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 article "Abortion-Causing Drugs Are Dangerous to Women" she uses a perfect balance of statistics and emotion to connect with her audience about the dangers of abortions. Her ability to convey raw emotion to the audience when she describes the horrible traumas caused by the misuse of these drugs, which invokes passionate fiery responses from her intended audience. In my opinion, abortion causing drugs should not be legal because they hurt the same women they are trying to protect. Throughout the text, 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 been known to cause death in some extreme cases. RU-486 is chemically related to Ella and therefor can potentially have similar effects. Wright argues to inform people about the dangers of this pill to protect others. I believe that abortion inducing drugs should be made illegal due to the copious amounts of negative physiological and societal effects the drugs have been linked to.

Wright writes about how the abortion pill has had many FDA hearings reviewing the effects of the drug on people. These hearings occurred to assess the drug's safety for its users after complications began to surface.  After the hearings, there was a vote to inform the public that Ella has side effects other than just preventing ovulation but the FDA decided not to inform the public of this issue. The FDA decided that the public was better off not knowing the potential dangers of Ella's side effects. Wright argues that it is important for the public to be aware that this drug is not as safe as it is made out to be although it has the approval of the FDA.  All of this is alarming when considering Ella could potentially cause abortions just like RU-486, when taken in high doses. 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 [again, tell me why or how]. 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. Wright beautifully ties the two together so that the target audience understands that this is a legitimate problem.

Wright does an amazing job throughout the document giving specific facts to support her arguments. For example when 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. Wright not only shows how this drug effects a woman's health but also shows how Ella has an abortion effect to it. 

Wright does a very good job connecting with her audience emotionally. In this essay she gives specific accounts of real people who have had negative experiences with Ella. 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 (one of the chemical ingredients in Ella) 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 continues to be sold over the counter then it has a greater chance to be abused and used to drug innocent women. Wright excels in drawing raw emotion through her honest talk about 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. 

