It takes guts to present a TV show on abortion to start with, and the makers of Law and Order didn't hold back. Characters discussed the pressure from boyfriends as a reason to abort, genetic defects, and born-alive cases. A mother of a child with a genetic disorder testified about holding her child who lived only 21 hours, with the same kind of love and joy that I have seen in real-life mothers. A nurse told the story of a child born alive in a botched procedure, and the jury listened in horror to how the abortionist killed him. The trial ended with a photo of a baby scheduled for an abortion, who had now been born.
The "law" and "order" people also added to the discussion. Of detective and lawyer pairs, one of each took the pro-life side and one the pro-choice. The debate between detectives got a little preachy at times, but someone had fun with the lawyers. The "pro-life"/"pro-choice" roles were complicated by the fact that the pro-life ADA wanted to win the case (convict the pro-life murderer), while the pro-choice one felt ethically obliged to help the defense. In the end, the pro-choice one began to question her assumptions, something I did not expect to come out of this show.
To my relief, the jury found guilty. I'm not sure how that factors into an overarching message about life/abortion, but the closing argument captured how a lot of the pro-life movement felt about Tiller's murder. No matter what our disagreement on where life begins and what dignity means, we can all agree that the violence of that murder was wrong.
But the best statement of all came in the last scene. It summed up much of what's wrong with various movements for justice in this world. Jack McCoy: "I used to expect people to be consistent, that pro-lifers would oppose capital punishment, that champions of human rights would claim some for the unborn. I don't expect that anymore. It's a big messy world."
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