Introduction
The Abortion Divide aired on The Frontline PBS channel shows how the opinion gap between abortion and anti-abortion support has continued to widen from the 1980s to date in Darby Pennsylvania. This documentary takes Darby Clinic as the case study. The producer and the co-producer, Obenhaus and Leiter respectively acknowledge the significant efforts demonstrated by pro-life advocators who persistently assemble outside Darby clinic daily confirming increased division between abortion and anti-abortion supporters over time.
The Opinion Gap Between Abortion and Anti-Abortion Support
The initial phase of the documentary mentioned above, affirms that although the bitterness within the abortion divide is not conspicuous the division is significantly visible. This film contrasts opinions about abortion suggested by both pro-choice and pro-life groups. For instance, the pro-choice advocators believe that pregnant women should not be viewed as incapable of making choices concerning abortion and therefore term government regulation as hypocrisy. On the other hand, pro-life supporters argue that performing or supporting abortion portrays barbarism in the modern-day world. One of the chief pro-lifers says, “It’s barbaric to chop a baby up, put it in a little canister, take it out and count the pieces. That’s what they have to do. What kind of world have we entered into, where we do this to our children?”
The divide depicted in the film also emanates from different beliefs between pro-choice and pro-life supporters. As a result, pro-choice views a fetus as an undifferentiated tissue, and therefore the mother’s decision to get rid of the fetus should not be a problem. In contrast, pro-life believes life begins immediately after conception and thus views a fetus as a living person. Therefore, pro-lifers believe that pregnant women should not by any means contemplate aborting as that equate to the murder of a person with a soul and a heart.
Undeniably, The Abortion Divide film adequately shows the gradual growth in differences between the pro-choice and pro-life supporters but fails to bring a solution to the moral problem of abortion. Obenhaus and Leiter used women from the Darby Abortion Clinic (Pro-choice supporters) and the Amnion Pregnancy Crisis Center (Pro-life supporters) to bring out the contrasting views concerning decisions upon the discovery that one is pregnant. From the interviews depicted in the documentary, viewers become aware of the mixed feelings that mothers develop upon realizing they are pregnant. The feelings shown in the film are significant contributors to the final decisions made by pregnant women concerning keeping or aborting the pregnancy. At this point, viewers get to understand the moral reasoning behind pro-choice supporters and pro-life supporters.
For example, The Abortion Divide film portrays a scene that poses a challenge to pro-choice supporters. The scene depicts Rose, a single mother of eight children where five are already in foster homes, and two live with her sisters. Additionally, Rose, also affirms that she is destitute and currently resides at a facility for the homeless and that she recently recovered from a drug addiction problem. However, in spite of all the challenges, she is undergoing she was happy to keep the pregnancy of her current newborn son whom she is determined and committed to raising and living with. This woman says, “Now we’re trying again.” “He’s pretty special—ain’t nobody taking this one.” According to Rose, she does not believe in abortion and this belief revolves around her entire family.
A contrasting scene to that illustrated above comes when a woman named Christine, who looks approximately 30 years visits the abortion clinic. Additionally, Christine looks financially stable, well-educated, and married. However, when she learns that she is pregnant with twins, she feels embarrassed and shows the outright unwillingness of keeping the pregnancy. Christine says, “When she said that they were twins, I wasn’t prepared for that at all. I didn’t even consider the possibility.” As a result, Christine claims she considers aborting the twins because her son suffers from non-specific autism and does not like human interactions. Moreover, Christine admits that she did not expect to conceive she had unprotected sex only once. She says, “Surely, one time, I’d get some kind of a grace period on that.” Christine wishes luck for the twins in the sense that they will make peace with her decision of aborting them. She imaginatively holds a conversation with them saying, “Thank you, and I’m honored to be given this gift of life. Unfortunately, I can’t do it right now.” Unfortunately, Christine never gave the twins an opportunity to make their side of the decision.
Relevance of the Documentary to the Class
The moral issue of aborting has been a contentious debate for several decades in America. Unfortunately, American society has failed to reach an agreement on what pregnant women should do. For quite some time in the history of America, the government had been quiet on the issue thus leading to increased abortion cases (Krutz & Waskiewicz, 2021). In efforts to reduce and hopefully end abortion in America, an anti-abortion movement came to life to push the government to enact laws that regulate abortion. Additionally, the pro-lifers have made significant strides to curb abortion such as establishing facilities such as The Amnion Pregnancy Crisis facility illustrated in the film The Abortion Divide. Therefore, this documentary significantly contributes to enlightening learners on the historical divide concerning abortion and its current status. Additionally, the film illustrates the relative nature of moral decisions as it shows that what one considers to be moral can be immoral to another.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the documentary film The Abortion Divide provides learners with several lessons to learn. For instance, through this film, it is apparent that the decision to abort a child comes from several reasons all of which are valid regarding their rights. In as much as people would want to criticize abortion as a social vice, sometimes women make decisions out of love, or coercion from their spouses or members of their social circles. However, women who believe abortion is inhuman, do not consider abortion as an option regardless of their plight. As a result, learners can simply understand that the issue of what to do with pregnancy heavily relies on the mother.
Reference
Krutz, G., & Waskiewicz, S. (2021). American Government 3e.