Stukel-Week 8

During the speeches I found the group speech on whether or not abortion should be illegal especially interesting. I thought all of the group members did a great job of presenting their speeches and covered all sides of the topic extremely well. I thought that Ryan Cooper made some very interesting points when it came to why he thought abortion should be legalized. He presented the idea that in the instance of pregnancy conceived through rape he felt that it was important for women to be given the choice of whether or not they wanted to proceed with carrying the baby. This argument appealed to the audience’s pathos. The argument was effective because it made the audience feel for the girl who had been raped and put themselves in her shoes. The argument also added to Ryan’s ethos as a persuader because it gave him credibility due to the fact that he knew someone who had gone through the experience of having an abortion and felt they had benefited from it. Dani Reed also presented her opinion that abortion should be illegal very well. She appealed to the audience’s pathos by arguing that she believed a child was a child even while it is in the mother’s womb. This insinuates that by having an abortion you are essentially destroying a child. She also demonstrated concession to opposition when she said that in some cases such as Ryan’s it should maybe be considered. This was effective because it kept her from appearing insensitive to certain situations.