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Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Girls Only! / TV Note to The Walking Dead: "Morning After" Pills Aren't Abortion

Posted by Wm.™ Steven Humphrey on Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 10:14 AM

I remember raising my eyebrow about this during last Sunday's The Walking Dead, but promptly forgot about it because this particular episode was so GODDAMN BORING. That being said, do you remember the scene where Rick's wife Lori discovers she's pregnant, and sends poor Asian errand boy Glenn off to the zombie-infested pharmacy to pick up some "morning after" pills? Lori then gobbles down a few with the intention of inducing abortion, before succumbing to the time-honored modern TV rule that "NO ONE MUST EVER MAKE ABORTIONS EVER," and forces herself to vomit them up. A new life is saved! (Sighhhh!) To be eventually gobbled up by a zombie. (Ulp.)

ANYWAY. Now a bunch of people are riled up about the scene, because... well, "morning after" pills don't quite work that way. Amanda Marcotte of Slate explains:

The problem with this storyline, outside the tedious fear of getting letters from irate anti-choicers that dictates TV's near-absolute approach to unintended pregnancy, is simple: Morning-after pills are not abortion. You can't even get abortion pills from a typical pharmacy, since RU-486, the actual abortion pill, is dispensed mainly at doctor's offices. Morning-after pills are contraception, and they work by stifling ovulation before any sperm can make their way toward the Fallopian tubes. Anti-choicers claim they work by preventing fertilized eggs from implanting, but there is no scientific evidence for this claim, and strong evidence against it. But even if you mistakenly believe this is how emergency contraception works, that still has no bearing on pregnancies that have already begun and show up on pregnancy tests, as portrayed on this show. She might as well have been sucking down candy cigarettes in hopes of causing an abortion.

Agreed. And for those who are saying, "Well, just because the character believes faulty information, that doesn't mean the writers do." To that I'd say, HORSE KNUCKLES. Misinformation can be used to further a plot, as long as it's recanted later (especially necessary if it's important medical information). For example, if the writers wanted the world to know that they actually know how these pills worked, they could've had some other character say, "HEY DUMMY! That's not the way those pills work! Sheesh!" Anyway, read the rest here.

Waitasecond... this means my wife is a dumbshit!

 

Comments (3) RSS

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1
What is it when you refer to characters by their race?
Posted by ≥ on November 23, 2011 at 10:48 AM · Report
2
Morning after pill has the same active ingredient (synthetic progestogen) as your garden variety birth control pill.
Posted by Will Radik on November 23, 2011 at 12:07 PM · Report
3
As a member of the week-behind crew, I cordially invite you and your spoiler headlines to go fuck yourselves.
Posted by Crowsby on November 23, 2011 at 1:39 PM · Report

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