We discussed in class that there aren’t many shows that deal with the topic of abortion. Someone brought up that even in Grey’s Anatomy, a medical drama, the only time abortion occurs is during Cristina’s ectopic pregnancy. But the issue was brought up another time—in Season 3,
The abortion doesn’t happen on the show itself, however. It would have been just before she arrives in
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZN20r6XtrYM
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5cjAUibrJiI
Recently, the debate about abortion has been portrayed as a contest between guaranteeing a woman’s reproductive freedom versus destroying a fetus/unborn child. I think the crux of the issue was well explored in the video clip shown by Catie, Morgan, and Tali during their activist practicum—there is still controversy as to whether an unborn child is a “true human” worthy of protection by law. Science has not yet provided any sort of definitive line past which a fetus is able to function as an independent, “complete” human (and I don’t think that it will for a very long time), so we often use other guidelines that may be more arbitrary. Is a fetus finally a human when it feels pain? When it has a heartbeat? When it kicks around in response to a voice? Or when it can survive outside the uterus in an incubator?
We have no evidence or direct testimony from people who remember their time in the womb. So how are guidelines to the “non-humanness” of fetuses different from the guidelines of the past that allowed abuse, maltreatment, and even attempted genocide of those that were deemed as less then human, or incomplete humans, because of mental or physical disabilities often when they even had the voice to protest? This is a strong analogy, but both come down to the question of how we decide what constitutes a life worth protecting and supporting; the ethical debates surrounding abortion remind us that the answer is not always easy to find.
5 comments:
Great post. I agree that much of the debate centers around the struggle between a women's life and reproductive freedoms and the rights of a newly conceived being. Another interesting argument I've come across is that of Judith Jarvis Thomson, whose stance has been described as "limited pro-choice." She offers this analogy: Imagine you went in the hospital for an operation and somehow awoke to find yourself hooked up to a famous violinist. Your kidneys are being used to clean his blood, as his have failed. Thomson argues that it is not immoral for you to unhook yourself from the violinist because you did not consent to have your body used in this way. Similarly, Thomson claims that it is not immoral for a woman to "unhook" herself from a fetus when she has not given consent, which Thomson equates to rape, incest, and the failure of attempted birth control. While many critics have issues with this analogy (one has said that in order for it to work there would have to be a giant baby blocking you from unhooking yourself), I think it's an interesting way to not discount the life of the woman nor the fetus. It acknowledges the fetus's life, but simply claims that in this situation, the woman's is more important.
Abortion is one of the most controversial issues of our time. The debate of women’s reproductive freedom versus the right of a fetus to life does not have an easy answer. Being unable to provide a definite line in which a fetus becomes an independent human has lead to fierce disagreement between people. The arbitrary nature of this moment has lead to ethical debates that vary across time and location. It is an interesting idea that there are parallels between abortion and the maltreatment of individuals who have been considered mentally or physically disabled at some time. The comment on “limited pro-choice,” is also an interesting spin-off on the pro-choice versus pro-life debate.
However, I believe this “limited pro-choice” theory is inherently flawed because it creates an image that certain women who become pregnant were irresponsible and should be forced to accept the birth of a child. The women who are considered ineligible for abortions are any woman whose pregnancy is not the result of rape, incest, and failure of birth control. In limited pro-choice theory, it appears as if these are the only situations in which the woman has been victimized and may be excused from having her child. However, I can think of countless other situations in which women become pregnant because they are the victims of the society in which we live. Is the sixteen-year-old girl living in an inner city where health education has been cut from her school’s budget that has been molded by the pressure of the media to desire a sexy self-image guilty for the pregnancy that she receives? On the other hand, are we, the conscious members of society who sit back and watch the media sculpt young females’ minds or allow health education to be cut from high school curriculums or allow abstinence-only programs to be placed in schools guilty for the pregnancy that she receives?
I have written a blog that is about the best nurse scrubs that the Grey's Anatomy have been using on all there episodes. Read it at http://paidcritique.blogspot.com/2011/07/greys-anatomy-scrubs.html
I watch Grey's Anatomy with my teenaged daughter who wants to become a doctor. This abortion episode just taught her that she cannot be a great doctor if she wants to have babies. I wish I could tell the people who write Grey's Anatomy thanks for erasing decades of teaching our daughters that they can balance family and career.
Thanks for posting a link Greys Anatomy Scrubs. I had no idea that they used a specific type of scrubs in their episodes. Is there something special about these scrubs?
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