Reading and watching about abortion in the course module made me think of abortion law in my home country. I came from a country that abortion is still illegal and doing it considered being a great sin, and the punishments for providing or receiving an illegal abortion can be strict. Under current law, physicians can be sentenced to months of imprisonment, and women who get abortions at least fined blood money. And that’s why most of the abortion in Iran happens in unsafe environments by some nurses/unqualified people, because they cannot be performed in legal hospitals by specialist doctors, which results in life threatening risks. Abortion is just a choice and I do not believe in doing it is “killing a human being”.
I found Meredith’s Grey conversation with Dr. Hunt as one of the most influential dialogs about abortion in all the pop culture representation that we have seen in the module. Here is the quote from the “Grey’s Anatomy” scene: “Owen, she didn’t have the abortion. She wants to, but she can’t do it, because of you, because she loves you. And instead of loving her, you’re punishing her. For what? For being the woman that you fell in love with? Okay, do you know what will happen to Cristina if she has a kid that she doesn’t want? It will almost kill her. To try to pretend that she loves a kid as much as she loves surgery will almost kill her, and it’ll almost kill your kid. Do you know what it’s like to be raised by someone who didn’t want you? I do. To know you stood in the way of your mother’s career? I do. I was raised by a Cristina, my mother was a Cristina. And as the child she didn’t want, I am telling you, don’t do this to her. Because she’s kind, and she cares, and she won’t make it. The guilt of resenting her own kid will eat her alive.”
Also, the story of different women having abortion was really interesting to me since you never get to hear abortion stories and its not something that people talk about it freely/proudly, because of judgmental opinions and the controversy about it. You get to hear their side of stories, experiences, reasons and challenges for making their decisions and it makes us to get to know them on a personal level(because there are images of each person).
In “children of Men” movie the hopelessness of society is stressed by the fact that no babies have been born for the last eighteen years. Children are absent throughout the world, While Kee and her baby (who is a black female from marginalized refugee group) symbolize hope. The interesting point is the fact that you do not get to see the father of the baby the whole time and no one questions it, because in this specific condition being a single pregnant woman is miraculous and not frown upon. Although, Kee is blessed to get pregnant and is the main female character, she has to be accompanied by Leo ( the white hero) the whole time to be protected and saved.