Ray Comfort's Witnessing Technique And Abortion Argument

Improved Essays
The American Holocaust: Analytical Review of Ray Comfort’s Witnessing Technique and Abortion Argument

Abstract
The growing acceptance of abortions in America is startling. Despite backlash from certain groups abortion has been legal in the United States for over forty years (Geraldine & Wagner, 2016). It is estimated that since the landmark case, Roe vs. Wade, over 50 million abortions have been performed in the U.S (Lewis & Tandy, 1973). Ray Comfort, founder of Living Waters Publications, takes a stand and host interviews with strangers on the street. When confronting people in the streets Ray Comfortparallels the holocaust with current day abortion views. This paper will discuss the positive effects of applying rhetoric appeals
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Comfort begins his argument by asking a series of questions (Comfort, 2011). The first regarding whether they would, given the chance, kill Hitler. Almost every person being questioned responded yes, with little to no hesitation. Comfort then rephrased his question to whether they would kill Hitler’s mother while she was still pregnant with Adolf (Comfort, 2011). Though the consensus was still yes, some people answered with much more hesitation. Comfort asks these questions to appeal to the emotion of his audience, by shifting the question to killing what the majority of people consider a monster to killing an expectant mother (Comfort, 2011). Comfort then describes a situation where a German officer is pointing a machine gun at them and telling them to bury Jewish families alive (Comfort, 2011). He concludes his description with asking whether they would concede and do what the German office requested (Comfort, 2011). A surprising number of people questioned responded that they would bury the Jewish families alive (Comfort, 2011). Comfort then rephrases his question so that a German officer is telling them to take a machine gun and kill the Jewish families (Comfort, 2011). Almost all of the people questioned respond that they would not shoot the Jews (Comfort, 2011). Comfort is perplexed responding how it is almost more merciful …show more content…
When asking the question of when life in the womb begins, Comfort was met with many unsure answers. Comfort parallels this to a building about to be demolished. He explains that whether the building is occupied is unknown, but demolishing it regardless would be wrong. This is very logical parallel to abortion that helped his audience understand his point of view. Comfort implements the appeal of logos when he compares abortions to the action of Hitler. Comfort elaborates by explaining that Hitler did not consider Jews humans. Comfort compares this to the argument that a fetus is not alive until three months. Comfort argues that saying that the fetus is not technically alive is dehumanizing the child. Comfort. When confronted with the argument that to have an abortion is a woman’s choice, he replies saying, “Real babies are being murdered because of a woman 's choice, just like Nazi Germany. He did it legally. He didn 't do anything legally wrong.” When faced with argument, that people personally would not get an abortion, but feel it is not their place to object other people’s choices, Comfort parallels this to the holocaust saying that one should never kill Jews, but people should have the right to kill Jews. Comfort also utilizes logos when he compares the logistics of salvation to that of a legal case. By using a parallel of common

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