Abortion Analyisis

Donald Harris

3-14-08

MWF 1230-120

Ms. Jones

The Rights of The Non-Existant

The articles “Focus on Stopping Abortion This November” by Josh Godsey and “Why I am Pro-Choice” by Russ Belville bring forth an important and controversial in today’s society: Abortion. Abortion was made legal due to the Roe v. Wade case in 1973 but has been a heated debate ever since. In their articles Belville and Godsey keep this debate alive but using their own unique writing styles to persuade readers to their point of view.

Russ Belville writes for the Oregon Herald a traditionally liberal siding newspaper. Belville is a staunch liberal advocate who has been writing for over 20 years. He is a firm believer in women having complete control over there body and deciding whether or not to continue a pregnancy. On the other side of the argument is Josh Godsey. Godsey is a supporter of the pro-life opinion. He is a student at Amarillo College a conservative community college in Amarillo, Texas. In addition to being a student Godsey is a staff writer for The Ranger where he has displayed a conservative bend in his beliefs.

Both men in their articles are trying to persuade people in the middle of the debate to their side. However they are writing to a different crowd of people. Godsey is writing through a school newspaper so he is appealing to the young American college student. According to the Internet Writing journal, the average age of newspaper readers is 55 years old. This is a relatively old age, Belville is writing to an audience where emotion may not play as big of a role in his audience’s decision on the issue. It is obvious that both writers incorporate this information in their arguments because their writing styles greatly differ from eachother.

The pro-life argument and pro-choice argument have their own unique ways of persuading their audience. Pro-choice believers base their argument primarily on logos appealing to reasoning and common sense. While pro-lifers favor appealing to ethos and pathos with more of an appeal to someone’s emotions rather than their reasoning. Godsey and Belville both follow the traditional roles of their arguments. Belville uses a non emotional approach and asks for common sense and reasoning to pursue his argument. While Belville uses an emotionless appeal, Godseys argument is full of passion and emotion. An example of Godsey using his play on emotions is “It's not a matter or politics or religion. It's a matter of life.” Godsey effectively uses lines like these to persuade the audience to his side of the argument.

The lack of emotion in Belville’s article is what really hurts his argument the most. He does an excellent job of appealing to logic but makes no attempt of appealing to appealing to the emotions of his audience. However as mentioned before he is writing to an older audience where emotion not play as key of a role in their decision. None the less, Belville uses this emotionless appeal when describing the baby and its rights, “how far will we go to protect the little blastocyst-Americans?” Using emotionless lines like this could push people away from his side because of the lack of sincerity in his tone. Belville does a good job of appealing to people already on the pro-choice side of the argument but fails to create an appeal to the people who have no opinion or are undecided on this subject.

While Belville’s essay lacks emotion, Godsey’s argument is full of emotion but does not have the logical strength of Belville’s. Godsey introduces himself to give the audience a sense of where he is coming from so it helps the reader be more open to what he is saying. Godsey is also writing to a college aged audience where emotion has plays a key part in the decision making process. Godsey takes note of this and uses quotes such as, “We're willing to allow the homicide of humans in the name of personal convenience.” And, “Pro-choice activists use words like "fetus" in order to portray the baby as something un-alive or unimportant.” This effectively appeals to the college crowd because as a college student I am more likely to side with emotional appeals rather than logical appeals. Godsey does an excellent job of recognizing this and plays very well on the emotions of his read. When reading this article you can tell that Godsey is extremely passionate about the issue and it helps the reader become interested in his article.

Belville’s style of writing strongly appeals to looking at this argument logically instead of emotionally. Belville also uses humor when portraying his point, while still appealing to logic. One particular paragraph stands out, he is poking fun