At the start of the reading I was curious to see what sort of response the author would provide to solving the conditions of poverty and desperation that were severely plaguing the population of Ireland. However, I was completely taken aback by the response he had put forward. The idea of killing babies to sustain an economy sounds both preposterous and inhumane. The worst part of it all, was that he was able to rationally justify his idea, by showing how much a society could thrive from this kind of work. Mothers would no longer be burdened by children who cannot support the family, the flow of money within society would increase, new sorts of dishes would be formed for the wealthy, and the level of poverty would decrease. But the question is what kind of mother would be willing to give up her own child for the sake of making some money? I can’t imagine mothers sanely being so heartless and immoral towards their own children, regardless of what hardships may have been persisting during that time.
This article had reminded me of the book Freakonomics, written by the popular economist Steven D. Levitt. The book discusses the idea of how increasing abortions can reduce crime within society. The rationalization of this idea is that mothers who tend to have abortions are those who do not want their children. As a result, there is a higher chance of those children resorting to a life of crime as a means of survival. Thus, the best option for those mothers is to simply go through with the abortion. I was able to draw a strong correlation between both readings after closely analyzing their end objectives. The first, supports the idea of killing babies to reduce poverty, while the latter uses the idea of increasing society’s abortion levels to reduce crime rate. Thus an abhorrent idea is rationalized by stating that it has some beneficial end for society. But in my opinion they both seem to devalue human life, as the means always justify the ends.
-Kristina Rozentsvayg
