Communication Fallacies

    After completing the readings for this week, I have realized that there are many fallacies that exist everywhere, especially in news articles online. One article that I chose to investigate was a Fox News article that discussed research findings suggesting significant risks to women who take abortion pills. There were many fallacies that I found within this article while reading it. For one, this article is entirely based on hasty generalizations. This article claims that mifepristone is shown to have significant adverse effects that leave people in the hospital after taking them. However, this article only references findings from one study. Additionally, this study's findings were only based on insurance claims data, which could also leave out very pertinent context and data. Furthermore, the article goes on to make claims like, "abortion drugs pose significant dangers to women" based on the research in this one study which further flaws this argument. The reading for this week states, "A common flaw in arguing is stating the claim as absolute, or universally true, when in fact there may be exception or citation where it is not true." (Crusius & Channell, 2016) There were no other study's mentioned to back up this claim which the article implies is absolute, affecting all women. 

    To go along with these claims, another fallacy that I found in this argument was that they greatly appealed to fear, argumentum ad metum. This type of fallacy uses phrases to evoke fear about a certain outcome in their audience in order to persuade them. For example, the article uses phrases about abortion pills including "deadly for children" and "very dangerous for girls". This type of language tries to provoke fear in the audience rather than using legitimate evidence and ultimately flaws their argument. 

    In addition to these fallacies, another one that I noticed was the false cause fallacy. After presenting a couple findings from this one study, the article then goes on to talk about how the Biden administration relaxed certain safety protocols by allowing these prescriptions to be sent through the mail, adverse health outcomes have greatly increased and will continue to increase unless the Trump administration changes them. This implication has no evidence to support its causality. Furthermore, it

does not take into account other factors, like more people taking this medication could show more instances of complications, which could contribute to why there may be a correlation. Nonetheless, there remains no evidence to suggest any sort of cause and affect relationship here. 

    Something else to note was that I also noticed this article didn't actually cite the source that they were referencing throughout the whole article. Since I wasn't able to evaluate their sources, this raised even more doubt for me while reading the claims they were making and could reveal additional fallacies as well. 

References: 

Crusius, T., & Channell, C. (2016). The aims of argument: A text and reader (8th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education