During this time in the United States of America, freedom of choice is available to everyone. For the country to be in this state of freedom, many laws have been revised and movements initiated by those who are passionate about freedom. Regarding abortion, it was legal for women to abort late in pregnancy before the end of the 19th century. Around this time, early movements attempted to make abortions illegal, ranging from the American Medical Association to the Catholic Church. Roe v. Wade legalized the right to abortion, and to this day the country is divided between legalizing or banning abortion. Gwendolyn Brook's "Mother" expresses her anti-abortion views decades before Roe v. Wade through emotionally engaging stanzas. Brooks develops an immersive story of the unfulfilled life of an unborn child through vivid imagery and the structure of the poem. Brooks introduces tone and audience and explains how diction and punctuation emphasize his thesis. The ending rhyme and rhythm contribute to the picture Brooks paints of a child's lost life, which reinforces his thesis and effective persuasion technique. These devices in “The Mother” create a compelling argument for respecting a potential life rather than a choice. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The poem is structured as if the speaker is Brooks and is in a one-way conversation with the audience of mothers who have undergone abortion and unborn children. . The speaker begins the poem by listing the small moments that most mothers would experience when raising a child, as if to lecture mothers who chose to have an abortion about what they missed and to taunt them by knowing that “abortions won’t let you forget.” The rest of the poem swings the audience, as demonstrated by the shift from a mocking tone, "Come back for a snack of them, with a gobbling mother's eye," to an apologetic tone, "Believe me, I loved you all.” The change in tone signifies Brooks' attitude towards abortion where she seems ruthless towards mothers but feels remorse towards the unborn children who were not given the chance to live. The tactic of expressing: “If I stole your births and your names, / Your heterosexual baby tears and your games, / Your beautiful, staid loves, your tumults, your marriages, / your pains and your deaths” attracts attention about the life experiences that are taken away from the child and their life. The message conveyed in these lines reminds the public of the consequences of an abortion. To bring his argument to life, Brooks uses imagery to support banning abortions. The potential memories of “The little damp pulps with little or no hair, / The singers and workers who never touched the air” illustrate to mothers what potential their children could have had if they had been given the chance . Aside from the lines that allow for the visualization of the story, the imagery is also where Brooks allows the reader to visualize themselves in the memories listed. Listing the stages of life allows the reader to reflect on their own memories and how they would feel if they had never experienced their love, marriage, or tears. Alongside the images placed throughout the lines, the structure of the poem contributes to the visual development particularly in the last quatrain. Imitating a person on the verge of death, “Believe me, I knew you, however dimly, and I loved, I loved you/All.” imitates labored breathing that fades as the last words are spoken, but instead of an elderly person speaking their,, 2015.