'Should I Have Been Killed At Birth?'

Many ordinary everyday people are oblivious to how they treat and act around those who are mentally or physically disabled. Three certain writers have written personal narratives and examined their views and their lives on being physically disabled. “Why The Able-Bodied Still Don’t Get it”, by Andre Dubus, “Disability”, by Nancy Mairs and “Should I Have Been Killed at Birth?”, by Harriet McBryde Johnson all relate to a certain aspect in life, which is living with disability. Even though each individual essay describes different attitudes and stories, they all seem to interact with one another by sharing some common ground. They are expressing their feelings about how the well and fit individuals treat them in a patronizing, pitying, and sometimes …show more content…
Johnson and a man named Peter Singer had met up and discussed their views on physical disability. Johnson, a woman who had a neuromuscular disease, was shocked when she heard that Peter Singer would liked if a fetus would be euthanized before it was born due to the prior knowledge of the baby being physically defected. Of course, Johnson felt disturbed hearing this, knowing that he would have liked for her to never have been born. However, “his immediate ability to deal with me as a person with a particular point of view”, allowed her to respect him, even if she didn’t exactly fully agree with his perspective. Throughout this piece, Johnson describes how she is treated in her everyday life. She includes some sentences that strangers have said directly to hear when she is in public. This technique strengthened her argument because it showed that there are some people who can be insensitive and uncompassionate. Some of the words that were said to Johnson were rude, like “If I had to live like you, I think I’d kill myself”. However, there were some kind things such as, “God bless you! I’ll pray for you.”.