Abortion is a controversial topic that has been debated all around the world. There are people who are against abortion believe in banning the act of killing a fetus at any stage of pregnancy; however, there are also people that are pro-choice, and believe that the women should have the right to choose to keep or abort the child. The ad below is depicting an African American male, holding an unborn child on clouds in the sky, saying "I know how you feel! When I was a slave down, there, the courts didn't I was fully human either." The ad is advocating a pro-life argument, by relating the subject of abortion to slavery. The audience the author is targeting with this ad are people who are both for and against abortion, and mainly those who have a deep understanding about the topic slavery. By using a well known disastrous past event in U.S history, and affiliating two negatives to enlighten the audience the author of the ad is using the art of persuasion to illustrate how abortion is a mistake.The cartoon is depicting that abortion is just wrong as slavery was in the past. In the past slave were not considered fully human, so their lives were considered meaningless if they were to have been murdered or killed. According to Digital History during the constitutional convention in 1783, the three-fifth compromise was created which argued that slaves do not count equally as a free person (1). Instead for tax purposes, Congress compromised a ratio of how the slaves were going to be counted (Digital History 1). This concludes how slaves were not considered fully human. The cartoonist included this event deliberately to sway the viewers to believe that by having abortions people are not also considering the unborn child to be human or "fully human."
The cartoonist does a well crafted job by presenting the audience with negative past event in history, and connecting it to the subject of abortion. By using this technique the author willingly affiliates a negative event in history with the issue of abortion, to make the audience believe that abortion is also wrong. Many people would agree that slavery was a dark time in our nations past and that it was wrong to not consider African Americans humans; the cartoonist takes advantage of this by linking how abortion is wrong also.
By having knowledge of the culture during the time of slavery allows for the audience to fully connect and understand the cartoonist point of view on the issue of abortion. The ad clearly depicts a pro-life argument, and strongly persuades the viewers. The cliche "A picture is worth a thousand words" seems to ring true about this ad.
Source:
Digital History. 19 April 2010. 19 April 2010
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