Back of my mind

*Note: contains more serious stuff than usual*


This post has been a thought writhing at the back of my mind for a few days now, and today on my drive home from school, I realized there was no good reason not to put it down in blog form. Well, okay, there was one reason: it has absolutely nothing to do with Taiwan. It does, however, give you a glimpse of what I do here other than teach, meet MLB players and write blog posts, so that's something.

When I'm not off being productive, I often watch TV on my computer; when I've run through the week's new episodes of my favorite series (Saturday Night Live, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, and Bones, all viewable by me online the afternoon after they air in the States), I turn to watching House. House, for those who don't know it, is essentially a show about medical diagnoses; I've heard it described as a medical detective story, which is  a pretty apt description, if you add in a steady flow of sardonic humor from the title doctor.

"I'm smarter than you and I hate people. Therefore, I will now mock you mercilessly. Trust me, it'll be fun!"

I'd heard it was good, and so far, it is--though watching more than two in a row is a bad idea, as with any TV show that uses a distinctive formula (ope, it's only 23 minutes in. This isn't the real diagnosis; his liver has to fail first. Why the liver? I don't know, but the show's pretty consistent on this.)

When I got here, I had never seen more than one episode, but had heard it was good, so I started at the beginning and went from there. I'm currently halfway through season 3.

"So what?" you say. "What makes this worthy of a blog post?"

The other day, I got to an episode which broke from all of House's standard patterns. There was no patient with unusual symptoms, no endless series of tests and arguments to determine what he or she had. No, they knew what this patient had, or rather they knew what had happened to her: she had been raped. The episode, called "One Day, One Room," dealt with the fact that the woman refused to talk to anyone about it except for House, who, given his character, had absolutely no interest in talking to her. It turned, essentially, into a battle of wills.

In other words, it was a character-driven episode. Now, usually, those are my favorites; I love going deeper into the lives and thoughts of the characters who populate the series' world. This time, however, was a little different.

See, the major turning point in the story--you know, the inevitable plot twist that always comes about halfway through--was that the woman was pregnant as a result of the rape. As House delivers the news, he launches immediately into "Termination is not a pleasant procedure..." and gets interrupted, as we learn that the woman is a Christian and believes that life begins at conception, and has absolutely no intention of having an abortion.

My first reaction: "Wow, I'm glad they gave that perspective to such a sympathetic character!" Then she keeps talking, and parroting the most empty and fatalistic version of Christianity I've ever heard. "But even so," I think, "We genuinely feel for her and respect her character."

The show goes on; eventually House opens up to the girl and she tells him about her horrible experience; they have a bonding moment through sharing pain, and she is no longer suffering psychologically now (I guess?) so the hospital can discharge her. Nothing more is mentioned on the subject of abortion.

Nothing, that is, until the final scene. As House tells his boss about the case, he says "She terminated, and was discharged." The boss nods as if that were perfectly normal and asks him how it happened.

WHAT?! Here we had a strong female character who is vehemently anti-abortion, to the point where she is not only willing but adamant that she will carry to term a baby who came about as a result of a rape, and suddenly we, the audience, are supposed to not only accept a complete 180 in her stance for no apparent reason, but applaud the doctors who brought it about. I'm sorry, but even if you're pro-choice, isn't it the woman's choice that's supposed to matter? How could it ever be even marginally ethical for a doctor to use the doctor-patient intimacy to push someone into changing their core beliefs?

Granted, House is a show about doctors performing marginally ethical practices to accomplish their own goals. But this wasn't even presented in the light of "House being House and doing what he wants regardless of patients." That sort of thing gets him yelled at. Actually, this wasn't presented in any sort of light; rather, it was seen as a foregone conclusion: once her psychological wounds healed, she would obviously see the light and agree to have an abortion. And I, for one, find that hugely offensive.

I didn't really go into this intending to perform a full-on argument on the issue of abortion; I guess I'll know if people actually read my blog or not by whether or not this sparks people off on a huge debate. But it's been gnawing at me, goading me on to express outrage where outrage is due. Because, though House does exist in a fictional world, it is a fictional world meant for public consumption. And if the public eye is so used to tying together irrationality and refusing abortion that it would accept this episode without outrage, it might just need a little writhing idea planted in its consciousness.