Yesterday, Mary Elizabeth Williams, a staff writer for Salon, wrote about Hollywood’s aversion to portraying abortion in popular culture.
After drawing on a number of examples from recent movies like The Last King of Scotland, The Ides of March, and Crazy Stupid Love to emphasize her point that Hollywood seems to shy away from the reality that 22% of all pregnancies in the United States result in abortion, she turns her sights onto the latest Twilight movie: Breaking Dawn – Part 1.
It’s evident she’s unhappy with the franchise’s creator for buying into the movie industry’s “fad” of portraying yet another pro-life scenario – a choice she attributes to a cheap shot attempt at inflating the story line. She finally ends her diatribe to an “unrealistic” industry by commenting, “it’s absurd that supposedly progressive Hollywood remains so backward about acknowledging [abortion].”
She goes on to state, “until our entertainment broadens out and reflects our reality [will] abortion will be viewed as an aberration instead of the commonplace reality it is. Not every pregnancy winds up with a baby — even a half-vampire or Antichrist baby — in a woman’s arms, nor every abortion with a bloody corpse in a back alley. Safe, legal [abortion] happens.”
Mary Elizabeth, the reality is that abortion is too commonplace in America. Over 3,700 lives are lost to abortion every day. On average, about 1.3 million lives are lost to abortion every year in the U.S. alone.
Google image search the word “abortion” and tell me what you find. Viewing the bloody corpses of children is difficult to blend into the plot of a romance film.
The reason why Hollywood has not jumped on the bandwagon in terms of portraying abortion as routinely – as you would like them to – as, say, getting your wisdom teeth removed, is because all Americans have witnessed the horrors of abortion. They know the stakes and understand its grim reality.
Abortion is a very real, very dangerous, and very scarring procedure for both mother and child. Studies have proven a link between abortion and increased rates of clinical depression, drug and alcohol abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide. Women who have abortions are at risk for eating disorders, irreparable emotional damage, and breast cancer. A surgical abortion procedure can result in a perforated uterus, irreparable organ damage, severe hemorrhaging, pelvic infections and sepsis, and death. And the more abortions a woman has, the more she increases her risk for adverse reactions and premature birth for her other children.
Every American has been affected by this reality – we’ve had abortions, driven our girlfriends to the abortion facility, lost siblings, and have witnessed “what comes after” abortion. And even those who still call themselves “pro-choice” understand that abortion is not a light decision. Rarely do I speak with a person who believes abortion is nothing but the simple removal of some tissues. Almost all agree that abortion kills something, that it is sad, and that it should not happen in a perfect world. Yet some are willing to accept the death of others in pursuit of what they believe will provide a better life for themselves and their children and to avoid the judgment of others.
If a crying woman walks into an abortion facility and walks out the same way, the indication is that there is something intrinsically wrong with abortion. Hollywood doesn’t portray it lightly… because it can’t. Almost no one will agree that abortion is not a tragedy.
