Literature Network » Jonathan Swift

A modest proposal for `Mercicide'.(Commentary)(Op-Ed)

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From: The Washington Times
Date: 19960425
Author:Fields, Suzanne

In 1789 Jonathan Swift bewailed the shameful numbers of abortions and murders of "bastard children" among the Catholic peasants of Ireland, desperate women who sacrificed innocent babes to avoid the expense and the shame of giving birth without benefit of clergy. Such horrid practices, Swift wrote, "would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman beast."

In searching for a way to alleviate such cruelty, Swift invents an American, whom most Englishman regarded as a not-so-noble savage, to support his modest proposal.

"I have been assured by a very knowing ...

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