified in compelling reasons, such as when the mother’s life is at stake due to being pregnant (Tiffany, Lecture, w. 8). Therefore, his argument stands that it is prima facie morally wrong to deprive a being of a future-of-value, and since aborting a fetus deprives a being of a future-of-value; abortion is prima facie morally wrong (Tiffany, Lecture, w. 8). Many people may not have the same view as Marquis when this principle is applied to fetuses; I will argue that Marquis’ future-of-value principle assumes that the value of a fetus is derived only from its potential future and fails to sufficiently consider the autonomy and bodily rights of the pregnant
In this book, Harold Bloom provides a critical analysis of the poem, “the mother.” Bloom explains how the poet, Brooks, allows the poem’s persona to embody abortion rather than allow it to be seen as a “quick outpatient operation” (Bloom 15). In addition, Bloom indicates that Brooks “simultaneously” addresses “both pro-choice and pro-life views” (Bloom 15). This allows the audience to perceive “the issue” from both perspectives (Bloom 15).
In addition, the poem’s unique perspective of the fetus humanizes and personalizes the issue, challenging societal assumptions and highlighting the need for empathy and understanding. The language and rhetoric used in the ongoing political controversies surrounding reproductive rights are of paramount importance, as it shapes how we think and, ultimately, how we
With almost half the nation divided among their views, abortion remains one of the most controversial topics in our society. Since Roe v. Wade, our views in society as well as following court cases have been progressing toward the woman’s right to choose. The precedent set by Roe v. Wade made the Supreme Court acknowledge that it cannot rule specifically when life begins and it also affirms that it is the woman’s right to have an abortion under the 14th Amendment. In the 1st Amendment, the Establishment Clause forbids the government from passing laws “which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another”. Many Christian pro-lifers use their religious beliefs to dispute when life begins.
Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem, The Mother, portrays the feelings a mother possesses following an abortion. On a more complex level, The Mother portrays the remorse felt by taking the future from unborn children. Brooks’ juxtaposition of avoiding and accepting the reality of what the speaker, a mother, did to her unborn children portrays the remorse mothers feel following an abortion. In the first stanza, the speaker uses a second-person narrative to distance herself from her abortion. She uses “you” to put the remorse on other mothers who have also had abortions to lessen her guilt.
A Past That Won’t Let You Forget Remorse or regret typically follow a woman after an abortion once they realize they can’t take back their actions, and what they will now miss out on. Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “The Mother” makes me remember my feelings as an unwed, pregnant teenager in high school, when everyone tried to convince me that abortion was my “only choice”; but I knew that my choice to keep my daughter would save me from remorse, the unknowns, and missing out on so much, feelings displayed by the woman in Mrs. Brooks’ poem who regrets her decisions. First, remorse plays a huge role in the life of the woman in “The Mother” who has an abortion, and this makes me remember thinking about how sad and how much remorse I would have if I would have gotten an abortion.
Far before abortions became such a widely discussed political issue, and close to forty years before Roe v. Wade, Gwendolyn Brooks took a risk by writing a blatantly honest poem about her experiences with her own abortions. “The mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks is a poem written in 1945 in which the speaker opens up about her emotional experiences struggling and coming to peace with getting abortions. In “The mother,” having a woman author is crucial. Brooks, as a woman, is able to provide a perspective on something that no man would ever be able to comment on so deeply. Brooks begins the poem with a title, “the mother,” that critiques how society views the term mother.
This shows what she had to endure to try to keep her baby healthy. It appeals to the loving protective side of the reader. It makes them think about what the baby must be going through beacuase of their economic situation. Rhetorical questions are used to directly engage the
Pro-Choice “77% of Anti-Abortion Leaders are men, 100% of them will never be pregnant” (Barbara Kruger). Whether to continue or end a pregnancy, has been a long debated topic, extending long after the Roe v. Wade case that went all the way to the Supreme court (ProCon). Abortion is defined as the intentional termination of a pregnancy, frequently performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy (Oxford University Press). Each year, over one million women in America chose to have an abortion (WebMD). What would happen if that right to choose was taken away?
The debate whether abortion is morally permissible or not permissible is commonly discussed between the considerations of the status of a fetus and ones virtue theory. A widely recognized theory of pro-choice advocates can be thought to be that their ethical view is that fetus’s merely are not humans because they lack the right to life since they believe a fetus does not obtain any sort of mental functions or capability of feelings. Although this may be true in some cases it is not in all so explaining the wrongness of killing, between the common debates whether a fetus does or does not obtain human hood, should be illustrated in a way of a virtuous theory. The wrongness of killing is explained by what the person or fetus is deprived of, such as their right to life; not by means of a heart beat or function of one’s body, but by the fact that it takes their ability of potentially growing into a person to have the same human characteristics as we do.
Abolish Abortion Did you know that just in the United States over 3,000 people have abortions every day? An abortion is when a woman is injected with a fatal substance to kill their unborn baby. It is legal in all 50 states except one type of abortion procedure; Partial-birth-abortion. Women have abortions for many reasons, some being that they are not ready for that kind of commitment or they have been raped and got pregnant. An abortion should never be an option in any case because it’s considered as murder, it causes pain to the person and baby during and after the procedure, and there are other choices to choose from including adoption.
Since unborn fetuses are also the possessors of worthy futures, “it follows that abortion is prima facie seriously morally wrong” (229). In support of his thesis, he makes reference to two points. The first of these considerations states that the “deprivation of a future” theory clearly spells out why “we regard killing as one of the worst of crimes” (227). When someone is, for example, robbed or raped (though both awful occurences in their own right), they still have a valuable future to which they look towards as a means as inspiration and support. When someone dies, their future is gone, lost to the world of unrealized potential and we, as humans, often spend a great deal of time abhorring the notion of “what could have been.”
Throughout the beginning of this article, it is unclear what, exactly, Goodman’s objective is. She defers introducing her topic, surrogacy, until the end of the second paragraph, and procrastinates the thesis of her article until the second last paragraph. Although this can be thought of as a tactic to fully explain her stance before revealing her true intention of “Womb for Rent,” it also leaves the reader misinformed about Goodman’s purpose. It is not until the end of the article Goodman writes: “It’s the commercialism that is troubling.” This is the moment where the author confesses that “Womb for Rent” is not about the controversy of surrogacy, but rather the commercialism associated with surrogacy and the ethics behind such an economy.