Why can the question 'Have you stopped beating your wife?' not be answered fairly with yes or no?

The question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" cannot be answered fairly with a simple "yes" or "no" because it commits the fallacy of many questions (plurimum interrogationum).1

This fallacy occurs when a question is posed that relies on a mistaken or unproven presupposition. In this specific example, the question assumes that the person being addressed has, in fact, beaten their wife in the past. If the person answers "yes," they admit to having beaten their wife previously; if they answer "no," they imply that they are still beating her. Because both potential answers force the respondent to accept a damaging premise that may be false, the question cannot be answered fairly with a binary response. Instead, the appropriate approach is to reject the question or challenge the underlying assumption.1