More than 2,000 years ago, the Roman playwright Plautus described
a scene in which two fathers are talking with each other, as
neighbors would talk over the fence in a modern suburb. One
father laments that his son got a girl pregnant. The second
father warns him that should he react too strongly, the first
father will lose not only a son, but a daughter just as he did
when his son got a girl pregnant. My Latin professor was quick to
point out that it’s the same old story. People have been getting
pregnant outside of marriage for thousands of years and life goes
on.
In the past 30 years or so, only pro-life activists have been
forced to counter the social stigma of a pregnant young woman or
teen. Ironically, these activists are generally part of the same
group of social conservatives who believe that the ideal context
for sex is within a permanent marriage between a man and a woman.
While social conservatives won’t endorse the behavior, they don’t
condemn the person. This same group sees the increase in
out-of-wedlock births (more than a third of all births are to
single women) as something that should be mitigated. They see the
connection between the increase in unwed mothers and the
disintegration of the nuclear family and a host of other social
ills.
Presumably, as more marriages fail, the children of these
marriages lack the real life examples needed for their own
healthy relationships and settle for a variety of substitutes.
Sex doesn’t wait just because marriages are delayed. And children
arrive though marriage is delayed and contraceptives abound.
BUT THE IRONY continues. The fact that unwed motherhood no longer
carries the social stigma it once did now makes it more plausible
to hold pro-life views concerning abortion. Knocked Up
and Juno, two recent films, are unabashedly pro-life,
anti-abortion, and even pro-marriage. Neither film made an
explicit appeal to a socially conservative audience. The films
appear to come from a completely secular culture. Judging by
their successes, they have been well received.
While Knocked Up may not be suitable for family viewing
(f-bombs probably make up half the dialogue), director Judd
Apatow, who also directed The 40 Year Old Virgin, tells
the story of Alison, a beautiful 24-year-old who goes out to
celebrate a promotion at work. At a bar, she meets Ben, a
twenty-something who spends his days smoking pot and watching
movies for a semi-pornographic website that he and his friends
plan to develop. Their meeting results in a one-night fling. Not
much more is needed than the sobriety of the following morning to
convince Alison that the relationship won’t be developing
further.
Several weeks later, Alison learns that she’s pregnant and
contacts Ben. The movie shows no other intention than that Alison
will have and keep the baby. Surprisingly, Ben steps up to the
plate. Sure, one could say that Hollywood is just making another
idealistic movie. But when did Hollywood idealism become a story
about two people who face an unplanned pregnancy, decide to have
the baby, develop a relationship and actually become better
people because of their sacrifices?
A subplot in the movie touches on the marriage of Alison’s
sister. Although it is less than ideal, the couple faces the
challenges set before them. By the end of the movie, the marriage
destined for divorce seems to be on good footing. Not bad for an
R-rated film that isn’t family friendly.
Just this past Christmas, another surprisingly pro-life movie was
released in theaters: the independent film Juno by the
same director of the hilariously funny, albeit crude, Thank
You for Smoking. Juno is a 16-year-old high school junior
who ends up pregnant after having sex with her best friend
Bleeker. After a brief experience in an abortion clinic, she
leaves, determined to have her baby and give it up for adoption.
Quirky, smart, and worldly, Juno is no ordinary teenager. Or
perhaps she is since those same adjectives could describe a lot
of teens. Her father and his wife express their disappointment at
her pregnancy but agree to support her in her decision. Poor
Bleeker gets relegated to the sidelines of her life until the end
of the pregnancy. The adopting couple end up having their own
drama and decide to divorce before the baby is born. Nonetheless,
Juno still gives the baby to the woman to raise as a single
mother.
(At the end of the movie, one can’t help but wonder if the baby
wouldn’t have been better off with Juno and her supportive
parents who have a five year-old daughter themselves. But that’s
not the main point of the story.)
The movie ends with Juno and Bleeker, now girlfriend and
boyfriend, finishing up senior year of high school like ordinary
teens. There’s even something innocent about them. Juno has
learned that she wants something more than the relationship of
the adopting/divorcing couple and something more than what her
own parents had. Having the baby and giving him up for adoption
seems to bring Juno to a healthier youth than she had before.
She’s learned a lot about love.
BOTH MOVIES indicate a substantial shift in public thinking about
unplanned pregnancy and abortion. In both movies, it is only the
middle-aged mother and stepmother who recommend an abortion,
suggesting a generational difference, even a faux pas. The
abortion clinic scene in Juno features a variety of
bizarre and strange characters, again suggesting something that’s
not quite normal.
In a sense, these movies are much more realistic about sex than
most cultural influences, including Hollywood, secularism,
radical feminism, and the abortion lobby. People have sex,
pregnancy happens, a fact backed up by Planned Parenthood’s
research arm, the Alan Guttmacher Institute. The Institute
reports that 46 percent of all women who have abortions were not
using contraception when they got pregnant. But then that means
that 54 percent were using contraception. Planned
Parenthood and company offer abortion as a way to make the woman
un-pregnant. If these movies are any indication, however, people
are realizing that sex can lead to pregnancy and that pregnancy
means a new life is now involved. Perhaps there’s even a
realization that a pregnancy can’t be undone, not even with an
abortion.
Caitlyn Flanagan in the May 2007 issue of the Atlantic
Monthly wrote a provocative piece titled “The
Sanguine Sex.” In her characteristically forthright and
honest style she presents her sympathy for abortion by linking
stories of difficult situations faced by women. But as she
continues in her honest approach, she writes:
The demands pro-life advocates make of pregnant women are modest:
All they want is a little bit of time. All they are asking, in a
societal climate in which out-of-wedlock pregnancy is without
stigma, is that pregnant women give the tiny bodies growing
inside of them a few months, until the little creatures are large
enough to be on their way, to loving homes.
Times have changed, as both movies demonstrate. The New York
Times saw fit to publish a front-page
piece, above the fold, about the pregnancy of Britney
Spears’s younger sister Jamie Lynn. The article surveys some
teens and parents and references the two movies in discussion.
While the teens don’t appear to understand that sex may be
something worth waiting for, they do understand that sex involves
pregnancy. One student explains that Jamie Lynn will need to take
time away from her television show, “You need time to figure your
stuff out.” “And you’re going to have to take care of a human
being.”
Abortion is still a common procedure in this country and much
must be done to make abortion not only illegal, but unthinkable
and undesirable. But in some ways, it seems like more progress
has been made in the area of abortion than the area of sex and
marriage.
A pregnant professional can keep her job even when the pregnancy
is discovered. A pregnant high school girl continues attending
her high school and isn’t shuttered away at a distant relative’s
or in an abortion doctor’s office. In part, both of these things
are possible because single moms are no longer stigmatized as
before. Sex outside of marriage is generally accepted, tolerated,
and even celebrated.
While actions or behaviors that result in unmarried parents may
not be laudable for social conservatives, it’s important to
recall that social conservatives were the first to admit that sex
and pregnancy are part of life even if people aren’t married. It
was the abortion lobby that wanted to deny that and further
implicated women by suggesting that they have abortions in these
unseemly situations. In the end, it seems that social
conservatives have been the most realistic about sex.
If that realism continues, we may even reach the point where the
culture as a whole sees marriage as the best context for sex, as
both movies suggest. Nonetheless, sex will still happen outside
of marriage; but only by being as realistic as possible can we
avoid regressing to a pseudo Victorian era that would have no
place for unmarried mothers.
Sex happens, babies are conceived, life goes on. After all, it’s
been happening for thousands of years.
