If you were born before 1956, chances are you know a woman who had an illegal abortion; maybe even a woman who died from a botched abortion. I do. And if you were born after 1972 it is just so much nostalgia unless, of course, you live in a state that has no providers, or you have no money, or you have to work, or you can't tell your family, or you are afraid of protesters, or you believe in a god that tracks and punishes such things. Oh, and then there is Minister Huckabee who wants to lift the US Constitution to "God's standards." His god really disturbs me.
I have been having this reoccurring daymare (not nightmare) that the Right to Life leaders have decided to infiltrate the US Media. First they made, Knocked Up, a fun light romantic comedy with a star from Gray's Anatomy. Recently they made Juno which extols the pivotal insight that Juno's unborn baby has nails. How many thousands of born children with nails are starving, have HIV and/or are dying. How many Iraqi's have nails - ah but I digress.
Yesterday I watched, Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). I saw it first when I was 15. Natalie Wood married Steve McQueen after hearing bells and banjos and that the rabbit was dead (code for the PG test was positive) You can bet the Catholic Legion of Decency okay-ed a 15 year old seeing that. So much fodder to rebel against.
When does life begin? I earned a BA and a MA trying to answer that fundamental question. When does life begin. Approaching 60, I can say with conviction that life begins with the development of a conscience, with inquiry, with curiosity, with attachment and aversion - not with nails at all.
I watched that movie yesterday too. The back alley abortion scene was very disturbing to me as well. It seemed to be anti-abortion, but maybe it was anti-anti-abortion as well. Maybe it was conveying the truth of the anti-abortion reality: that this is what happens when we have no safe, legal institutions where abortions can occur. I don't know.
Posted by: Chelsea | January 21, 2008 at 07:03 PM
You are right - it was seen (at least in my neighborhood) as anti-anti- abortion. It was seen by Catholic conservatives as promoting that safe & legal abortions are the right thing to do. My inference is that the movies then were more pro-woman than the ones today.
Posted by: Zoe | January 21, 2008 at 07:14 PM
I haven't seen this movie, but will put it on my list to watch immediately after the graduation services in June. I do have such a list going. I intend to watch several movies each day for three or four days until I feel like I am caught up enough to leave the house.
I was born in 1976. I had my second legal abortion on Valentine's Day, 2003. It was just a coincidence that the clinic could see me on this day. Almost noone in my personal life knows of this abortion. To me, it's ironic that we talk about when life begins and ends in relation to a jumble of duplicating cells, but we don't spend nearly enough time dicussing the ways in which women's lives are constrained or allowed to flourish with the extent to which we have the right to make decisions about ourselves. Some would surely call me all kinds of things for this truth:
When I left the clinic on that day, I felt more alive than I had felt in weeks.
Posted by: Melissa | January 21, 2008 at 08:39 PM