Articles Poor Teeth and Unspeakable Conversations by Sarah Smarsh

Assignment 1
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Assignment 1
The articles “Poor Teeth” and “Unspeakable Conversations” by Sarah Smarsh and Harriet McBryde Johnson respectively, give first-hand insights on how the issue of disability is perceived and interpreted by different people in various places and social classes. In “Unspeakable Conversations,” the author speaks from her point of view in regards to the issue of disability and the idea of killing disabled children before they are born in order to protect them from unhappy lives. A university professor named Peter Singer opposes her perspective, which is much shaped by her own real-life experiences. Almost similarly, Sarah Smarsh’s article “Poor Teeth” follows another form of disability that is associated with dental hygiene and classism. She uses her teeth and those of the other people close to her to demonstrate the inequality that is brought about when a particular section of the community lacks proper dental coverage. With this in mind, the two authors in their various articles strive to break the stereotypes surrounding the issue of disability by using their individual experiences and the rhetorical elements of ethos and pathos.
In “Poor Teeth,” Sarah Smarsh addresses the stereotype that people usually assume that having unhealthy teeth automatically resulted from a person is either an alcoholic or drug addict when in actual sense it was their poor status that contributed to them not being able to access dental care. In the article, the author rightfully notes that it was neither sugar nor the use of meth that caused the dental problems suffered by her grandmother and grandfather. Instead, she notes that all these woes were because of “lack of insurance, lack of knowledge, lack of good nutrition,” (Smarsh). Most of the families from Sarah’s countryside were of the lower class and were therefore born into this kind of poverty thus making it almost impossible for them to afford the mentioned. This lack of access to good dental care led to many people like Sarah to suffer a lot since they could not afford the money to pay for these services in the same way that individuals in the American upper class did. Generally, Sarah through this article is determined to sensitize the world of the fact that dentistry or dental healthcare should be made accessible to poor people instead of judging and stereotyping them because of their poor teeth. Similarly, Harriet McBryde’s “Unspeakable Conversations” addresses the stereotype that being born with a disability automatically meant that one would end up living an unhappy life. Using her own life as an example, McBryde clearly states, “The presence or absence of a disability does not predict the quality of life,” (McBryde 3). McBryde herself lives a high quality and happy life despite her disability hence proving that anyone else in the same situation would enjoy a good life too. The fact that she can deal with high state legislators as a lawyer implies that McBryde is of great intelligence that even surpasses that of most people without disabilities. Based on this, it is quite clear that the author wishes to break the stereotype that children with disabilities cannot lead happy, high-quality lives and therefore have to be killed before they are born.
Both Sarah and McBryde use rhetorical elements in demonstrating their ideas. One of such devices is the use of ethos in making the stories more believable and credible. In the article by McBryde, she takes the position of the narrator and writes the story that is mainly based on her journey and experiences. Most of her character comes to live during the disagreement with professor Peter Singer about the issue of killing disabled children before they were born. The fact that McBryde was herself disabled and yet served as the lawyer for disability rights makes the article a demonstration of strong ethos in a manner that adds to the overall credibility of the whole story. On her part, McBryde has led a life of being disabled, and thus she understands what it feels like to be disabled. Also, she has been a witness to what she argues for, which is the fact that indeed a disabled person can have exceptional cognitive abilities that can make them live happily. All these facts make her argument to have more ethos in a way that the credibility of her story cannot be doubted unlike if another person would have written the same. When she states earlier that a person’s disability can not determine the quality of l...