Hollywood Thinks Infanticide is Humorous

Infanticide (or infant homicide) is the intentional killing of infants. A more common term, abortion, is an operation to end pregnancy: an operation or other intervention to end a pregnancy by removing an embryo or fetus from the womb.

Considering these two definitions, already quite familiar to most thinking adults, perhaps you can understand why I was recently quite disturbed when I read this headline over at Cosmopolitan online:

Abortion Comedy “Obvious Child” Is the Summer’s Most Important Movie

And even more bothered by the first sentence in the article beneath it.

Four decades after Roe v. Wade, a film finally offers an honest, funny look at terminating a pregnancy.

“Obvious Child”, which had a decent opening last weekend in select theaters and is rated 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, is about a twenty-something aspiring comedian who gets dumped, loses her job, is looking for a rebound and “finds herself pregnant just in time for Valentine’s Day” (because…you, know, it’s common to just “find” oneself pregnant). Described by one critic as a picture that will “instantly become a landmark moment in cultural history,” I’m left wondering what it is in particular that filmmaker Gillian Robespierre finds so humorous about the act of killing an unborn child? (it should be noted that Cosmopolitan joined NARAL Pro-Choice America in hosting a screening for the film, during which the director made clear that a voice for life was unwelcome. I encourage you to read the entire review.)

I wonder, is it the initial act of conception that Robespierre finds humorous? The fact that a girl and guy come together, through whatever circumstances, and - usually outside of wedlock - conceive a child? Are the emotional ramifications that follow such an act what Robespierre finds humorous?

Or is it the shock that ensues when the young woman finds out she’s pregnant?…the devastation she feels when she realizes that her life will never be the same, regardless of the choices that follow? Is it the difficulty she faces as she tells the guy that he’s - at least temporarily - going to be a daddy? Or is the (sometimes) instant rejection she receives when she tells him a baby has been conceived the funny part?

I wonder, does the humor come in where the couple is faced with telling their family? Or is it funnier when they choose not to do so, and instead place their future squarely in the hands of the staff at a local clinic who’s really only concerned about the positive pregnancy test and whether or not they can come up with the fee for the procedure?

Is the fear she feels the part that’s funniest? The moment when she cautiously climbs onto the examination table and the procedure begins? Or is it, instead, the moment she changes her mind…and it’s already too late? Is it the long walk she must take alone as she leaves the clinic, or the emptiness she feels in the days ahead, wondering if she made the right decision - or the realization that she didn’t? I wonder if the funny part is when she sees other young women her age with children and wonders whether her little one was a boy or a girl? Is it the memories she faces when she’s alone at night, if only in her dreams? Is that the funniest part? What about the other half of the equation - the guy? Is it funny when he, too, begins to regret the decision they made?

Cosmo columnist Jill Filipovic asks “what if abortion is a story’s happy ending?”

I ask, for whom? For the baby, who most certainly feels pain when his little life is taken? Or for the mother, whose life will never be the same, regardless of how funny Hollywood would have you believe such a scenario may be? Is this what we’ve finally come to? A Hollywood culture so devoid of any sense of morality that abortion is now funny?

“For so long the abortion story has been defined from the moment you walk into the clinic to the moment you walk out,” said Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America when interviewed about the film. “That’s not an abortion story. That’s a chapter. It’s not the end.”

I agree. It’s only the beginning…and it’s far from humorous.