Running Head: Abortion Cartoon

Rhetorical Analysis of Abortion Cartoon

Michelle Gutierrez
University of Texas at El Paso

Abortion Cartoon
2

Imagine if these successful people were aborted Aristotle- George Washington- Andy
Berlin. Asserts the YouTube video Ambition vs. Abortion by Spurgeon Judah George(2011).
This video relates in a cartoon form the different weeks in a pregnancy that is designed to inform
what an abortion does. The cartoon describes what each illustration mean. The video is trying to
prevent more abortions to happened and persuade women to take the right choice. The
information in this paper will inform the authors audience, purpose, and according to the
rhetorical appeals in which the video was analyzed: ethos, pathos, and logos.
Audience
The abortion video ambition vs abortion is intended for everyone, the author did this to
inform people. He was probably thinking of a specific audience that he wanted this to make an
impact on but when he published this to you tube he knew that anyone could watch it he could
not pick a specific audience. Now who this should have been intended to, that is a different story
he could of intended this for people who just wanted to learn, he could of intended this for
people who were/ are trying to make a life changing decision, he could have intended this for
people who have access to the internet and just wanted something to watch. But this video is for
people who just want to know more about the subject, maybe someone is doing a research
project on abortion and they found the video helpful or for many other things. This video is also
for people who are trying to make a life changing decision and maybe they wanted something to
change their mind on that horrible thought of killing a baby, or maybe they wanted to learn the
different types of abortion.

Abortion Cartoon
3

Purpose
During the video, the cartoon has an intended purpose to make people have a better
knowledge about abortion. In which it does by having the illustration and data to describe the
exclamation in deep every stage of the pregnancy until any of the four methods of abortion is
chosen by the mother. The illustration helps to get more attention and better understanding of
what is happening in the video. For instance, at 3 months, the baby is already formed he has
only to grow but his mother and his doctor are already discussing how to kill him (George,
2011). These strategies are used to make people choose not to proceed in to an abortion. The
author wanted to make people have a second thought about aborting their baby. The purpose was
to inform people about the different ways of how people are killing babies.
Ethos
The credibility that Ambition vs. Abortion has is fairly weak because it does not have
any contact information in which the author can be contacted. It does only have a name and the
comments section. It does not even have a credible profile picture. The only thing that the author
does specify is that he created and edited the video itself Spurgeon Judah George. This
information is provided at the end of the video. Although it does shows respect towards the
audience, the credibility is weak. The video explanation is informed via a cartoon therefore we
do not have a complete integrity towards the bias of Pro-life. Concluding, Ambition vs.
Abortion does have a poorly ethos and credibility.
Pathos
This video has some pathos or illustration. During all the video illustrations are made
clear, is explained step by step in this cartoon. In the case of emotions the author is only

Abortion Cartoon
4

informing about the procedure by words and innocent illustrations. Even the video is intended to
persuade Pro-Life. The procedure is not quite bit to have any effect in the emotions. The
background sound has a purpose of having strong emotions when the explanation of abortion
means.
Logos
The strongest rhetorical appeal is logos because it has logic, has a specific layout and
organization and finally uses facts and or quotes. The organization of the video is in a sequence
starting from the first week and going all over to the third month when now they explain that are
four methods of abortion and either one the baby suffers from it. The author uses words to
proceed to each step and at the end he uses various quotes from different famous person.

In conclusion we have analyzed the YouTube video Ambition vs. Abortion video and
explained what the audience, purpose, and the different rhetorical analyzes are. This video is
intended to every person interested in abortion, and his purpose is to inform the stages of the
pregnancy until the mother decides to abort, including the process of abortion. Having a weak
ethos and pathos but strong logos because is organized and have the use of facts and quotes.
Looking in a future this analysis is helpful to guide anyone that wants to know the importance of
analyzing a video.

Abortion Cartoon
5

References
George, S. (2011, June 9). Ambition vs. Abortion l [Video file]. Retrieved from
http://youtu.be/46A0QQbiAos