Abortion is the intentional termination of a pregnancy. Throughout the recent century, abortions have been one of the most controversial topics in America both politically and ethically. Author Wendy Wright writes about the dangers of abortions; specifically about abortion-causing drugs. In her document "Abortion-Causing Drugs Are Dangerous to Women", she uses a perfect balance of logos and pathos to connect with her audience about the dangers of abortions; this is an effective method because the raw emotion that the audience has when she describes the horrible tragedies of specific events caused by these drugs, makes them respond to this topic more passionately and gets their focus when giving the facts about the dangers.  Abortions should not be legal because they hurt the same women they are trying to protect. Throughout her writings, Wright compares a new contraceptive drug that is consumed orally called Ella to a known drug called RU-486 which is known to induce abortions and has known to cause death in some extreme cases. Wright argues to inform people about the dangers of this pill to protect others.

Wright writes about how the abortion pill or the "morning-after pill" has had many FDA hearings reviewing the effects of the drug on people. A pharmacist at the FDA said, " ... any drug must do more than delay ovulation if it can prevent pregnancy up to five days after sex". With this being said there was a vote to inform the public that the day after pill has side effects other than just preventing ovulation but conveniently they decided not to inform the public of this issue. All of this is alarming when considering Ella could potentially cause abortions just like RU-486 which unleashes a huge amount of health problems and ethical arguments. It is imperative that women know the dangers of these drugs before considering ingesting them in their bodies. 

In this document, Wright relies upon both invented and situated ethos. Her former role as president and CEO of Concerned Women for America shows that she has some background in public relations and that she has a good reputation. However, she does not simply allow who she is back up her stance. She uses many statistics and facts to back herself up. For example, after she writes that the drug RU-486 has had many complications she supports her argument by saying, " ... the FDA reported nine life threatening incidents, 232 hospitalizations, 116 blood transfusions, and 88 cases of infection." These examples of facts not only are a use of invented ethos but also logos. 

This document is supported heavily by logos throughout all of it. Wright's use of logos is balanced out by the pathos she draws from her audience as well. Although it is not quite as stirring, these statistics that are given are very important when showing how widespread this issue is becoming. One example of logos that Wright uses very well is when she is discussing the trials of Ella. She says, "In the phase III trials, 49 of the women who took Ella became pregnant, 31 had induced abortions, 11 had spontaneous abortions, two had live births (one had suffered optic nerve hypoplasia and developmental delay), and five were lost to follow-up." This use of logos puts stress upon the topic of the drug's effects on a pregnancy which was the goal of Wright. Her use here shows how serious this issue is and gives factual information that supports her argument.

Perhaps the most important aspect of her piece was her pathos appeal to it. In this essay she gives specific accounts of real people this drug has effected negatively. One issue with Ella is that with it being able to induce abortions it can be abused easily by people. Sadly, this means that it can be used to drug women and force them to have an abortion. One sad example of this happened to a girl named Sharii Best, "In 2007, a 21-year-old Virginia man was sentenced to five years in prison for trying to poison his girlfriend with the intent of trying to cause an abortion. Daniel Riase crushed two misoprostol pills and put them into 19-year-old Sharii Best's drink, after which she began to bleed. She went to the hospital, where her 11-week pregnancy ended in miscarriage. She later discovered an e-mail receipt for his purchase of the drug." This is not the only personal account of a drug like Ella being abused this way. Wright gives seven other cases where women were drugged to induce abortions. Wright uses pathos here to show that if a drug like Ella is allowed to be sold over the counter then it has more of a chance to be abused and used to drug people. Another use of pathos by the author is how she talks about extremely sensitive topics such as abortion and sex with such passion to show how she really cares. She writes about how the accessibility of these drugs will make the average user age of this drug go down. While Wright uses many other examples of pathos in her writings, it is the use of all three appeals that ties her writing together. 

In my opinion, Wright perfectly blends logos and pathos so that the audience has the attention of the author due to the emotion stirred by pathos, while still getting all the raw facts logos provides. It is important to say that the ethos Wright provided former experience as CEO and that she allowed the text to give itself is very important as well. Overall, I think it is important to realize that the author uses all three appeals to support her argument very well. Contraceptive drugs are endangering women everywhere and it is very important that people are aware of the facts about this sensitive topic. 

