July 12, 2010

By Dave Andrusko

Part Two today discusses a curious but revealing speech by pro-abortion Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Over at National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), there is a powerful story about how rationing really works in conjunction with a critique of the "quality of life ethic." Please send all of your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are now following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha.

By the time some people read "I am NOT rooting for an Abortion This Friday Night" (www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/July10/nv070910.html), the fictitious 16-year-old "Becky Sproles" of "Friday Night Lights" (FNL) had undergone an abortion. Prior to the program airing, pro-abortionists were "rooting" for just that outcome. Having gotten what they wanted pro-abortionists hailed her decision as an "honest portray of teenage abortion," and FNL's choice in having her abort as an example of the program being "more mature than ever."

Not so fast. Let's see what the program actually did, and actually suggests.

Becky has the abortion because of and in spite of. She aborts because she understandably panics. She aborts because she's young and (as she says tearfully), "I can't take care of a baby." Most of all, probably, Becky aborts because her mother, herself unmarried when she had Becky, will brook no dissent, no first-thoughts about having the baby, let alone second thoughts: Becky WILL have an abortion.

The irony is not lost on Becky, especially when her mother starts ranting how people will dismiss them as "trash."

Becky aborts in spite of an attempt by the baby's father, Luke, to assure her he will be there for her; and that the decision is one with life-long ramifications; and that there are others affected by her decision. She has the abortion and, not knowing this, Luke calls her.

When she cuts him off in mid-conversation, saying, "Luke, I took care of it, so you don't have to worry… It was the right thing to do," it is an incredibly powerful and poignant moment. As Ken Tucker, writing on EW.com observed, "Yet everything in her voice told us that she wasn't sure of that at all."

Pro-abortionists were delighted because the plot twist represents, for them, a first-step in the direction of a return of the good times when abortion could be presented on network television. Although this grossly oversimplifies the situation, some saw this as the anti-"Juno," the 2007 film in which the unmarried teenager decides not to have the abortion.

The ironies of that film are not lost on the careful observer. Ellen Page, the star of "Juno," insisted at the time that the film was not intended to be anti-abortion and, more recently, that "I am a feminist and I am totally pro-choice."

And it no doubt quite true that the film was not intended to take a pro-life position. Indeed Page (Juno MacGuff in the film) intends to have an abortion. What makes the impact of the film pro-life is (as I wrote at the time)

#1. A lone voice--a classmate's--disengages the autopilot response to a crisis pregnancy: abortion. Standing by herself outside the abortion clinic, Su-Chin (Valerie Tian) clumsily tries to dissuade Juno. By chance Su-Chin hits upon something that makes Juno stop in her tracks: her baby has fingernails. After all the other things she has said, does it make sense that this would change Juno's mind? No, but teenagers in the throes of a crisis-induced let's-get-this-done mindset are not thinking linearly.

#2. Both Juno and her parents are recognizable human beings with strengths and weaknesses. Her dad (J.K. Simmons) and stepmother (Allison Janney) initially stumble over the news that she is pregnant but recover. Her exasperated father says, "I thought you were the kind of girl who knew when to say when."

To return to FNL, even as a mere character in a television program, it is dreadful that "Becky" has an abortion. The baby is dead and her mother's domineering insistence is the timber out of which a fire will sooner or later roar.

Becky KNOWS that she is a survivor--that she could have wound up in the refuse at some abortion clinic. And she also knows that the only "freedom of choice" she exercised was to "choose" not to challenge her hyper-aggressive mother. If the show does go on after this season, I am confident the writers will explore that avenue.

Finally, the two main characters in FNL are Eric Taylor, the football coach and his wife , Tami Taylor, who is the principle at the West Texas high school.

The town is awash in children who need adult help and supervision, which is why Becky turns to the coach's wife for advice. Caught in the middle, Mrs. Taylor opts for the "middle" position when asked what she would tell her own daughter: she would support her decision.

One other irony. Writing in the New York Times, Ginia Bellafante insists that "television has consistently leaned to the right on the subject of unwanted pregnancy" and interpret last Friday's results as a welcome change. Yet there is nothing new in FNL's portrayal of parents of faith. They are hypocrites or idiots (or both) when they discover their teenage son has fathered a child.

Stay tuned. I will keep you up to speed on subsequent developments.

Part Two