A Matter of Conscience

Society and the values of others around you is where your conscience comes from. This however, is a deformed conscience. It has been molded by society s views, not your own. Just because society taught you to believe in something, doesn t make it right. In the novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain, Huck overcomes the society s conscience, and goes with his sound heart.

Huck has a sound heart that outweighs his deformed conscience which society has given him. For instance, Huck was helping Jim who was a runaway slave escape to freedom. A great example of his deformed conscience is when he was going to turn Jim in, he thought, Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I got to do it I can t get out of it (89). After that though, his sound heart comes through, and he thought, S pose you d a done right and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I, I d feel bad (91). The society around him taught him that helping a slave like that was an awful thing to do, but he was an outsider to society, so he wasn t as corrupted, and let his sound heart overcome his deformed conscience.

An example of a deformed conscience that I have an issue with is abortion. It is legal, but there are many people who have different views on it, based on their corrupted conscience. One side says that abortion is bad because they believe it is killing a baby that isn t even born yet, and won t have a chance for life. Another reason they believe it is a bad thing to do is because the person having the abortion should be lucky they can have babies because some people can t, and they could always give it away to be adopted.

The other side of this issue is the side that is for abortion. Women that are raped, and are impregnated due to the rape, wouldn t want that baby because it would remind them of the rape, and people should let them have the abortion because it wasn t their fault they were raped. Young women may also need an abortion because they aren t ready to be a mother yet, and wouldn t be able to support their child. I strongly feel that abortion should be legal, and people should be able to do it anonymously, without feeling badly about it. Society has taught us that abortions are a bad thing, and that people shouldn t have them, but if you look at the people s issues that want it, your heart should tell you that it should be okay for them to have it.

In conclusion, society has an extremely large influence on people s conscience. Society teaches you from the time you are able to grasp concepts that certain things are bad and other things aren t. However, if you know something like slavery is wrong, like Huck did, you should be able to stand up for it, and follow your heart.