The fetal paradox and Excess

I found this reading to be very interesting, especially in regards to how the having a child, or an abortion, could be seen as excessive, real or imagined. When discussing the either/or mentality of having children for women, in which they either have a career or have a child but always one or the other, portrayed by cinema Oliver states, "By so doing, they attempt to domesticate the "accident" of pregnancy within the confines of traditional family values and thereby contain the imagined excess of pregnancy and pregnant bodies." (54) The description of pregnancy as an accident is one in which attaches to the idea that it is not wholly up to the woman if she gets pregnant. This being said the either/or way of looking at having children and the lifestyle it demands, as portrayed by Hollywood, makes the idea of having a child seem excessive, both in lifestyle and in future choices. This excess is also attributed to abortions in Hollywood, by making the focus of the mother and the fetus be at odds, even against, each other which Oliver calls the fetal paradox, in which the fetus and mother aren't viewed as other/within but either/or. The role of media and Hollywood in the depiction of pregnancy and abortion has created a set of norms that bring to the table a perceived excess with pregnancy.