Why would a mother throw away her baby? This is definitely murder to me. Although the attorney said that she could have gotten an abortion a couple of weeks earlier and the end result would have been the same, I am still angry. As a side note, I believe that abortion should only be available to women who have been raped or if they find out that their child will be born with a debilitating disease. I disagree with the women who get an abortion because they had sexual intercourse, and ended up pregnant when they did not want to be pregnant. However, I feel no anger toward women who get an abortion; I just think it’s irresponsible. But this mother in the case let her baby suffer for hours or days simply because she did not want to take care of the infant. That is murder, plain and simple.


	Hemispheric specialization is the idea that different regions of the brain perform specific roles. Examples of different regions include: the frontal lobe, visual cortex, Broca’s area, and Wernicke’s area. While Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area focus on processing language, the frontal lobe controls higher-order thinking, and the visual cortex controls visual stimuli. “Cerebral lateralization” describes the specific roles that each hemisphere—left or right—performs. Some tasks, such as recognizing words and faces, are respectively performed by the left side and right side of the brain. More specifically, the left hemisphere is responsible for speech and analysis, while the right hemisphere is responsible for recognizing patterns and interpreting language by tone of voice and body language. Although it is not accurate to claim that someone is “left-” or “right-brained,” evidence from numerous studies show that one hemisphere may be preferred over another in an individual, which is known as “hemispheric preference.” Do cerebral lateralization and hemispheric preference affect the way individuals learn? 
	In a study conducted by Szirony et al., the researchers proposed that there is an association between cerebral lateralization and the notion of “self-concept” in a learning environment. Generally, the notion of self-concept, also known as self-esteem, is how an individual perceives him- or her-self, whether that is based upon positive or negative characteristics. In this particular study, the use of self-concept is focused more on the positive characteristics an individual portrays; the more self-confident an individual is, the better that individual will be in accomplishing academic achievements. Kutob, Senf, Crago, and Shisslak note associations for positive and negative self-esteem in students: (a) “positive” self-esteem is positively correlated with academic success, while “negative” self-esteem is negatively correlated with academic success; and (b) “positive” self-esteem is linked with having good coping skills and interpersonal relations and “negative” self-esteem is linked with being harmful to an individual, resulting in possible psychological problems, such as depression or behavioral disorders. Pekrun, Goetz, Titz, and Perry also found that emotions in a learning environment affect the students and how they learn. 