I am not pro-choice. I am pro-abortion.
Recently I watched the movies "Knocked Up" and "Juno." Each of them had some laughs. I enjoyed them for that. But it was strange to me to see how they treated the topic of abortion. It's like I am viewing the productions of some foreign culture. I mean I understand that super religious people are flipped out about the procedure. Every day when I leave my house, I pass a neighbor's window in which they have hung a huge poster saying "Abortion is homicide." There's a picture of a plaintive child staring out at you, as if to say "Hi I am what you abort. You suck. I, however, am precious and deserve protection."
My husband calls them the weird religious people, as in "the weird religious people dropped off some avocados today." (They were delicious.)
But what I don't get is why films that aren't being made by the religious right represent abortion as some unthinkable disgusting procedure. In the case of "Knocked Up," in fact, it's treated as just about unmentionable. When someone does suggest to this loser, stoner, porn-website-producer dude that he and the woman who got impregnated during their drunken one-night stand not carry this hapless fetus to term, a GREAT idea, he cannot even use the word. He says "smu-smor-shion." I am not kidding. We are supposed to believe that a group of guys who pride themselves on hyper-frat-boy behavior--flaunting every disgusting bodily afflatus and sexual obsession--are too delicate to say the word ABORTION. Are you kidding me? Seriously. What is up with that?
Later in the film the woman's mother suggests, with wonderful vision, that the daughter "take care of it." Well, this is slightly less juvenile than saying "smu-smor-shion," but it remains absuredly euphemistic. And, even more absurd, the daughter refuses--for no good reason. She just says "no." Huh, ok.
Now of course the plot required that she not get a "smu-smor-shion," since we're supposed to delight in the romantic dynamic of the shlubby guy scoring the hottest of hot chicks (was it just me or did this seem a tad like male wish fulfillment?), but nonetheless the way it was represented seemed quite ominous. There was no attempt to explain why carrying an unwanted fetus to term was the default position. And since this film, from "liberal" Hollywood, sets the tone for a new generation, I've got to wonder what role models young women have that let them know they aren't moral cripples if they make the wonderful life affirming decision to abort an unwanted pregnancy.
Certainly they don't get it from "Juno." I wanted to like this film, and in some ways I did. I mean has anything coming out of Hollywood lately tried harder to be charming? Maybe that's what I also found kind of off-putting about it. Too many one-liners. The whole thing felt, well, scripted. But that 's not the issue for me. No, it was the representation of abortion. Here's a girl who gets pregnant in high school and decides to terminate the pregnancy but changes her mind because everyone in the clinic is on her nerves and the fundamentalist girl in the parking lot told her her fetus had fingernails. Seriously? That's it? Fingernails. Geez it also had lungs and a spleen. What about those more complex organs? Shouldn't they be more moving than fingernails?
Nope it was sentimental hogwash, plain and simple. Since this fetus has fingernails, and the adults in the waiting room were chewing theirs, Juno decides to have a baby even though she doesn't want to parent. Sure. Makes all the sense in the world. Glad the topic of abortion was considered seriously. And don't worry, there's a rich, straight, white lady obsessed with class and status who cannot wait to possess the child like another set of Eddie Bauer sheets. What a relief!
Times have certainly changed. And not for the better. When I was being socialized, the popular film "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" represented abortion as the logical choice for the unwed teenaged mother. After she gets pregnant, her erstwhile boyfriend stands her up for the surgery appointment so she gets a ride from her brother. He realizes where she's actually going, and waits for her. Sweet. When she comes out, he says "you ok?" She says "Ya." He asks if she's hungry. She is. Off they go to get something to eat. No horrible consequences, no grave side effects, no psychological trauma. Just a young woman taking advantage of her right to safe, legal abortion in a country that prides itself on the freedom of its citizens. Ahh, those were the days. Glad I was raised in them.
