Plurium Interrogationum

The complex question fallacy occurs when the writer joins two issues together and asks the reader to treat them as one. The problem is that the reader is forced to accept or reject both together although he or she may find one acceptable and the other unacceptable. This technique is used for constructing loaded questions--those carefully designed so that regardless of how answered, the questioner's purpose is served. This fallacy is also known as the fallacy of interrogation or the fallacy of presuppositon*. The complex question fallacy is the illegitimate use of the logical and operator.

Examples:

Have you stopped beating your wife? (There are two questions here--Were you beating your wife? and Have you stopped?)
Do you support freedom and the freedom to choose abortion? (Whether someone is prochoice or prolife, he or she can believe in freedom)

Strategy: Identify the two issues improperly joined together and show that it is possible to agree with (or admit to) one and not the other.

* Presupposition is the idea of assuming as true something that has yet to be proven, then asking questions about it as if it were.

(Side note: Parliamentary bodies deal with this problem through a technique known as division of the question--first, the question is separated into its unique parts, then each is disposed independently.)