Life imitates art--or is it the other way around? One TV show shocks the audience with its main TV character getting an abortion while the US president's wife filibustered on behalf of Planned Parenthood.
Scandal, one of the ABC hit shows of Shonda Rhimes, certainly knows how to shock viewers with its controversial themes including its protagonist Olivia Pope, played by Kerry Washington, having an affair with the fictional US president Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn). Once in a while too, it shows some violence such as torture.
However, nothing seems to top the few sequences that appeared in the midseason finale of the TV show when Pope decided to get an abortion while the US wife decried the defunding of Planned Parenthood.
Middle of this year, Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit group that offers reproductive health care for women in the United States and in other parts of the globe, has been accused of profiteering from the sale of fetal tissues obtained during abortion. In a series of leaked videos from the prolife organization Center for Medical Progress, various officers of the organization were seen negotiating prices and discussing how the tissues will be collected and provided.
The group has already criticized the videos, calling them "criminal conspiracy" and that the money was only reimbursement for soft tissue collection. After a series of investigations by different state committees and Congress, Planned Parenthood has already been cleared of wrongdoing. It has also announced that it will not accept any fetal tissue reimbursement.
In the Scandal episode aired last Thursday night, Nov 18, Virginia senator Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young), argued the decision of some key members of the Congress to place Planned Parenthood's budget under discretionary expenses of the spending bill, which entails that the government has the option not to fund it in case it goes beyond budget.
To avoid the passing of the bill and to remove the budget from being discretionary, Grant filibustered for hours, enumerating the "unnecessary expenses" of the government like $25,000 travel fund for the Watermelon Queen of Alabama, until she was saved by the US vice president Susan Ross (Artemis Pebdani), who took over the Senate presidential seat, a move orchestrated by Pope.
Later, in a montage with a monologue including words like "soft tissue" and "family destroys you, and with the haunting music of "Silent Night," Pope was seen visiting a clinic and a having a suction machine used on her.
Expectedly, it received contrasting comments from viewers, with some praising the show for its bravery and boldness while others like Media Research Council lamenting the "moral depravity" of Hollywood.
