FAIL: Law & Order Takes on Abortion
Law & Order is one of my guilty pleasures, though it’s not exactly guilty. One of my favorite undergrad professors worked as a producer and writer for Criminal Intent, so I can’t bash it as a series/franchise by any means.
Tonight’s Law & Order episode, “Dignity,” took on the abortion debate. The New York Times posted an article today about the franchise’s history of abortion coverage, which has been spotty at best. This isn’t surprising consider the issue is, um, abortion. Not exactly a bed of roses issue for prime time television to waltz through without thought.
It started out very promising: an obvious take on the tragic murder of Dr. Tiller. From there, it went downhill in its attempt to cover way too many aspects of the pro-choice/anti-abortion debate. A shout out to Mom Martyrs/Shamers was nice, but the detour into Jill Staneck crazyland that didn’t point out that babies being murdered after surviving abortion is a big fat (obvious) lie kind of killed it for me. And then they tried to divide the DA’s office along the pro-/anti- lines in a way that didn’t feel right for any of the characters. The show refused to explicitly say that their Dr. Tiller stand-in had as much right to his life as any that could be argued for unborn fetuses. And that, ladies and gentleman, is where the EPIC FAIL lies. Law & Order completely failed to stand up to everything it has postured itself to believe in: that murder is wrong, that crime is wrong, that justice is what is important.
I watched this episode with my father. It was nice to hear him agree with my complaints. I like to think that he enjoyed my explanations of the nuanced references this episode made.
October 24th, 2009 at 2:44 am
If you actually think the show failed to condemn the doctor’s murder, you obviously didn’t watch the same episode I did. Rewatch Cutter’s summation — he says every life is precious and imbued with inalienable rights, including the murdered doctor’s. Rewatch the scenes with McCoy. The doctor’s murder is constantly referred to as a cold-blooded execution. Maybe if you and the pro-life wingnuts you condemn stopped shouting at each other for a second and took the cotton out of your ears and actually listened, the rest of us in the middle might catch a break.
October 24th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
I hear what you are saying, Bryan, but I honestly thought the episode walked right up to the line it needed to touch and stopped a toe short. Cutter’s closing was a sentence shy from being done. He never linked what he was saying to the doctor’s murder, and that is something that is essential.