Physician Assisted Suicide Creates a Great Amount of Debate in America

Currently, physician assisted suicide and euthanasia are only legal in a few states, but for years, many have tried over and over again to get this practice to be legal nationwide. Upon searching the web for news and articles pertaining to this touchy subject, I found a video called Ad Campaign for Physician-Assisted Death. This video by Kelsey Milbourn supports my views and effectively shows the benefits to legalizing physician assisted suicide and euthanasia. Within this video, I was able to pull out the rhetorical situation, which is a diagram that ties together the speaker, speech, audience, occasion, and presuppositions of both the audience and speaker.

The speaker, or rhetor, is the author who “produces a speech” or text (Longaker & Walker 11). Within some pieces of writing, there generally are two kinds of speakers, the implied, which is who the audience believes is speaking, and the actual, which is the author themselves. In this particular video, both the implied and actual speaker was Kelsey Milbourn because she produced it and came up with its content. The content, text, pictures, and music, of Milbourn’s video is what is considered to be the speech or actual words the speaker says or writes to get information across to an audience.

The audience is “the person or persons whom the speakers’ words are addressed” (Longaker & Walker 11). Just as there are two kinds of speakers, there are also two kinds of audiences, the intended and actual. Milbourn’s intended audience, or who this video was specifically directed to, is the people who do not support physician assisted suicide and euthanasia. Milbourn made this video in an attempt to persuade this audience toward her views to support physician assisted suicid...

... middle of paper ...

...wn opinion and as a way to persuade the audience to have the same view.

In conclusion, the video Ad Campaign for Physician-Assisted Death by Kelsey Milbourn proved to be a great example of the rhetorical situation. Throughout this video, Milbourn was able to effectively persuade her audience with the use ethos, pathos, and logos. These three forms of persuasion are important in making an argument because they provide the facts while playing with the emotions of an audience. I believe Milbourn did an excellent job of persuading her audience through using theses persuasion techniques.

Works Cited

Milbourn, Kelsey. "Ad Campaign for Physician-Assisted Death." Online video clip.

YouTube. YouTube, 12 Dec. 2011. Web. 23 March 2014.

Longaker, Mark Garrett, and Jeffrey Walker. Rhetorical Analysis: A Brief Guide for Writers. Glenview: Longman, 2011. Print.