Disability Rhetoric

Unspeakable Conversations by Harriet McBryde Johnson

This personal essay is about an attorney, Harriet Johnson, and a professor, Peter Singer. Singer believes in the killing of children before they are born or at birth if they are determined to have a disability or medical issue that will lower their quality of life. He also believes in assisted suicide if a person becomes so cognitively impaired that they can’t be considered a person anymore. Harriet, as a member of the disabled community, actively works against this ideal. In this essay, Singer invites Harriet to speak at Princeton and she shares her experience as a disabled person traveling and debating publicly with Singer on whether or not his ideas are morally right or should be legalized.

Something I want to point out is this question that Harriet seems to get a lot, “If I had to live like you, I think I would kill myself” (7). I was astounded to read this, how do people think it is okay to say this to someone? At the same time, Harriet has lived this way all her life, she doesn’t know anything else. Just because a life is different than your own doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it, and Harriet makes that clear. That these stereotypes are just ran with even if they aren’t true, no one cares to dismantle them.

Another quote that stuck with me was at the very end, “I am still seeking acceptance of my humanity.” (27). At first, I thought this was a very dramatic statement. When I consider it further, it really isn’t. Harriet had to argue her right to simply be alive and breathe the same air as everyone else. She had to attempt to convince an audience that she and others with similar conditions deserve to be alive, that they aren’t mistakes. No one should have to defend their humanity like that, it’s absolutely ridiculous. It just continues to horrify me every time I go back and read or think about this sentence.