Kelly Oliver's "Pregnancy: Choice and Excess"

Kelly Oliver’s “Pregnancy: Choice and Excess” examines different approaches to pregnancy in the media and movies, especially concerning women’s right to choose. This chapter exposed various stereotypes in movies with women having ‘accidental’ pregnancies and how they deal with them or women wanting to have babies, but struggling to do so. This chapter was very interesting, as I have seen a number of the movies and TV shows she discusses, but I’ve taken them at face, entertainment value. Among the many insightful points that Oliver makes, I found her discussion on fetal rights versus mother’s rights very topical. I think that as science has continually learned more about pregnancy and conception both the pro choice and pro life sides have had to update their stances, but pro life has definitely changed the most. It seems that they continually take more extreme positions, using ‘science’ and religion to back them up. Though science allows us a greater understanding of pregnancy and a visual of the child from the start through ultrasound, the Catholic Church and its positions on abortion have actually changed through time. It did not used to be such a grave sin to have an abortion, and for a time it was a great sin to have oral sex than an abortion. I believe that the growing legal battle between the fetus and its mother cannot be connected to religion, not only because that goes against the American belief of separating religion from government, but because the Church has constantly changed its stance and cannot claim historical evidence. The use of religious freedom by individuals, such as employers or healthcare workers, in denying women their personal freedoms is very concerning to me, especially considering the fact that these people in positions of power are projecting their beliefs on a being that belongs to the mother and her beliefs.