The way abortion is portrayed on TV and in movies is annoying. Because Hollywood is dominated by left-liberals, whenever a woman has an unplanned pregnancy, we always see the mom-to-be wonder “what she’s going to do,” making it clear that she has the option to abort. But they don’t say the word abortion, and the woman always exercises her choice to keep the baby. That way, Hollywood gets to help spread the image that “of course” pro-choice is the right position, but the woman makes the “right” choice so as to avoid alienating the pro-life “rubes.”
Well that’s not enough for some of them. The new CBS comedy Accidentally on Purpose is about a late-thirties single woman who gets pregnant after a one-night-stand with a 22 year old slacker, and decides to keep the baby and raise it as a single mother. It’s based on the true story of one Mary Pols, who is upset because the CBS sitcom doesn’t have the pregnant mom consider an abortion. Pols is okay with the decision to keep the baby; that’s what Pols did in real life. But Pols considered an abortion; so she’s upset that the sitcom didn’t at least show the mom wonder—out loud, for the benefit of the rubes in Red states, you see—”Should I have an abortion?” And maybe—in a network sitcom, natch—casually mention that she had had an abortion in her youth. After all, Pols had one–she’s “been down the college-girl abortion route”—what good liberal college girl doesn’t?; it’s part of the natural learning experience, you see; and Pols even says “it had broken my heart”—but not, she’s careful to note, to avoid the raised eyebrows of anti-choice feminazis, “in a I-shouldn’t-have-done-that way, but” only in a politically correct, acceptable, “I-wish-I-hadn’t-had-to-do-that way.”
The Pols complaint was published on DoubleX, Slate’s spin-off web portal for liberal women. An even more pro-abortion, even anti-choice, piece appeared on the same site, Bonnie Rochman’s I Don’t Support Carolyn Savage Carrying the Wrong Baby to Term. This is about “Carolyn Savage, the Ohio woman who, in the process of undergoing IVF, was mistakenly implanted with another couple’s embryo. She decided to carry the baby to term and just passed the 35-week mark.” Rochman is having none of it. “I’m not lining up behind the well-wishers cheering on Carolyn Savage.” She wonders “at what point self-interest should trump altruism.” By making it a simple calculus, Rochman seeks to make it clear that the life of the fetus is irrelevant. As one commenter noted,
There are some opinions that make for interesting articles; there are others that you keep to private conversations. This was the later. Publishing this article is anti-choice, both literally and politically. Literally, Ms. Rochman goes on the record as opposing the choice of women who would make different decisions than she would. What about being pro-choice doesn’t she get? Politically, this only fuels pro-lifers who equate pro-choice with pro-abortion.
It reminds me of the sickening pro-abortion comments of some Randians (see Objectivist Hate Fest) who were opposed to women with Down’s Syndrome fetuses carrying them to term. They believe there is a moral obligation to abort (to “squelch,” in their words) an “unhealthy fetus” and that support of these mothers is the “worship of retardation.” Methinks such bloodcurdling sentiments don’t really help the “pro-choice” cause very much.
11:10 pm on September 24, 2009
