this ain't livin'

37 years ago, Roe versus Wade made waves in the United States, and, last week, Bones and Private Practice both explored pregnancy and abortion¹. Coincidence? I think not.

There were some interesting thematic elements in both shows which I think are worth exploring.

On Bones, we initially had Cam thinking that her foster daughter is pregnant, because she finds a pregnancy test in the bathroom trash. We see Cam really struggling with this; the show hasn’t really shown Cam’s daughter very much, except as a source of frustration for Cam, which I think is really disappointing, and I was initially not very pleased with the way the storyline was going. It seemed to be heading into “irresponsible damaged Black foster child gets knocked up, ruins foster mother’s life” territory. Angela confesses that it’s really her that’s pregnant², and because the gang is trapped in the lab, everyone but the presumed father finds out before he does.

The dynamic between Angela and Hodgins was especially fascinating. She said that she wasn’t really sure about what she wanted to do yet, and expressed a feeling of being in shock. Hodgins responded, confidently and pompously, that “of course” she would be keeping the baby, because she’d always wanted lots of kids.

It bugged me. It bugged me that Hodgins assumed he knew better than Angela, and that he took advantage of the situation to try and horn in, to set himself up in the father role and displace Wendell. Keep in mind that Wendell had no idea that Angela was even pregnant, and already Hodgins was dismissing his ability to be a father. Angela, meanwhile, was struggling with what she wanted to do and thinking things over, even with Hodgins breathing down her neck.

As it turns out, the big reveal at the end of the episode was that Angela wasn’t pregnant at all; the test was a false positive. We see Angela being wistful about what could have been, which makes me think that we may see her, in the relatively near future, actively trying to have a child.

On Private Practice, we continued the story from the previous week; Maya confesses to her parents that she is pregnant, with Addison’s encouragement.

And here’s where things got interesting: Sam took the right stance, which is that it’s Maya’s body and her decision. In private, he expressed a hope that she would get an abortion, but he didn’t force it on her. His one mistake, I think, was when he said “I’m a man, so it’s not my decision.” More properly, that should be “I’m not her, so it’s not my decision.” It’s not about whether you are a man, it’s about whether you are the person living the experience.

Naomi, on the other hand, ran up against her fiercely anti-abortion stance. It’s been clearly established in multiple episodes that she thinks life begins at conception, and here she was, dragging Maya down the hall and demanding that Addison perform an abortion. Maya eventually consents, and we have a scene in which Naomi states that she’s going to hell for forcing an abortion on her daughter.

It would not surprise me to learn that many fundies end up in this position at some point. It’s easy to preach in the abstract, and even to say that your views should be forced on others, until it’s your own family. Then, suddenly, you are experiencing what you’ve talked about, and you learn that the situation is more complicated than you realized. Yet, because you’ve absorbed these hard line beliefs, you’re convinced that you are a horrible person for suddenly seeing shades of grey.

Naomi’s belief that life begins at conception isn’t wrong (although I disagree with it). What was wrong was that she tried to force an abortion on her daughter “for her own good.” And the show didn’t touch upon the fact that this happens in hardline anti-abortion families; parents really do force abortions on their daughters against their will, and in direct conflict with their beliefs, and it is horrific.

In the end, when Maya and Addison go into the exam room to perform the abortion, Addison recognizes that Maya is feeling conflicted, and she does what is in my opinion absolutely the right thing: She reminds Maya that this is her choice and she doesn’t try to force her opinion on Maya. The one mistake she made, which was kinda big, was slut shaming Maya with the “well, you’re 15, you shouldn’t have been having sex” comment. I am thinking that there might be more to the story here, which is going to unfold over time, like maybe Maya wasn’t a fully consensual partner, but she’s so afraid of being judged by her mother³  that she hasn’t talked about it.

Private Practice went the opposite of Bones, stressing that, in the end, it comes down to the decision of the individual, and that ultimately the decision isn’t about what the people around you think, it’s about what you think and believe and know is right for you. Maya was empowered to assert herself, and she did, and I liked that. I’m curious to see how the fallout shakes down. Private Practice often depicts pregnancy, motherhood, and the abortion issue in ways I really don’t like, so I’m hoping that this episode is a turning point and that the show’s handling of these issues improves.

Melissa Silverstein at Women & Hollywood also wrote about this in her post, “Roe v. Wade Anniversary: Friday Night Lights and Private Practice Tackle Abortion‘”.