Final answer:
It is true that Jonathan Swift's satirical essay, A Modest Proposal, expected readers to find the notion of consuming children appalling. The essay uses hyperbolic satire to criticize the British government and the indifferent attitude of the wealthy towards the Irish poor.
Step-by-step explanation:
The statement that people would find the consumption of children abhorrent in A Modest Proposal is true. A Modest Proposal is a satirical essay by Jonathan Swift suggesting that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food to rich gentlemen and ladies. Swift wrote this essay to shock and provoke his readers by suggesting a macabre form of child cannibalism.
His goal was, through stark hyperbole, to criticize the British government's failure to solve the widespread poverty in Ireland and to illustrate the cold and inhumane attitude of the wealthy towards the poor. Therefore, Swift certainly anticipated that the consumption of children would be found abhorrent by his readers, as the proposal itself was a work of irony and social criticism.