You Won't See Termination 2 at the Movies
It's about how Hollywood can't seem to bring itself to promote abortion. And, I think the article is on to something. I think movies are a good example of that circular pattern of the culture feeding on the media and the media feeding off the culture. As already mentioned on this blog, movies give us an insight into what the culture is up to. I think this example offers us insight into the fact that few people in this generation view abortion as any sort of a happy ending. And, as the article states, if it's not a child...if it's a mass of cells, why shouldn't an abortion provide a potential happy ending.
As a school project, I entered overacheivish mode and did a 50-page project (huge fonts, lots of double space, etc.) categorizing bioethics in the movies. With several exceptions abortion is almost always viewed negatively (If These Walls Could Talk was one of few exceptions). You can see similar negative trends with cloning, which is intricately tied to the problem of abortion in my mind. The natural aversion to modifying and killing humanity is worth paying attention to. Will this aversion lessen in another 40 years because it's something left over from our parents generation? Or, will we still squirm when it comes to cloning and abortion because it's part of our make up, our conscience, what is written on our hearts?
2 comments:
I don't remember where I read the statistic (it was during college; I read a journal article for a psych paper about it), but our generation is more opposed to abortion than our parents generation is. The main reason for this is not so much that the majority of us think it's wrong (which I do), but that the majority think you're some sort of stupid if you get into such a mess because birth control is relatively cheap and 99.9% effective at preventing pregnancy. It makes sense if you correlate the outcry against schools using "abstinence only" education and against over zealous pharmacists violating a person's right to access the medication her doctor prescribes to her.
...that is an interesting statistic. I haven't heard anything from that angle before, but it makes sense. The sort-of liberal-ish argument I've heard against abortion is that it's "a waste"...I suppose refering to the potential life. I think that's an argument that definately breaks down when examined more closely, and I'm not sure how common it actually is.
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