Monday, January 03, 2011

Thoughts on MTV's No Easy Decision abortion special

I just finished watching MTV's No Easy Decision special on the second pregnancy of Markai Durham and her decision to have an abortion.

I think the most interesting segment of the show happens after the abortion when Markai and her boyfriend James are driving in their car and discussing the abortion. Markai talks about how the abortion clinic counselor told her to think of her unborn child as a bunch of cells and she seems to agree that this will help her emotionally. She seems fine with the idea of mentally dehumanizing her now-dead unborn child but then James describes the child as "a thing" as opposed to "a baby" (dehumanizing the child as well in his own way of coping with the situation) and Markai gets upset with him for this. She seemed to mad at him for trivializing her experience and emotions but she was having these emotions because on some level she recognizes that her unborn child is more than "a thing" yet she didn't have a problem with mentally picturing her child as a bunch of cells. Maybe this is because she's so ignorant about fetal development that she believes it's true.

I also wondered where did MTV find the two women besides Markai who were willing to discuss their abortions at the end of the show? Did they search for women willing to share their experiences or were these women or at least one of them from an organization (Exhale?) which was partnering with MTV on this special. I ask this because the parental consent question asked to the girl in the middle seems like just the type of thing that an abortion advocacy organization would want to have included in this special.

Why didn't MTV set up some meeting where Markai and James see someone who is an expert on helping people obtain government assistance? Would they qualify for anything like that? The possibility of government assistance never even comes up. The only thing James seems to think about is not letting his children grow up poor but they don't seem to have any knowledge of government programs which help poor people.

Also, during the interview does James have gold teeth in the bottom of his mouth?

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