Well this movie made me lose all faith in humanity. I jest, but it did raise some questions and concerns about the mindset around reproductive health then and now.
Vera helps young girls out. Vera understands that women in 1950 are not all inclined to reproduce or to wait until marriage to have sex. And she understands that they can't have the ostracizing and humiliation over having a child out of wedlock. It's a scarlet letter. I love the moment when the detective says "You provide abortions" and she says "That's what you call it, that's not what I call it." It's the same debate today-- the termination of a pregnancy as "murder" or a reproductive health right that helps women.
The character in the movie I found very intriguing was the woman who was assisting the detective. The way she treated Vera, very caring, compassionate, understanding, made me believe that she was on Vera's side but in her position, could not stand up for her because she had to uphold the law. That conflict is evident through the movie-- the idea of doing what is right or doing what is lawful, and I think they are two different things. Or in the context of the film they are seen as two different things. Vera does what she believes is right because she just wants to help women. And she never expects anything in return. She is upholding her own sense of morality even in the face of what is right and wrong according to her government. I'm wondering if she continued to provide abortions to women after she was released from prison.
I hope that sort of made sense...
I also thought the role of the woman assisting the detective was interesting, you could tell she felt so bad for Vera. I also felt like the detective sort of didn't want to prosecute Vera too though because he could tell she was totally screwed over by her one friend and that she had good intentions.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with your statement that the movie made the audience consider what was right or what was lawful. This is a debate that we can see going on today also. It was clear that the movie's purpose was to bring up this issue and for the most part I felt that it was favoring the idea of an action being the right thing to do over if it was lawful or not. Yet I also think it needs to be taken into consideration how dangerous the way Vera conducted abortions was. A young girl almost lost her life, clearly this was not Vera's intention, yet it brings to the table the question of what if the right thing to do harms others?
ReplyDeleteI think the language surrounding the issues of abortion is something really interesting. Do we call it murder or termination? In high school, we had a school wide debate on topics like abortion, gay marriage, gun control laws etc. My team was Pro-Choice, but the day we arrived for the debate our signs all said pro-abortion, even though the opposing team's said pro-life... Not only is having two pros in a debate wholly illogical and kinda defeats the purpose of the whole thing, but also by labeling us as "pro-abortion" it sent the message that we were all about killing babies. No one is pro-abortion. We made them change our signs to pro-choice and the opposite team's to anti-choice, and we won the debate.
ReplyDelete