Rhetorical Analysis Of Lia Mills Anti-Abortion Speech

Lia Mills, writer of an anti-abortion speech, influences her audiences to believe that all life is worth holding on to regardless of your definition of life. Mills uses several tactics to portray her points, whether it be appealing to the emotion or the logic in a person’s mind. She utilizes these tactics quite well throughout her writing making this speech very powerful towards her audience.
Lia Mills use of pathos or emotion is found spread thoroughly in her speech. She explains that a choice many people make each day over someone who is unaware of what is happening. She uses phrases such as “whether they are gonna live or die” which puts exactly what is occurring in to perspective. Although some say that the unborn fetus is not technically

a human, Mills makes pro-choice activists think twice before they open their mouths to counter. Overall the speech appeals to the sense of humanity in us, and this makes her a very powerful and effective writer.
Mills uses logical facts, in addition to emotion, in her speech. Mills is a very logical writer in such a way that by the end of the speech the reader feels bad or guilty for the crimes humanity commits against fellow humans. She speaks about how planned parenthood alone on average conducted 300,000 abortions the year before Lia’s speech was written, but that number does not include the amount of abortions conducted by other clinics and organizations. These facts puts into perspective just mow many people have been aborted in only one year. Although it would be difficult to imagine, many people cannot imagine 300,000 people in one room. That would be similar to the city of Pittsburg or Cincinnati disappearing off the face of the earth along with their inhabitants. Now these numbers have jumped to almost 800,000 people in the United States alone, and this means that this speech would be even more relevant and effective now.
Pathos and Logos are two very effective writing tools, but they are only effective when they have been used together. Lia Mills has perfected this art in that she used each one extraordinarily well, and she was also able to balance them making her speech that much stronger. Although at the time this speech was written Mills was a small 12 year old girl, she still has a very large voice that no one can ignore.