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Summary Of Harriet Mcbryde Johnson's Unspeakable Conversations

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A life of severe disability, is not a life worth living. Therefore, an infant born with a severe physical or cognitive impairment should not be allowed to live. Or any person for that matter, regardless of age who suffers from a severe cognitive disability should be lawfully killed. At least that is a belief held by a certain professor at Princeton University. Harriet McBryde Johnson, a disability advocate and lawyer had the opportunity to debate these beliefs with Professor Peter Singer. In “Unspeakable Conversations” she details her experience. Harriet McBryde Johnson effectively uses the rhetorical appeals of ethos and pathos, along with her uses of first-person narrative and descriptive language, to support her argument that contrary to stereotypes, a person living with a severe disability can live a happy and fulfilling life. Harriet McBryde Johnson was born in 1957 with a neuromuscular disease. At the time of this essay, she had been disabled for over four decades. Born to parents who both taught foreign language, they were able to afford hired help but she knew it could not be for her whole life. She graduated from law school in 1985 and went on to champion for disability rights. In the spring of 2002, McBryde Johnson testified in front of a subcommittee of the South Carolina State Senate in support of a bill that later became a law. This law created an exemption from the state definition of “nursing” to allow any person with a disability the right to choose who

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