Here is the synopsis of our sample research paper on Virginia Held on defining "Human" and "Natural". Have the paper e-mailed to you 24/7/365.
Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 3 page essay on Virginia Held's position, which argues that "giving birth to human beings should not be thought to be any more 'essentially natural'...than is human death," but rather birth, like death, should be "understood to be central to whatever is thought to be distinctly human" (Held 112). The writer explains this statement, using Held's text, and then takes a position on the issues it raises. Bibliography lists 1 source.
Page Count:
3 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khheld.rtf
Buy This Term Paper »
Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
to whatever is thought to be distinctly human" (Held 112). Furthermore, Held argues that describing birth in terms of it being a "natural event" has served to discount the "value
of womens experiences and activities" (Held 112). What Held means by this, basically, is that the process of birth is to easily discounted, attributed to God (as a male). Society
and culture present death as "distinctly human" and praised men for risking death to protect their countries and advance human progress, yet, in regards to birth, "it is assumed that
the species is merely reproduced" (Held 114). It is easy to see her logic when she addresses how society looks at both death and birth. Death is often couched
in terms of choice, "We can overcome our fears and die courageously. We can die for noble causes and die heroically" (Held 114). It is a distinctly "human" characteristic to
intentionally choose to place ones life at risk for a specific cause or purpose. Giving birth, on the other hand, is coached in terms of being "natural," that is, something
that just happens to a woman, eliciting a natural response. Mothering is perceived as a "kind of extension of the natural, biological event of childbirth" (Held 114). The nurturance that
a woman gives her child is "incorporated into the framework of the natural," rather than thought of as a matter of choice, which would make it, like a noble death,
an aspect of being "human" rather than "natural." Held concedes that until quite recently childbirth was "something that has for the most part happened to women, rather than being
something chosen by women" (Held 114). However, giving birth, with the exception of rape, has always been a matter of choice, since that moment in prehistory when people figured out
...