When was Lee promoted to Major? He just suddenly became one, and tosses it off matter-of-factly. And then by the end of the episode he's promoted AGAIN. For a guy who started the season in complete insubordination, he's on quite the upswing.
Okay. THIS is the abortion episode. I don't know how to feel about it. Where "Epiphanies" tossed the issue around more subtextually, here the matter is given all the obviousness you expect. It comes down to politics and law and "a woman's right to control her body". Everything that's wrong with television abortion discussion is here. The one thing I like is that Adama doesn't argue for human rights or right to life or anything like that. He just points out (quite correctly) that the number of survivors will never go up if they kill babies. He uses Roslin's own words, which is brilliant on his part. She did say that if humanity were to survive they needed to start having babies. Well, this is maybe the second pregnancy since the attack (not counting Cylon Sharon). It makes good sense to at least suspend the "right" for a time. It's easy to argue for abortion when the population is booming. Not so easy when you're all that's left.
I don't for a second buy that Roslin has stood all her life for "a woman's right to control her body". Why not? Because like four episodes ago she was the one who SUGGESTED they abort Sharon's baby. And they were going to do it by force. Even if she's a machine, isn't she a woman machine? Maybe Roslin doesn't thin so. Maybe she doesn't see Sharon as a person. Fine, but that baby is half human. Doesn't Helo get a say in this, since it's his DNA? Or are we going to stick with the silly modern notion that only women are involved in abortion?
There's a lot more I sort of want to say about the topic from a more American legal standpoint, but as it's a bit off-topic maybe I'll save it. But I will say I was against the girl's abortion from the outset because she is four months pregnant. I don't know how the law works in the Colonies, but here in the States Roe v. Wade only allowed abortion for the first trimester. I also wonder, since the Geminons are so adamantly opposed, whether it was illegal on Geminon (kind of a states' rights issue) or whether they begrudgingly had to accept it. Did Geminon girls hop shuttles to nearby Saggiteron to dispose of their unwanted progeny? It's sort of obvious and petty to make the religious people the only opponents to it to me. Still, with all the talk about the scriptures, isn't it funny how if the scripture explicitly calls abortion an evil act (which even Judeo-Christian texts don't exactly), how do the Colonies rationalize it so easily? I wonder where Kara falls on this issue. Oh, and I hate that the girl was allowed it anyway just because she "sought the procedure before the law was passed". It sure didn't seem like it was performed before the law was passed. I also wonder, should a situation arise regarding the Cylon baby, if Roslin will regret putting this into law.
I find it interesting that Zerek is backing Gaius for president.
I like that there's a Federalist party. Now, I don't actually believe in political parties, but if they have them, I like that one of them is called Federalist. It reminds me of old American history.
The guy on Pegasus is a better engineer than a commander. Okay. And it's fine that he saves the ship. But when his oxygen is gone and they guys are saying "Come back, Skipper!" why do they just sit there? Why does no one think to open the door and go get him? You can't just wait for him to go "Okay, little buddy," if you know he has no air! He might still be alive if not for the incompetent crew.
I really expected there to be a twist in this episode. I was actually expecting that in the end Roslin would outlaw abortion and then the Geminon girl's baby would turn out to be part Cylon. I really expected the father to be Cylon and that's why we hadn't seen him. I think it might have been interesting to see the girl now forced to keep the baby, and then they find out it's alien origin. That might have been an interesting dramatic development, and made the episode more interesting in its ambiguity than to just have her abort the kid.
Ultimately, the Pegasus story is more engaging to me than the abortion story, and it still isn't much. It's good to see Gaius again and to know his storyline is going somewhere. I just think the abortion thing was played just to be a hot-button issue, and was played too obvious. "The law says they can do it!" "No, the scriptures say it's sin!" Real arguments are much more nuanced, but besides the saving humanity element, that nuance was not present.
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