Boston Legal - ethics on abortion.

I watched an episode if Boston Legal recently where there was a young Chinese girl who was pregnant and wanted to abort her baby.  Her mother thought she would be traumatized for the rest of her life and would not give her consent.  The young girl would now need a legal "bypass" to bypass her duty to honour her parents.  Of course the law is there for allowing you to dishonour your parents. 

The Shirley Schmidt character (played by Candice Bergen) was not comfortable with the case, and didn't think the state should be superseding the will of the parents in a family matter.  She also hinted that her character had had an abortion in the past.  No doubt her remorse and regret was what she was trying to save this girl from.  Then she found out that the baby was only being destroyed because the girl discovered she was female.  After Shirley requested to be removed from the case, and denied ... she stood up in court and gave this speech:

"In addition to being Kim's advocate, I'm also a woman.  It is my opinion that my client seeks to terminate this pregnancy because the child she is carrying is female. As a matter of public policy the abortion laws were intended to liberate women, not eradicate them.  Sex selection should shock the sensibility of this court.  In India almost 500,000 female babies are aborted every year because the gender is considered inferior.  In China it's become epidemic, and according to our own census polls - U.S. born children of Chinese parents tend to be male.   It's female infanticide.  It is sexism, it is vile, and I am not going to be part of it.  I am not going to stay silent while we let the abortion license be exploited to accomplish the Holocaust of women."

Well, I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised at the language chosen.  For once a show is acknowledging that the baby is a life, and that it has value.  She actually said "the baby that she is carrying".  Usually they call the baby a fetus, as if calling it that makes it easier to "eradicate" them (to use her words).    They acknowledge that abortion was legalized to "liberate" women so that they could fornicate without responsibility,  and be 'free' of adult responsibilities.  How little they value the worth of a woman.

And of course, if life did not begin at conception (as science has now proven - with unique DNA), then she could never call it "infanticide".  Of course to Shirley only female babies appear to have value, but it is certainly a step in the right direction.  You are allowed to eradicate boy babies, just not girl babies.

Well done to the creators of Boston Legal for presenting such a solid and direct argument for valuing life.  You addressed the psychological well-being of the mother, the pain it causes the mother and all family members, the seriousness of this issue (calling it infanticide), the incredibly large numbers of babies being eradicated around the world, and the lack of legal protection for the pre-born.  The song in the background ... "the times are a-changing" ... was also encouraging to hear.  Let's hope that they are a-changing for the better.

Unfortunately, the baby girl was not protected by her mother, nor the state, and the girl won her motion to eradicate this one baby girl - to the dismay of her grandmother, and Shirley - and the baby girl who died of course.  We hear at the end, the Alan Shore character admit that he eradicated two of his own children.  How very sad.  The show ends there, but what we won't see is the mother's struggle with the consequences and remorse of her action for the rest of her life.

Yes, it is thankfully a fictitious event, and all 4 babies mentioned in it that were destroyed were not real, but the seriousness and the numbers are real and were even understated here. And they did not present the Gospel, so the hope that is available was not shared.