Regulating Abortion Thoughts in 2x17

[eektruffle]

So while watching “The Captain’s Hand” again last night, K and I got into a very heated debate about the issue of abortion in terms of what wins out, individual rights or the needs of the whole. So I decided to enumerate some of the arguments instead of studying of a medical school test I have this week. I’m sure there are more that I haven’t

Comments

[alephnul]

My main problem with this is simply that having children at this point is absolutely not what the fleet or humanity needs. In 18 years, humanity will be extinct because they are getting killed too often, not because they aren't having enough children. So will a fleet composed almost entirely of people under 18 actually stand much of a chance against the Cylons? Will having had those children put more of a strain on the fleets resources, increasing the chance that they simply get wiped out faster?

What the fleet needs is to find some form of safety. If they find that, women will voluntarily have plenty of children. If they don't find that, then extra children just means extra casualties. When the Cylons blow up a ship in the fleet, they kill everyone on it. Extra kids on that ship just means extra deaths, not an extra chance for the fleet to survive.

Each life is not precious right now. The inexperienced viper pilots killed in Scar were lives tossed away, but they were lives tossed away for the good of the fleet. Their deaths increased the chance that the fleet as a whole survives. Likewise, each aborted fetus means one less mouth to feed, one less helpless creature to be taken care of, one more woman able to work at full capacity for the next nine months, one less chance that a woman who is actually useful now dies during pregnancy or birth. Extra babies do not increase the chance that the fleet survives.

The fleet is so far from a genetic bottleneck that it is not even a consideration. If one hundred people chosen at random from the fleet survive and eventually reach some form of safety, they will represent basically no significant loss of genetic diversity, and if they can get back up to a larger population reasonably quickly (say, doubling each generation), this entire war will have had little to no effect on the species. This means there are almost certainly enough children under seven in the fleet at the moment to repopulate the planets. Therefore, as long as they can find safety within the next 28 years, they will still have a viable breading stock even if no one has any children, and there is no sign that that is the case (and they will have all been killed off by then in any case, extra children or no).

The abortion question should be an absolute non-issue for the fleet (except the the Geminons), and the way that it was declared to be a high stakes issue is simply the writers trying to foist hot button issues into the show to be able to claim that the show is 'deeper' and more 'meaningful.'

Never mind that this issue in relation to abortion has nothing to do with the abortion question in the US (we are not on the brink of extinction in any sense), so the show likewise fails to have anything relevant to say about abortion in real life.

All this episode allows the writers to say is "Look, we touched on hard-hitting, real-life issues in our show in a way that made no sense and said nothing about the issues." Good job, writers!

OTOH, I liked a lot of the personal interaction details and the acting in this ep, so it wasn't a complete loss.

[eektruffle]

Granted that losing a carrier like the Olympia is a crushing blow to the population and while casualities of war/battles are unavoidable (Lee and Kara responded to this in Scar) but I do believe that the mundane (old age, accidents, murder) death rate far outstrips the current birth rate. At least that's kind of how my mind sees it especially considering gestation is 10 months and it is far easier for a person to die than to give birth in terms of time, effort so that's why I do agree with Dr. Baltar's current model (which I think is only current for that instant of time and may not be true throughout the 18 years if things change). It is important to have children during this time. I believe with 12 people, you can repopulate the human race. There will most likely be some genetic abnormalities and see some type of founder effect due to that but it isn't just about repopulating the human race. It's also about resupplying the military ships of personel. Yes it will take years for those children to grow but if children begin to study at an early age then a 16 or 18 year old young adult could very well fly a viper, it's all in terms of training and how long they have been training.

I do believe extra babies do increase the chance the fleet survives. Not everyone born will go into the military but if you increase the number of children with the same % of children going into the military then by definition you increase the # of people going into the military and thus increase it's military might and therefore increase it's chances of survival since currently the military is the only thing standing between the cylons and deaths door.

I agree that abortion should have been a non-issue at this point. It should have been more in the context of when people believe life begins rather than legislating it to try to increase a number that could have been increased through other means. I think the context that they placed abortion was just wrong.

Anyhow, I thoroughly enjoyed the episode overall. It was interesting that they brought up the abortion issue but I thought it was put out of context and it could have been handled a lot smarter in terms of politically if this was real but it was probably just used as a way to further the plot with Baltar's platform for individual rights. Which I can totally see happening in todays politics so it's not too far from current political issues in that respect.