Mary Fisher Whisper Of Aids Analysis

During the Republican National Convention on August 19, 1992, Mary Fisher, a woman with AIDS, delivered the speech “A Whisper of AIDS” to shed light on the spread of HIV and AIDS, an issue that was seemingly ignored at the time. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “the number of perinatally acquired AIDS cases peaked in 1992,” reaching 901 cases. Before delivering the speech, Fisher’s main recognitions were for being a movie producer and an assistant to President Gerald R. Ford (“Bio”). However, afterwards, she became known as an activist for AIDS and HIV victims (“Bio”). Fisher argues that the Republican Party needs to give more attention to the AIDS crisis through the theme that people with AIDS and HIV are the same as those without them. Fisher begins the speech by using evidence that HIV and AIDS are a national and global epidemic that needs more attention from not only policymakers, but from the American public. Her use of logos by stating that “Two hundred thousand Americans are dead or dying. A million more are infected. Worldwide, forty million, sixty million, or a hundred million infections will be counted in the coming few years,” gives the audience, politicians and American
By bringing light to this matter, Fisher brings together not only the Republican party, but the entire nation to acknowledge that they are facing an epidemic that people did not see as something that could affect them. Once America witnessed someone who did not represent the stereotype of someone with AIDS, they realized that the disease was more widespread than expected. America chose to listen when it became apparent that certain minority groups that had been blamed for the epidemic were not the only people who the virus had the capability of