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Katelyn Galloway English 1102 Instructor: Fran Voltz 22 September 2013 Journal Entry #5: A Modest Proposal It is truly astounding to look through the pages of history and to see how far the United States and the rest of the world have come in obtaining civilized states. There is no longer any stench of the barbarity and cruelty of the past. Killing and taking any kind of life is considered wrong in this culture as opposed to earlier cultures. We value fairness and equality to the highest degree and do not let any kind of discrimination creep into our society like it has in the past. Everyone deserves to have their own freedom and make their own decisions. This is, after all, what makes people civilized and human. Choice is an unalienable right for every human being, and it is defining factor of what it means to be human. We all make choices. In todays culture, people can choose what car or house they want. They can choose where to live and what college to go to, and they can eat and drink what they choose. Any person can exercise his or her First Amendment Rights. People can choose what they can say who they vote for in elections. A woman can even choose to terminate her own pregnancy at her discretion. That is amazing! There is so much choice in todays culture that a person can choose for another person whether he or she has the right to live. Of course, the issue of abortion is constantly being debated, and it is dividing the nation. However, I have a proposal that I think will satisfy the issue of abortion once and for all. Since not wanting children seems to be such a huge issue in todays society, every woman should have her uterus and reproductive system taken from her body. This must be the most logical solution for this problem. Clearly, contraception and other forms of birth control have not proven to be completely effective in deterring pregnancies. Proposing for people to

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practice abstinence is ridiculous and far too extreme for the culture of this era. However, systematically taking out every womans uterus and reproductive system seems reasonable and very ethical. Now, every person can have sex free of the fear of an unwanted pregnancy. The next part of this proposal deals with how such a mandate will be carried out. The Federal Government will be in charge of decreeing and implementing this law just like it does for abortion laws now. Every girl must have her uterus and reproductive system removed from her body when she is born. Each doctor must concede to this law and perform these procedures in the same ways many doctors must do in regards to abortion today. In order to pay for these procedures, citizens must pay taxes for them just like they do for abortion and birth control today. It does not matter whether a person supports this procedure or not. Everyone must pay taxes on it. The next point of this proposal deals with people who actually want children. Since people can no longer have children biologically, there other options for having children. Through genetic engineering, a couple can have part of their genes extracted and inserted into a robot. This robot is an android and looks just like a human, but it will lack the inner parts and many of the emotional qualities of a human being. It will have many of the genetic qualities of the parents. The android will not entirely be just like a human being, and the parents do not experience the same pleasure out of actually giving birth to a child. However, these androids will be even better replacements for humans for a number of reasons. Along with the genes put into the android, the parents can also have control on what other genes they want in their android child. Parents can pick eye color, facial features, height, size, hair color, intelligence, and even athletic ability. Basically, these androids can give people features that they actually want in their children. People will never again have to deal with the

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fact that they may have kids who are not pretty, smart, intelligent, nor skinny enough. Parents will never have to deal with what means to care for children with special needs or genetic diseases anymore. No one will ever have to deal with having a child that does not reach their expectations and is nothing but trouble for their lives. These androids do not need the love and affection that human children need constantly as well. As a result, parents do not have to make any effort in raising their children. The best part of all is if the parents get sick of these androids, out of their fickleness, they can destroy them without penalty. I can foresee only great things happening from this proposal. Since there will be no more unwanted children, poverty and crime will diminish exponentially. Parents will no longer have to spend money on numerous unwanted kids and sink into poverty because of it. Children who grow up in households where they are not wanted constantly engage in crime and corruption when they get older because no one cares for them. As a result of this proposal, crime rates will go down because there will no longer be anymore unwanted children. There will only be semblances of children in the faces of androids. Society, in general, will benefit greatly from the decline in poverty and crime. Of course, I do not support or promote any of the things I have mentioned, but I certainly hope that it will open up peoples eyes to the issue of abortion. I do not understand how anyone can question whether an embryo is a human being and can validate destroying it based on this information. I only hope that people will begin to value human life and understand that each person is worth something and not just filthy wastes on society. Without understanding this, we lose part of what it means to be human and civilized, and eventually, there will be so little humanity in us that we will be like robots and without souls.

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Reflection Out of all the journals I have done this year, journal #5, A Modest Proposal, was the one I was most proud of for a number of reasons. This journal entry was unlike any writing I have ever done before. I never have written a satirical and sarcastic piece of writing before, and it dealt with a subject I have strong feelings about. Throughout the paper, I utilized extreme and ludicrous information for supporting abortion. However, it was clear by my sarcastic tone that I was clearly against abortion and was demeaning it. It had somewhat of a belligerent tone to it as well, and I believed that help reinforced my feelings about abortion. I was most proud of this journal entry because it was one in which I stated my beliefs and stood up for something I believed was important. Some of the strengths of this journal entry included my appeal to the readers emotions, and many of the outlandish proposals I made seemed to elicit a different thought and opinion on the issue of abortion. Some of the revisions I made to this paper were mostly grammatical and spelling ones. I also tried to make vague statements clearer and more understandable to improve the overall quality of the piece. The readers and respondents who influenced this essay were foremost my instructor and classmates, but this journal was for anyone who was wavering on the issue of abortion. As a result, I tried to utilize an academic tone even while using a sarcastic tone throughout the piece. This journal revealed that my writing process was arduous, well-constructed, and thoroughly thought out in order to prove and support my stance on abortion and my beliefs. I believe this journal was a success by the amount of satirical proposals and factual evidence I employed to illustrate my position and argument against abortion. This piece of writing was definitely a new genre for me, but I really enjoyed having the chance to be sarcastic in a paper. As a writer and thinker, this journal taught me a different method of argument and persuasion that is very effective and emotionally driven.