Evidence Of Love In A Case Of Abortion Summary

In Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment, author M. Rickert creates a dystopian society where the main character, Lisle’s, runaway mother is used to discuss abortion and those that do not regret having one as well as the feelings of children whose parent(s) has abandoned them. Leslie is a personification of those children’s feelings, but is simultaneously her own character who is emotionally conflicted as she loved her mother but hated what she did, identifying the sides of both anti and pro-abortion sentiments. The author’s use of irony, plot structure, and paradox blend together to make the thoughts of Lisle who must live as an abortionist’s daughter in a world where abortion is illegal and deserving of death.

Rickert uses irony to

“Disgust that her mother is a murderer of an innocent, shame that she (daughter) will be viewed as being tainted because of her mother's actions, still missing her mother” (Sherry). “I hate mom… I’m surprised by the tears in my eyes… She’s never coming back. Whatever selfish streak caused her, all those years ago to kill one child is the same selfish streak that allows her to abandon me now… I close my eyes and think of my mother, Oh, how I miss her” (Rickert). Along with other small details and comments, such as the way Lisle keeps lingering memories of her mother, Rickert allows Lisle to have feelings in straight but subtle ways in order to gain some sort of feeling from the reader. “I read the story differently. I don’t think, for example, that it’s accurate to describe Lisle as brainwashed… Rather, her personality and beliefs are the result of simply growing up in this future… she talks of “righteous behaviour” entirely without irony, and resentfully assumes, as the title suggests, that she has been abandoned — the possibility that her mother has been taken never seriously crosses her mind. What we pity her for is not the pain in her life, but the absence of pain“ (Evidence of Love). Although the reader may or may not give sympathy, the reader does have a feeling towards Lisle,