One of the best TV’s shows out there right now is DC Comics’s The Flash on The CW.
Filled with fun characters who have a grounding in the sense of what justice is, the series provides the adventure of other CW superhero shows without the darkness of Arrow or the painfully obvious leftist messages of Supergirl. It’s something Hollywood should do more of, because people want more of it. And Tuesday’s episode of The Flash didn’t disappoint, carrying with it a pro-life message.
For those unfamiliar with the show, The Flash follows the story of Barry Allen, who gets super-speed powers after a science program goes wrong. Along with him, others in the city also get superhuman abilities, and Allen, as The Flash, must work with his friends to stop their criminal activities.
In Tuesday’s episode, “Attack on Central City,” Allen and his friends are up against a giant, human-like gorilla named Grodd. While they’ve tried to stop him in the past, Grodd has come back and is threatening to destroy the entire city in which they live.
Faced with the situation, Allen contemplates whether or not he should slay the beast, but killing is something he has sworn he wouldn’t do. While his girlfriend, Iris West, warns him to stay true to himself, Allen continues to ponder the possibility, especially since stopping Grodd means that it could help him to change the future from one in which West is killed.
That’s when Harry Wells, a mentor of Allen’s visiting from another dimension, enters, and he says:
I look at you, out there battling the darkness, with honor and hope, and I’m reminded there’s always another way, always. Killing Grodd is not your answer. Saving one life doesn’t justify taking another.
Indeed!
Wells’ comments reflect the pro-life side in the abortion discussion: “There is always another way.”
Whether it’s finding support from family and friends or a crisis pregnancy center or looking to adoption, abortion is not the only answer in the case of an unplanned pregnancy.
But Wells also explains how saving a life is also no excuse for taking another’s. So whether a child would take away the old, perhaps freer, life of a woman and maybe even her actual life (which occurs in only 1 percent of cases, according to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute), saving it by discarding another life is unjust.
And if Wells is talking about saving the life of some ape that is attempting to invade a metropolis, saving a child’s life is worthy, too.
The Flash (major spoiler alerts from here down) takes Wells’ advice and finds a creative way to stop Grodd, saving the monster’s life to spend in prison and protecting the city as well as his friends and family.
Allen later repeats Wells’ words that “there’s always another way” toward the end of the show, when he tells West that he no longer wants to avoid the future but make it his own. Then, he proposes to her.
This pro-family message of avoiding the darkness and finding another way is encouraging to see — and people want more of it. The Flash has received high acclaim from critics and is the fifth most popular show in the world with 3.1 million demand expressions every day, according to a 2016 analysis from Parrot Analytics.
Take note, Hollywood. There’s another way to get people to watch — positive entertainment.
