It's no secret that movies and television make effective propaganda
tools. That's probably one reason why the U.S. entertainment industry usually
sticks with "safe" or neutral subject matter. This past winter's Hollywood
movie releases included a notable exception: a film version of John Irving's
novel, "The Cider House Rules."
I recall the book as a quirky one, like all of Irving's work, but one that conveyed a strong pro-choice message. For the movie's screenplay, Irving simplified the plot, but he did not edit out the pro-choice message.
The improbable plot involves a boy who grows up in an orphanage in an isolated corner of Maine in the years before World War II. Homer Wells (played by Tobey Maguire) is the boy who is never able to get adopted. He becomes the surrogate son of the doctor who runs the orphanage (Michael Caine). He helps the doctor care for the younger children and assists him in delivering babies for the very pregnant women who arrive at the home to leave an orphan behind. Incredibly, Dr. Larch is deliberately training the teenage Homer to become a doctor himself, although Homer has no formal medical education.
Dr. Larch is also an illegal abortionist, quietly performing abortions for an endless series of desperate women who appear at the orphanage's door. Homer assists in a general way, but because he was an unwanted child himself he refuses to perform abortions.
A brief sojourn in the outside world teaches Homer that life is not black and white, but full of complicated shades of gray. The climax of his personal awakening is his decision to use his training in abortion to help a young woman in a terrible situation. Few viewers will fail to grasp the film's message that ultimately we all must invent our own rules for living.
I found "The Cider House Rules" to be good entertainment. Pro-choice viewers will find that it helps reaffirm their personal support for reproductive choice. Its impact on anti-choice audiences is less predictable. Anti-choicers who don't avoid the movie may at least find it thought-provoking, although some might dismiss the message of moral ambiguity as "secular humanism."
Unfortunately, it seems that a movie that deals with abortion must win an Academy Award before it will be screened at East Tennessee movie houses. Before "The Cider House Rules" was nominated for several Oscars, only one of the area's multi-screen movie theaters (Downtown West) had shown it. Fortunately for East Tennessee audiences, being nominated for 7 Oscars and winning two (for best screenplay and for Caine's role as best supporting actor) led to showings at most major area theaters.
As of this writing, "The Cider House Rules" is still playing at just
one area theater, but I assume that it will go into video release soon.
May is Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month
In the United States, about 40 percent of American women become pregnant before the age of 20, meaning that each year approximately one million teenagers become pregnant -- about one in 10 women aged 15-19. Over three-fourths of these pregnancies are unintended. The U.S. teenage pregnancy rate is about twice as high as the rates found in England, Australia, and Canada; six times as high as the rate in Sweden; and nine times as high as in the Netherlands.
Studies by the Alan Guttmacher Institute and other organizations suggest
that the U.S. record could be improved by medically-based sexuality education
(instead of the abstinence-only programs that are currently popular) and
increased access to contraception.