Some interesting blogosphere discussion on TV and abortion here and here.

Goldberg and Instapundit offer some interesting theories as to why sitcom characters who unintentionally get pregnant seem to agonize over the decision before always (without fail, to my knowledge) having the kid. In fact, in response to a piece I wrote for NRO a while back on abortion and HBO’s terrific show Six Feet Under, Randy Barnet make a similar claim — the fact that so many sitcom characters do in fact have kids refutes the idea that Hollywood is so resoundingly pro abortion.

I think there’s a simpler, twofold explanation. First, I think sitcom writers usually only introduce pregnancy into a storyline whe one of the stars of the show has gotten pregnant and decided to have the kid. I can’t think of a single instance (though I’m sure there are a few — Murphy Brown, maybe?) where a sitcom plot featured a pregnant character when the actress portraying her wasn’t. Pregnancy’s too messy to be a regular storyline in sitcom land unless the writer’s hands are forced. So given that the real-life actress has already decided to have the kid, any sop to the character agonizing over abortion is more a nod to pro-choice sensibilities than a refutation of them.

Second and more simply, abortion doesn’t make for great comedy.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 14th, 2004 at 3:32 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.