Critical Disability Studies and Fiction on the Right-to-Life Issues: Carlos Fuentes’ Christopher Unborn (1987), Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993), and the Million Dollar Baby Franchise

Abstract

After supplying examples of the jargon-laden academic discussion of critical disability studies, this paper summarizes significant ideas which constitute the literary theory. Two life-affirming fictional works which concern abortion and infanticide (Carlos Fuentes’ Christopher Unborn and Lois Lowry’s The Giver) are then briefly examined, using key ideas from the theory. A significant portion of the paper is devoted to applying critical disability studies to a euthanasia work, identified here as the Million Dollar Baby franchise, consisting of the short story and its film equivalent; this discussion is amplified by providing commentary from a pro-life perspective. Finally, the paper determines how the principles of critical disability studies comport with the five elements of right-to-life literary theory and demonstrates how critical disability studies is compatible with the aims of the pro-life movement, which counters the dehumanization of the disabled in anti-life fiction.

Keywords: abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, literary theory, disability studies, right to life