I have to start this by insisting that I like shows that take a position on issues, even if the position they take is opposite mine. All I ask is that they are honest in taking the position, and that they base their 'argument' on facts. I am entirely on the other side, but I would have had no reason to protest or object had this show run an openly 'pro-life' sub-plot, made it obvious that it was doing so, and had been honest. (For example, a show about a woman torn or destroyed by guilt fpr having had an abortion, no problem. There are women who have gone through that experience. A small minority, perhaps, but showing one would be legitimate. So would portraying a woman seeking an abortion as being shallow, self-centered, and uncaring. Some are -- though I'd contend that most aren't. Still a perfectly legitimate point of view, and no complaint is called for.)
But this show was neither open nor honest, and I can only believe this was intentional, based on one line. When the pregnant girl is brought in, she is asked when her last period was. I wasn't taking notes, so I am not sure if she said 'four months ago' or 'four and a half months ago.' I am sure it was one of these. A day later she delivers a viable, fully formed infant, small and needing an incubator, but still a 'baby.' When this happened, I assumed the point they would be making was that the child could not have been the boy friend's, and that she had to have been lying about the time of the period. But there is no suggestion of this.
Furthermore, when the question of 'accepting the child or putting it up for adoption' no one even suggests that a child that premature will require long and careful monitoring and almost certainly special and extended medical treatment, as would be true had the child been a more believable six-months fetus. It is almost impossible that a four-month fetus be viable at all, but if there were such a miraculous survival, the child would not be leaving the hospital for many months.
(A further problem I had with the subplot was the way the father's hatred of the child as the reason his fiance is dead was brushed over and apparently wiped out with the 'kitchy-koo' moment at the end. Sadly, resentment of an unwanted child -- even without the additional factor of the death -- is often subconscious and extremely destructive to the child. Sadly, I have been friends with too many people who have experienced this. It makes me value my own parents more, but it shows how destructive parents can be entirely unintentionally. And, as my wife spotted and I missed, the father had not had time to get used to the idea of being a father, had not gotten to the point of expecting this child, of prospectively loving it. He had a mere couple of hours, a day at best, between becoming aware that he would be a father and the birth of his son and death of his beloved. He has no insulation against that resentment. Rather than encouraging him to take the child and become his father, I would have wanted a careful psychiatric evaluation before I'd feel safe in letting the child go home with him.)
As I stated, the choice of the length of the pregnancy seems no accident, since a number of states are attempting to curtail abortions starting -- interestingly enough -- at the fourth month, and at least one state has declared that a woman shall be considered as having become pregnantas of the timeher last period has ceased.
To repeat my point one last time. Please, producers and writers, make use of political controversies on your shows. Take strong positions, make strong arguments, whichever side you choose. But don't try to slip propaganda under the radar, and whatever position you take, base it on honesty, on facts.
