I critique someone else's paper

I wish I could post the paper (so you could critique my critique), but it's an assignment for someone else's class, and to reprint it like that without their permission would be tricky. Also, that would mean anyone entering a query in a search engine (like a professor checking for plagiarism) could see it there. I can e-mail it if anyone is curious; I certainly saved it.

The story? I'm looking for a handout for another class that I didn't recover during spring break, and now I don't know where it is. I thought I had saved it online, but it must still be on a computer around here. I won't be able to find it. I've been working all afternoon. I need a break.

I will try to keep my critiques of argumentative style and my personal views separate. The latter are parenthetical.

The paper's title?

"Everyone has a right to life."

Now, first, in general, it isn't a good idea to cite websites typically. In the case of a hot-button current topic like abortion, it is allowable. However, the person must keep in mind how biased their sources are. Citing from a site like "infoplease.com" is tacky compared with all of the subscription data sites we have available in the library, but I'll be lenient with that. However, he chooses to cite from this website, "abortionfacts.com", to make the argument that a lot of promoters of abortion call an unborn baby "just a glob of tissue."

I checked out the website, because I was interested in seeing what crazy person would try to argue for their cause with "just a glob of tissue." It turns out the website has links on the sidebar for people who are Pro-Life (anti-option, but that's my personal view) and Pro-Choice, detailing their positions with links that discuss those position points. Except that the pro-life arguments are always affirmed by the links, and the pro-choice arguments are always denigrated. "What, you think abortion is safe? Bam! It isn't!" And of course he pulls that quotation from that part of the website, summarizing the pro-choicers' errant assumptions to be corrected by links that pretend to be operating in an unbiased manner.

I'm not sure what I'm more perturbed by: the website itself, which gives little direct cue (but tons of indirect ones) to its taking a side on a divisive issue, or the student that chooses to use it, not simply to make a lazy argument, but to put words in the mouth of pro-choicers. He could've cited from a better source, and it would've been much more effective to find quotes (not just one) to that effect from pro-choice websites. This way, he's just making a strawman that he proceeds to burn.

The same goes for citing medical facts from "www.nrlc.org". They may indeed be facts, or may not (I didn't check), but try to get them from an unfiltered source. If I'm running a group or organization site, of course I'm going to make my position sound as good as possible.

As for the time he neglects to cite a doctor's quotes altogether, what am I supposed to assume?

And finally, when using a dictionary, use the best dictionary available. That is either a paper dictionary, good old faithful ____ (in my case being the American Heritage Dictionary), or the online one that the university has access to (Oxford English Dictionary). Compared to either of those, dictionary.com, while decent in middle school or high school, is unacceptable at a college level.

As far as rhetoric goes, he is loaded for bear with the baby cannon, whatever that means. He uses the term baby to refer to an unborn fetus, which is alright when he justifies it with reasoning that I would tear apart in parentheses. But he also uses it in the introduction to claim that over one million babies are murdered each year. Both are quite loaded terms, ones that I would justify in the introduction rather than over a quarter of the way through the paper. Otherwise, he is just preaching to the choir and alienating the rest. (I was sure alienated.)

Oh, and when he is writing an argument or position, he should never refer to it so boldfacedly. I know he's making an argument. He should never say, "Let me give you an example to further aid my position." He is supposed to acknowledge that his position isn't the only one out there, but to refer to his position, and to actively seek to bolster it is bad form. rather, his argument should stand apart from him, and he should say, at the very least, "Here is an example of _____," _____ being what he is trying to demonstrate.

And then arguments from the Bible are valid. However, when you're trying to make interpretations of Bible verse, it is good to bring in, again, more than one example. It is not enough to cite separately points at which babies are brought up and then murder is brought up, and then say that God condemns abortion.

Finally, it is not good to end any paper with "Plain and simple." It's like one's brushing his hands off as he gets up and walks away. There is no epiphany there. No enlightenment.

Now, personal views.

A lot of what goes on here is a lot of what I'm dismayed with in general, argument-wise, and more specifically with some more vocal pro-lifers. What he does is echo or tap into their arguments, which go about like so:
1. Assert or affirm that anything unborn is a baby, a child, a sentient human being.
2. Assert or affirm that the killing of any human being is murder.
3. Call abortion murder.
4. Cue the outrage.
Now, okay, fine. That's an argument. What I have a problem with is when I'm made, in the introduction and conclusion, to understand the first point of the argument before I can comprehend the abortion issue. "What we have to realize before we make our decision on how we feel about the issue is that a baby is a human being whether born or unborn." "In my opinion," he says. An honest acknowledgement. I comprehend him. But I don't agree with him.

If he had justified that point within the paper, I would have a lot of questions to be asking myself. However, his arguments are weak. Yes, a fetus's heart first beats at a certain point. A brain starts to function at a certain point. But he can't tell me that a fetus is self-aware at that point. He can't tell me whether they feel, and whether they interpret those feelings as any sense of living at all. Memory is practically nonexistent. He establishes that a fetus is a living thing, but he doesn't make a convincing argument that it is fully and independently human. I haven't seen anyone make that point yet. I can't. In that case, why can't the mother make the decision on whether the fetus is human? (1)

And he does not do a good job addressing other concerns, such as what carrying an unwanted child to term means for a woman. He does not explain how he knows that contraceptive failure is rare and a non-issue. He does not explain how the people who want abortions available are simultaneously ignorant teenagers and rich disinterested people. (2)

All in all, he characterizes his opposition without really knowing them. I don't think fetuses are globs of flesh, or whatever the charming term was. They are fetuses. They are living, but they're also dependent. To me, they do not yet have a soul imparted to them. They have no breath of life. They are a potential, one that can come into being or not. Certainly it is devestating for people to want children and to experience miscarriage, but that is with respect exclusively to what they (the possible child) might have been, and not what they are.

No one is a murderer. If someone feels that they need an abortion, I am reasonably certain they are not happy about it. I don't know why they want one; it can be for a variety of reasons. i want them to take the time to think through about whether this is the right decision. If I meet someone going through it, I will certainly give my kindly input, and request that they ask others as well. But I won't condemn. That is just what I do, and even if it weren't, that is in the Bible.

(1) I've always favored the argument that a fetus becomes a human being at the quickening, or at the point where a mother can consistently feel a baby kicking and such. This was the old way they would judge pregnancy, back in the 1800s and before, because before then many pregnancies would end in the first few months, and a fetus's viability only became high when they demonstrably moved. Abortions were available before the quickening set in, but were much more suspect afterward. But there's no good universal reason for me to favor this, which is why I'd still favor the parent making the decision. In this sense, the pro-life arguments for banning abortion seem to be admitting that women and couples cannot make a decision for themselves and that they alone have a valid view on the matter. And I've dealt enough with people to know that, in general, I'd rather make my major decisions for myself.

(2) To counter other arguments is especially important in his stance. To wish to outlaw abortions (abortions being murder), he should recognize that pro-choicers are not people that want others to have abortions. Abortion is an option, one of many. Not a commandment. He argues against the commandment, not the option, and misses considerably.