This essay investigates the rhetorical choices in archived letters to providers at a local abortion clinic through argumentum ad baculum and other fear appeal frames. Analysis of three types of threat—spiritual, physical, and professional—contained in the correspondence suggests that only the professional fear appeals correspond to true theat. The essay contends that while some of the letters contain either true threats (argumentum ad baculum) or Aristotelian civic fear appeals, the writers more often make arguments that align with a new category I name sideways threats. Sideways threats include praeteritio or apophasis, whereby the writer renounces something like violence in order to invoke it, as well as fear appeals to negative outcomes which c(w)ould be carried out by a deity rather than the writer. Rather than fitting neatly into the rhetorical categories of ad baculum or civic fear, these artifacts that included multiple rhetorical approaches which open the way for new understanding of fear appeals and their persuasive qualities.

本文通过争论和其他恐惧诉求框架调查了给当地堕胎诊所提供者的存档信件中的修辞选择。对信件中包含的三种威胁——精神、身体和职业威胁的分析表明，只有职业恐惧诉求与真正的戏剧相符。这篇文章认为，虽然有些信件包含真正的威胁（argumentum ad baculum）或亚里士多德的公民恐惧诉求，但作者更经常地提出与我称之为横向威胁的新类别一致的论点。横向威胁包括praeteritio或apophasis，由此作者放弃诸如暴力之类的东西以调用它，以及恐惧诉诸负面结果，这些结果c（w）应该由神而不是作者来实现。这些人工制品包括多种修辞方法，这些方法并没有完全符合广告或公民恐惧的修辞类别，这些方法为新理解恐惧的吸引力及其说服力开辟了道路。