Please pardon the second post in one month. SPOILERS for last season of Boston Legal.
I just finished watching the episode titled "Roe" from the 5th and final season of Boston Legal. I usually admire their antics and amusing characters, however this episode really angered me. This episode started out promising. A teenage Chinese immigrant comes to Alan Shore hoping to get approval from a judge for an abortion. Her state requires parental consent and her mother said no. Alan takes the case. He believes in a woman's right to her body, especially a girl whose future would be crushed if she were to raise a child.
However, issues start to pop up, such as a parent knowing what's best or a women who have had abortions before regretting them. Alan continues to push through fighting for this girl, getting resistance from both the mother and Shirley Schmidt.
The worst part is, likely in hopes to maintain network support and viewership, the writers added a twist. She’s originally from China, where it is common for women to abort if it is a girl due to the one child policy. The girl is silent when Shirley tries to point out why the girl is getting an abortion.
Perhaps the hero during this episode is the judge who rules in favor of the girl’s plea about her own rights. The judge dismisses Shirley stating that investigating every pregnancy would do more harm than good.
It’s disgusting, all the ways they try to discredit the morality of abortion rights. I’ve read many a story on this site about women, particularly mothers, who say they do not regret their decision to terminate pregnancy. I’ve watched countless shows where a couple or single woman becomes pregnant. They discuss the issues with their significant other or with friends. They even bring up abortion as an option. Almost all of the time, the “responsible” option is picked and the couple or woman lives happily ever after with a healthy baby. Abortion is never an option on television nor can it be discussed in a positive light, it always has to be demonized. I cannot help but feel this girl was turned into a monster or that she had to be, in order to maintain network “standards” and public “morals”.
All I can think is, why kind of message might this episode have sent a teenage girl who may be now or in the future pregnant and needs legal guidance if her state does not permit abortion without parental consent? One teenager might say, “hey, there’s an Alan Shore out there who will fight for my rights!” Another teenager will likely go, “I’m afraid to seek help now. I don’t want to be turned into a horrible person.” A lot of people are influenced by television and the media. It’s episodes like this that make the fight harder when it comes to women’s reproductive rights, particularly teenagers who often get shoved to the back because they aren’t “adults” and don’t have the maturity to understand their situation.
Thoughts?
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Boston Legal and Row.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/16811
I don't know. I mean, what exactly do we want here? It seems to me that when we're talking about a TV drama, the choices basically are A) don't make abortion a primary topic; or B) make abortion a primary topic and explore some drama surrounding it.
I guess I'm not sure what you'd propose as an alternate treatment of the subject, given the nature of the show.
I guess what I wanted to bring up was how in shows we can't have abortion be a good thing and that we have to find a way to demonize abortion and a character who has one or wants one.
I understand what you're saying. I just kind of have a hard time conceptualizing a plot where abortion is a central point but there isn't any controversy about it.
No matter what the topic in a drama show is, it is going to be a source of conflict (or, I guess, it's going to be a really boring show).
As far as coming up with a show that presents abortion in a purely positive light, it seems to be both a pretty tall order, and rather unlikely. Most pro-choice folks seem to take the "abortion shouldn't ever have to happen" line. Even the women who have had an abortion and wholeheartedly believe that it was the best decision they could have made would still probably have preferred to have not been pregnant rather than to have had to have an abortion. I mean hardly anybody actually wants to have any surgical procedure, right?
All of that being said, I do completely agree that MSM needs more depictions of abortion as an acceptable, viable, appropriate course of action.
Positive light is referring to not shaming the woman or finding a way to make her out to be a bad person. It could mean how it helps a woman out of a sticky situation such as unable to financial afford a child or having qualms about children at all. I don't mean "everyone should have one and be happy about it." I am sorry if I did not define by what I meant by positive light or to be a good thing.
Would I be right in guessing that this girl wanted an abortion because she was carrying a female fetus?
Yeah, I remember that episode. I saw it on reruns like twice. I thought it was a bit more complex, though, because Shirley herself had had at least one abortion (and, it appeared, didn't exactly regret it). It seemed to show that she probably wouldn't have been in the career position or as successful or even be the same person she was now.
I love how people bring up the "female infanticide" bit. Even anti-choicers do it. They always forget to mention: Whether it was a fucking male or female baby, regardless, THE YOUNG UNWED MOTHER - never the father - IS ALWAYS TOTALLY FUCKING SHAMED AND MADE TO BE A DISGRACE, to the point of not even wanting to live. These people need to read goddamn Maxine Hong Kingston, _Woman Warrior_, where she tells the story of her unwed pregnant Chinese aunt having her baby and then jumping in a well with it after the village ransacks the girl's parents' house and sets their farm buildings on fire. They need to read _The Girls Who Went Away_, and educate themselves on the Magdalene Laundries, because until about 50 years ago it was government and church policy around the world to simply take unwed women's babies away from them and stick them in orphanages. This is all to say: People in power, at different times, have given women no say in their own goddamn pregnancies, and instead wielded over them the rules that "they thought best." So, again, making the _Boston Legal_ girl's decision out to be "it's because she doesn't want a female baby": total bullshit.
And I agree entirely with the rest of your analysis. It's like everybody expects women's automatic mommy instincts to kick in when you're three weeks pregnant and for you to realize what a monster you had been, considering abortion and all that.