Mendez 1

Nixaly Mendez

Professor VanDyke

ENC 1101-69122

19, October 2022

Essay 3

Everyday people read/ hear these strong opinions about how others feel about a subject.

But how do these authors properly persuade us to agree with there opinions. Most authors decide

to use the formula of ethos, pathos and logos. The article “The Abortion Debate and the Physical

Costs of Pregnancy” by Ross Douthat, not only explains his opinions properly, but also uses

specific techniques to make his readers understand – and possibly persuade– to understand his

opinions.

While reading Douthat article, “The Abortion Debate and the Physical Cost of

Pregnancy” I noticed that in the beginning he talked about how he was pro-choice. Although he

didn’t go into details on why he decided to chose pro-choice, he gave a statement saying that he

was initially writing to the Supreme Court and give them arguments from the pro-choice

community. Though his purpose of writing this article was mainly to inform you, he gave

understanding to why abortion should be considered and how it giving an unwanted birth can be

more harmful to mother giving birth. He also acknowledged how men and transgender played a

role in the abortion debate. Douthat used multiple example of women and their stories of birth

and how the worst emotional pain was having to nurture for the baby that they couldn’t take care

of. Douthat made his article to persuade the readers by giving real life examples, and explaining

facts about the female body.

 Mendez 2

Starting off strongly, the author has chosen to write about a topic that has many different

opinions on- thus being abortion. Not only is abortion a strong topic in general, it happens to be a

very popular topic today considering the recent laws. As the author move into his article, the first

topic he introduces is immediately reference from a fellow writer. Although-out his article, he

has proven multiple times that his research is backed up. He is constantly referencing to different

writer and research cases of different scientists.