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Is 2007 the year the abortion debate goes Hollywood? In addition to several fiction films which address the polarizing topic, this year will also see at least two feature length documentaries on the debate: Unborn in the U.S.A. (in very limited release; it comes to DVD in October) and this fall's much-anticipated Lake of Fire (director Tony Kaye's first film since American History X). So what's with the sudden cinematic interest in this hot-button issue?

The subject of abortion—long taboo but occasionally approached in cinema (see The Cider House Rules or Vera Drake)—is arguably the most divisive topic in American civic discourse. As such, it is rare that a Hollywood film is brave enough to confront the matter, and even films that do approach it (such as Alexander Payne's 1996 satire Citizen Ruth) usually refuse to take definitive sides. Of course, there have been films with decidedly pro-choice perspectives (HBO's If These Walls Could Talk comes to mind), but can you recall any mainstream Hollywood films that are explicitly pro-life?

Though they likely wouldn't call themselves "pro-life" (in the politicized sense of the phrase), several recent films contain messages—both implicit and explicit—that herald the virtues and sanctity of giving birth to new life. Four such films are Children of Men, Waitress, Knocked Up, and the forthcoming Bella (to be released this fall).

Protecting a mom and her newborn in 'Children of Men'

Children of Men ushered in 2007 with a stark, dystopian vision of a future world mired in terrorism, racism, and existential despair caused by the universal inability to procreate. The film is about the struggle to protect one woman, Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), who, against all odds, is pregnant. Husbandless, penniless, and by all accounts hopeless, Kee brings her baby into the world, and with it a light and hope for mankind. 

In May came Waitress, an offbeat romantic comedy that charts the unhappy rural life of pie-maker/waitress Jenna (Keri Russell). The film agonizingly follows the hapless Jenna as she deals with a deadbeat, abusive husband (Jeremy Sisto) and her pregnancy with his unwanted baby. With every reason to end the pregnancy, Jenna instead opts to carry it through—a life-changing decision that in the end proves her saving grace.

Along the lines of Waitress—though much, much cruder—is Knocked Up, the comedic hit of the summer from director Judd Apatow (The 40-Year Old Virgin). The film follows a gorgeous, on-the-way-up career woman, Alison (Katherine Heigl), who meets a greasy loser of a guy, Ben (Seth Rogan), at a club one night and—after numerous drinks and subsequent lapses in judgment—ends up hung over and pregnant the next morning. Going against modern wisdom, which would call an abortion the "no-brainer" response to Alison's predicament, the film instead follows Alison as she deals with keeping her baby—despite her mother's not-so-subtle hints that she should abort—and tries to make a relationship work with the child's father.

Perhaps the most explicit of this cycle of pseudo pro-life films, however, is Bella, which won the prestigious audience award at the Toronto Film Festival last fall and will hit theaters in America in a couple months. The film, directed by Alejandro Monteverde and executive-produced by Steve McEveety (Braveheart, The Passion of the Christ), comes from a team of faith-based filmmakers and presents a beautiful story of love, heartbreak, and hope—centering on, once again, a single woman dealing with an unplanned pregnancy.

In each of these films, the baby is born into chaotic, far-from-ideal conditions. In Children of Men, Kee's baby enters a post-apocalyptic world with bombs, gunfire, and destruction happening literally right outside the window.  And in all of these films the mother is lonely and afraid, with the father either out of sight, unsupportive (Waitress) or just a bumbling idiot (Knocked Up).  

The NY Times knocked 'Waitress' for not addressing abortion as an option

If abortion were ever a "good option," it would certainly be in these cases, or so go the arguments of modern culture. Indeed, these films have been openly criticized for not presenting abortion as the clear—or at least equally valid—option for the pregnant women in the films. Mireya Navarro wrote in The New York Times in early June that because studies show "nearly two-thirds of unwanted pregnancies end in abortion," Waitress and Knocked Up "go out of their way to sidestep real life." As if the one third of unwanted pregnancies that do not end in abortion are somehow irrelevant or undeserving of Hollywood portrayal! It seems the chief complaint is that reasons aren't given in the films as to why these women go through with their pregnancies; but what reason need ever be given to justify a pregnant woman going through with the birth? It's a natural, beautiful, transcendent (if not ridiculously painful) thing to have a baby, something these films all portray.

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