The Use of Rhetorical Devices in a Speech
Misty Smith
ENG/102
August 31, 2014
Pamela Mareghni

The Use of Rhetorical Devices in a Speech In Margaret Sanger’s speech, she used various forms of rhetorical devices and fallacies. She was obviously biased in the fact that she was a woman and felt strongly about women and birth control. An example of that bias would be when she implied that the idea of motherhood without the use of birth control as an idea of being ignorant and taking a chance on not using birth control. That idea would also be considered stereotypical. She implies that all women are ignorant and take chances, by not using birth control, but that is simply not true. That statement applies to a small amount of women, but not all women in general. She also uses fallacies and other rhetorical devices throughout her speech. She uses moral reasoning within her speech particularly when she used the phrase, “religious scruples” and when she refers to those who oppose birth control and refers to them as a “group who are diseased and feeble-minded”. Her use of words not only evokes emotion, but implies the need to take action. One way Sanger addresses arguments and counterarguments is when she brings up the point of the two sexes “mixing together.” She also brings up the point that the people who oppose birth control are the same people who were opposed to women working outside of the home or mingling with the opposite sex. But, Sanger also points out that these same people had no objections to women to women intermingling with men when they attend church. Sanger accomplishes in this counterargument the double standard that I put on women. She successfully shows in her counterargument that women were allowed certain freedoms, and seeing that women could handle those freedoms, they most certainly could handle the freedom to choose to practice