Editor:

Regarding the abortion issue, John Keisling makes several rhetorical errors which completely invalidate his Feb. 7 argument.

First, he fails to discuss what science means by "independent existence." The term refers to an entity's ability to live and breathe, in and of itself, without assistance from technology or a host (in this case, the mother). It does not, as he feebly attempts to establish, refer to an infant's ability to cook its own meals.

Secondly, Keisling fails to clearly define "honest and rigorous moral reasoning." By not doing so, he employs the politics of ambiguity so ardently criticized by the great George Orwell in his essay "Politics and the English Language" - that is, the use of terminology designed not to be tied down to any specific meaning.

Finally, Keisling undermines his own argument by falling down the slippery slope. The connection he attempts to make - that of science being "unsure when (an) organism is a human embryo" and of his assertion that this lack of knowledge constitutes "life" - is at its best extremely tenuous and at worst logically unsound. John Keisling must learn it takes more than a pogo stick to vault over a yawning rhetorical chasm.

John Middleton
teaching and teacher education MA student