Emily Nelson RD

Emily Nelson

Bryan Lutz

English 151

23 October 2011

Abortion Pros and Cons in Today’s Society

Abortion is one of the most highly debated topics among the world to this day. There are many different views and opinions that surround this topic that make the situation all that more complicated. The sides of the argument include Pro-Choice and Pro-Life. Pro-Choice refers to those who believe women should have the option to abort a fetus. Pro-Life activists believe abortion should be made illegal. When a woman is given the option to abort, immediately there is a lot of emotion and pressure surrounding the decision to be made. Depending on the circumstance, a woman’s right to abort a fetus is crucial, always controversial, but ultimately it is a very impactful decision from all angles. Pro-Life activists have valid arguments and support the right to life, but there are times where abortion is done in an understandable situation. Overall, abortions can be done for the right reasons but they aren’t always recognized for being a logical decision.

PRO-CHOICE

The main argument for pro-choice supporters is for choices to remain an open option for any individual, there should not be a law against deciding if having a child would be a good option for the carrier or for the unborn. When a fetus isn’t recognized as entering personhood, abortion is not able to be judged by the government as murder. When researching the topic of abortion, a lot of results are personal stories and experiences. Many pro-choice activists post about positive abortion experiences, one article in particular can be found at http://www.kimberlyblessing.com/archive/category/prochoice. This article by Kimberly Blessing goes into detail about the reasons of why she is pro-choice. Many of her points can resonate with many people across the United States. Blessings makes the statement, “I’m pro-choice because I know the panic a woman can suffer when she thinks she’s pregnant,” (http://www.kimberlyblessing.com/archive/category/prochoice). This feeling is common amongst countless women everywhere. Maybe there was a misuse of no use of contraceptives or maybe there was an incident of rape, sometimes women feel like their life is over when they have an unplanned pregnancy. They must look at the facts and are faced with a very hard decision, women must ask themselves “will I be able to take care of this baby” and/or “will I be able to give this child up after birth”. If a woman has an unexpected pregnancy after rape, it is emotionally stressful deciding what to do with the fetus. This is a situation where pro-choice support groups gain a lot of respect on their stance. How can a woman be expected to care for a child that would be a constant reminder of being raped?

PRO-LIFE

Supporters of Pro-Life beliefs use The Bible and government policy to support their anti-abortion opinions. They believe that all lives should be saved, no matter what circumstance, no matter how long the fetus has been in the womb, according to the pro-life side of the argument, once a woman has conception of the fetus, it is a living person and abortion is murder. Most women who have gotten an abortion typically have misused contraceptives or used them, very few women use protection methods correctly who get abortions. Pro-life supporters believe abortion questions some women’s morality. The topic is black and white for anti-abortionists, if a women is pregnant, they should have the baby. On this side of the argument, they understand that some women are not ready to bring a child into the world, keeping that in mind, this group also provides support to help the mother raise the child or they help them with the adoption process. The main belief of pro-life supporters is a mother should take care of the child until it is able to live outside of the womb, they do not necessarily have to raise the baby but having the baby is the purpose of anti-abortion activists. 

SETTLING THE ARGUMENT

Pro-life supporters are accused of not giving enough support to pregnant women and pro-choice supporters are accused of being murderers. As of now, there is no settlement on the debate of abortion. Many states have lowered the amount of money they give to abortions and require much more legal processing before a woman can actually get an abortion. The numbers of abortions have been on the decline since the 1980s but they still occur fairly often. Unintended pregnancies will always be an issue in the United States, how the government decides to handle the situation is still very much undecided and could go any way.

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    For my blog essay I am going to be writing about the topic of abortion, exploring the two sides of pro choice and pro life. I find this topic very interesting because there are so many different ways to look at ‘what is right’ and how people think this type of situation should be handled. I have found four different blogs that will help me further my understanding on the topic of abortion.
    My first blog is called “Pro-Choice Blog Archive” by Kimberly Blessing. Blessing is firmly pro-choice and through out her blog she is very blunt about her reasoning. She bullet points all of her reasons for being pro-choice and then uses other articles to help support her opinions. This article appeals to me because regardless how anyone feels about the situation, you can relate to at least one of her opinions. Blessing uses strong logos because her persuasion is brought about very logically, “I’m pro-choice because there are already too many unwanted and uncared-for children in this world, and I believe to bring another unwanted one in is cruel to that child,” (Blessing). This article is different than others because it is solely one person’s opinion, but uses credible sources to back her up, unlike other blogs that are a mixture of many people combining into one opinion.
    The second blog I chose was “Pro-Life Blog” by Bill Beckman. This blog is a collection of many different court issues on getting rid of abortion. It is a lot of news stories combined into one blog maintained by Beckman. I think overall this blog uses logos as well because logos appeals to reason and thinking logically. These articles aren’t opinion based, they are what is actually happening in our society. This blog is unique because it ties many different news sources into one collective blog all relating pro-life thought processes.
    For my third blog, I chose to look at another pro-life blog by Frank Pavone. Pavone is an American Catholic priest who is a pro-life activist. His blog uses the catholic bible to prove abortion wrong. Depending on ones religious standpoint, this blog could easily be an example of pathos. Religion is typically a strong reason why people are pro-life and if you’re undecided on your opinion, using the bible to appeal to ones emotions could easily sway them pro-life. This is another unique blog mainly because it is 100 percent religion based.
    For my final blog I found another pro-choice article, “Blog for Choice” is written by many contributors and is a community blog for pro-choice America. It someone reminded me of “Pro-Life Blog” that I previously used because the most recent update is a news article on how representatives voted on a recent abortion issue. This article is much like “Pro-Life Blog” in the sense that they both use news articles and court cases as sources to their pro-choice and pro-life arguments. I believe this a good example of logos for the same reasons previously stated. Both of these blogs use good reasoning to support their points and I think it is interesting to read all the different ways our country is handling this very controversial issue.

1. http://www.kimberlyblessing.com/archive/category/prochoice
2. http://www.illinoisrighttolife.org/blog.htm
3. http://www.priestsforlife.org/blog/index.php/life-is-of-inestimable-value
4. http://www.blogforchoice.com/archives/2011/10/how-did-your-re.html

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    Meg Hourihan’s excerpt on blogging in Everything’s a Text by Dan Melzer and Deborah Coxwell-Teague helped me make a lot of connections with our class blogs to the original purpose of blogging in the first place. Hourihan’s piece showed a lot about how blogs have evolved and what they are now, “Blog posts are short, informal, and sometimes controversial, and sometimes deeply personal, no matter what topic they approach,” (Melzer & Coxwell-Teague 295). I found this information eye catching just because I found it so true. My blogs are always pretty informal, they get to the point and I sometimes connect them with my own personal experiences. They aren’t always strictly structured which makes them a great interactive tool between classmates.
    Hourihan made very interesting statements on the evolution and the continuation of the evolution of internet communication and blogging. “What’s important is that we’ve embraced a medium free of the physical limitations of pages, intrusions of editors, and delays of tedious publishing systems,” (Melzer, & Coxwell-Teague 297). It is very clear in this current day in age that everything around us changing at a mile a minute. Everyone is looking for the newest technology that make means of living easier on them. Here we can see how evolution of communication has allowed people to easily share and access their own knowledge and interact with others. Blogging has allowed people to escape the norms of formal publications and lets bloggers express themselves on an array of topics on their own blogs and give feedback on other blogs that appeal to them. There are no longer worries of publication rules when one only wishes to use blogging as their means of communication. Blogging can be used for many different internet interactions and I support Meg Hourihan’s ideas and thoughts on the changing of blogging communication.

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    As I was reading English Mercury Reader I read a lot of facts about exploratory essays that I forgot to include in my final essay. The first hot spot I noticed in chapter five was, “Along the way you can make your narrative more colorful and grounded by including your strategies for tracking down sources, your conversations with friends, your late-night trips to a coffee shop, and so forth,” (Ramage, Bean & Johnson 113). I agree with this statement, I wish I would have used more personal experiences and more background information at how I arrived at a point. It would have made the essay overall more interesting.
    The next hot spot I found in chapter five was something I found very helpful wehn researching for my own essay, “By providing overview information about potential sources, they help new researchers determine whether a particular source might be useful for their own purposes,” (Ramage, Bean & Johnson 117). This quote is referring to annotated bibliographies and how they are helpful to new researchers. It’s easy to access informative articles by reading what they are about before reading the whole article.
    When I moved on to reading chapter nine, I found two more hot spots. The first one refers to something I didn’t do too well on in my essay, “Once you have cited an author and it is clear that the same author’s material is being used, you need cite only the page numbers in parentheses in subsequent citations,” (Ramage, Bean & Johnson 223). I don’t think I followed that rule for my whole essay and I definitely need to tighten up my citation rules in the next essay I write.
    My second hot spot for chapter five I found interesting was if you are citing a magazine or newspaper without an author mentioned, Ramage, Bean and Johnson state, “If no author is identified, begin the entry with the title or headline,” (226). I didn’t know you could make a citation without and author accessible, good to know for future references.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzZyUaQvpdc
Watch this, you'll understand why I think it is a good piece of rhetoric. It uses so many real issues and facts and ties it all in with social media and really makes a statement on how powerful social media is in our day in age.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51T2yiZJKNL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg
This is an image of the book He's Just Not That Into You. If you haven't read it and you're a girl, YOU SHOULD, if you're a guy and want to laugh...read it. I think this is a good piece of rhetoric because it is very blunt and to the point, the message it is trying to get across makes perfect sense and that's why I really enjoyed this.

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Essay Question: Social Influences on Appearance and Body Image for Judged men and women

SOCIOCULTURAL INFLUENCE AND APPEARANCE-BASED REJECTION SENSITIVITY AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS

Lora E. Park and Ann Marie DiRaddo Rachel M. Calogero University at Buffalo, The State University of New York University of Kent

A large body of research has shown that people are likely to adopt the norms, values, and behaviors of their peer group; this may be especially true for appearance ideals (109).

Appearance-RS is the first known empirically validated construct to directly link intrapersonal appearance concerns with interpersonal concerns of rejection; it represents the joint influence of appearance anxieties with the cognitive expectation of rejection based on appearance. (113).

First Quote: Talks about influence, good area to look at when researching social influences.

Second Quote: Good quote. Need to research more of appearance anxieties.

Stress and Dress: Investigating the Relationship

Between Social Anxiety and Appearance Management Among Gay and Straight Men

Andrew Reilly, PhD Northern Illinois University

Nancy Ann Rudd, PhD Ohio State University

In turn, social anxiety probably influences the coping strategies employed if the created appearance is perceived to be unlike the cultural ideal or unappreciated by others. (154).

However, it is clear that anxiety encourages people to consider engaging in appearance management behaviors that can cause risk to their health and well- being. (163).

First Quote: Good section about anxiety.

Second Quote: RESEARCH MORE APPEARANCE MANAGEMENT.