Laws are enacted to create a trajectory toward an ideal society where there is a clear moral good. No rules, whether written or implied, can be enforced without bias; policy makers often cannot see the subjectivity of their morality. Quality of life is determined by these rules and norms, and the only way to amend this situation is to act out against them. In John Irving’s The Cider House Rules, the world surrounding the orphanage of St. Cloud’s is intertwined in a complex system of morality that the characters must traverse while striving to develop and maintain their beliefs. Irving describes his novel as a “polemic” (27) centering its main argument around the morality of reproductive rights in the early 20th century Maine, the first
