[nunya bidness]

One hint I saw of trouble, from a social conservative perspective, was that in the abortion episode, we got to see the girl wanting an abortion, the doctor doing the abortions, and hear from Laura Roslin how abortion was legal in the colonies and how unhappy she is about opposing legal abortion, yet we never see the parents of the girl wanting the abortion, why she was pregnant, or a follow-up of what happens to her after she's alienated from her family and culture. All you see is a generic religious representative for the family, making their whole side impersonal. Perhaps that's what the authors needed to do to keep the issue from tilting to strongly to the pro-life side, since Adama's argument (which I though of before he made it) was pretty strong and devastating. But it definitely felt like at least some of the pro-life side was turned into a straw man for the purposes of the episode. Hmmm, perhaps I need to listen to the audio commentary for that episode to see if there are any hints of what they were trying to do since they've had no trouble depicting Roslin, depsite beying depicted as a fairly typical liberal, in some fairly unflattering ways.

I would strongly suggest listening to Ron Moore's commentary; the guy is honest about the direcetion he is going in each episode as well as some of the broader implications in current events.

As far as the abortion issue I thought it was a brave move to touch the third rail on a science fiction television show. It's just not done. The colonies were basically independent states and subject to their own laws such as abortion. That sovereignty extended to the individual ships from the respective planets; each ship was sovereign. The girl was from the Gemini colony and subject to their religious laws; namely abortion is outlawed. She stowed-away to Galactica to get the procedure and there came the conflict.

Roslin is, by her own admission, socially liberal but she conceded Adama's point that they needed every body they could get. The visual of the tote-board with the population was well done.

Also, remember Boomer was pregnant with the hybrid baby and they had already considered killing it but let it live after Baltar used its blood or emnionic fluid to save Roslin. Again, raising some contemporary issues (stem cells) and dealing them with a pragmatic sense that is never shown on television.

Staying with the allegory construct it would make sense that if the Cylons are the Muslims then the issue of birthrates is comparable. Judeo-Christian cultures' rates are in decline while Muslim's are increasing.

I didn't expect the show to be liberal or conservative but I've been pleasantly suprised in how consistent its been in dealing with stuff that's never been done before. More shows should take a lead from this one.

[Question_Assumptions]

It sounded like Roslin said that abortion was legal in the colonies, as in all of them, before the war. I do think it was brave to touch the issue and to touch it as evenly as they did, but it wasn't as even as it could have been. I'm going to listen to the audio commentary when I get a chance.