Abort The Unborn Child example essay topic

From the earliest recorded history, in Biblical times, through the late eighteen hundreds, and even in many places today, the person with a disability of any kind, has been considered a "Dog of the Earth". Although it is much better today than it was one hundred years ago, there are still people who justify the slaughtering of an unborn child by claiming that he or she will have a life altering disease that could, in reality, be an unforeseen blessing. In the story Along the Frontage Road by Michael Chabon it is my belief that the ever so slightly mentioned death, of an unborn daughter, was due to a chosen abortion. There are many subtle hints within this story that lead to my conclusion. I believe that the child was aborted because of a life altering disease with which he / she would have surely been born. In this paper I intend to discuss the evidence which guides me to believe the aforementioned, and explain why I trust my judgment.

Starting in paragraph five we have the strongest evidence arguing my case. It is here that the unborn child is first mentioned. It tells of a house where something terrible has happened, as if someone important has died, but "In fact the deceased was a girl of seventeen weeks, a theoretical daughter". Here we know that the child was unborn and approximately seventeen weeks from conception. It is somewhere close to this time that an expecting mother can have an amniocentesis to determine the well being of the unborn child. At this point a mother can still choose to abort the unborn child if a reason may come to pass.

The father writes that the daughter was "startled in the darkness and warmth of her mother's body... by a jet of cool air and a fatal glint of light". This startling of the child leads me to believe that there was an accident or purposeful death of the unborn child. I believe that with the evidence showing that this could be in the right time for an amniocentesis and the child was killed, not a natural miscarriage leads to believe that the child may have had the unforeseen blessing of a disability. The parents can then decide, with the help of medical professionals whether to terminate the pregnancy or continue, knowing the risks that there child will be "different". If the unborn daughter had a life altering disease that the parents could not bear to live with they could have terminated the pregnancy and this would give them reason to receive sympathy and flowers, also mentioned in paragraph five.

Going on, in paragraph twenty seven, there are many reasons to believe that the child was "flawed" and aborted. Nicky, the small child in the story, a theoretical brother, mentions that the name "Kate" had been picked out for his unborn, and now deceased sister. Who names a child that they know they are going to abort? No one that I know would do such a thing. Therefore, this leads the reader to further believe that it was not a planned abortion. It also states that they had "no real choice in the matter" yet they were "persuaded by mere facts and statistics".

This tells the reader that something was wrong that made someone else (medical professionals) persuade them to abort the child. Further confirming this, it goes on to say that he believes that they may have made the popular choice but it was "an unforgivable mistake", showing that they did have some "choice in the matter". This also confirms that there was not an accident that took place, it was a purposeful death. The child, Nicky, knew too much at five of what was going on. He knew, as demonstrated in paragraph twenty three, that knives kill.

It also states that his emotions were unpredictable, suggesting former trauma. Nicky knows that Mom is resting, he also knows why, he understands it as well as any five year old could. He wants to call and tell her about the little pumpkin he found and named after his unborn baby sister. However little the child knew, he did know that even though Kate was an unborn sister, she was alive, and that Mommy and Daddy made the choice to not let her be born by some sort of operation (assumed by the idea in the previous paragraph that this was a killing by choice). Throughout the paper, the author makes little comments, and comparisons, to show how good of a father he can be, and how good of a father he could have been. For example, in paragraph thirty two he feels guilty, as he cannot prevent a terrible situation between Andre, a small boy they meet along the way, and his father.

He knows that he can be a better father than Andre's father, and he feels guilty. He cannot help, and also he can no longer help his own daughter in which he and his wife decided did not matter enough in life to let live. He knows that he is a good father, yet he struggles, because he helped to choose between life and no life for his daughter, and now she is lost, "an unforgivable mistake". Now he must think of his mistake for a lifetime. He knows that he got to live, and love, and Kate did not. When originally reading Michael Chabon's work, there may be confusion in what happened to this unborn child.

Was it a natural miscarriage? Was it an accident of some sort? No, I don't believe it was either of these. It was a chosen abortion for the reason that the child must have been developing a debilitating disease. As I mentioned in my introduction "the person with a disability, of any kind, has been considered a "Dog of the Earth". However, even dogs still get crumbs from children at the dinner table.

My evidence proves that this was a planned death, an abortion. The child could have lived a life, even if it was altered, or different from that of a normal child, it still would have been a life. Mr. Chabon lives with the fact every day, that he helped make a choice to kill his unborn daughter.

Bibliography

Chabon, Michael. "Along the Frontage Road". The Best American Short Stories 2002.
Katrina Ken ison. New York: Houghton, 2002.
1-8. The NIV Study Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995.