At a pro-life outreach in Pasadena, California, I asked a passerby what he thought of our exhibit. He shouted, “How many of these children have you adopted?” I paused for a moment, unsure how to answer. “I didn’t think so!” he shouted. This man was making an ad hominem argument, which in Latin means “against the man.” Instead of attacking an argument, an ad hominem argument attacks the person making the argument. It’s a logical fallacy. The man’s implicit argument was that abortion should be legal because those like me who opposed it were bad people for not adopting unwanted, unborn children.
