I don't see why these films can't be both because frankly real life is more complicated than films (as noted) and conflicting values and emotions are normal.

I feel strongly that I am a feminist. I also voted for Obama (the horror!!!), am emotional and silly at times about my pregnancy (how girly of me) and I love fratty movies like Old School and gansta rap like old Dr Dre.

Obviously if Juno had had the abortion the movie would have been over...so that's why that didn't happen--I did not see that as some big "statement" on choice.

Sex and the City the movie, offers the story of two of the four women who have no kids are are successful in other aspects such as career. I wouldn't say SATC is a bastion of feminist theory but at least there are characters that are beyond the mommy dimension.

And while there certainly aren't ENOUGH films where the female characters are single, not moms, have other aspects to the personality. I think the reality is that # is growing.

Finally, the reality of fertility is that the longer you wait, the harder it CAN get to conceive and have the baby (not for everyone but it can be tough). So until we have new ways to engineer our bodies to have babies no problem when we're 45, then we're sort of stuck with that reality.

I'm sorry. As a mother who relinquished a child for adoption, Juno was the antithesis of anything remotely feminist. Juno did not receive any counseling about the process of relinquishment nor the emotional aftermath of grief and loss associated with placement. While we're lead to believe that Juno made these decisions for herself regarding a closed adoption, the argument remains that a decision that is not fully informed (options regarding openness, etc) is not a decision at all.

That said, I didn't hate the movie, which I wrote about recently. I enjoyed parts. I laughed. I cried. But if we're fighting for women to have rights and choices, that movie shouldn't be the be all and end all of what we're trying to accomplish. It should be an example of what we're trying to fight. Adoption reformists are not fans of that movie. And the reiteration of "it's just a movie" doesn't hold water either. It's just a movie unless it's your fight that's being poorly represented.

new trend?

Wrong, wrong, and wrong.

1. There's nothing wrong with loving fratty movies like Old School or Dr. Dre, so long as you love them in spite of their misog content. Making "How girly of me!" comments in which you imagine some hardcore radfem chastising you for liking your pregnancy, being mad at you for voting Obama, listening to misog lyrics, etc. Well, that's just strawfeminism, and it makes it pretty obvious you haven't had very in depth conversations with people whose views oppose your own on baby-making, etc.

2. If Juno had the abortion, the movie would not be over. There are actually plenty of movies about young women getting abortions. Duh.

3. The number of films portraying single fun-loving sex-having women could grow to infinity, it would just mean Hollywood was deciding to show us the whore archetype instead of mommies or virgins or crones this year. Since whores, mommies, virgins, and crones are all defined by their relationship to male sexuality (or in the crone's case, her lack of a relationship to male sexuality), I don't really consider the portrayal in the media of any one of these groups to be particularly pro-feminist. This is exactly what's wrong with Sex and the City, by the way. Though I appreciate that it refrains from judging or punishing them for their promiscuity, the show is basically just distracting us with the fabulous adventures of the whore archetype.

4. We're stuck with no reality about the difficulties of conception until adoption ceases to exist. You remember adoption, right? It's that thing that renders fertility panic (which you apparently ascribe to and which was invented by an antifeminist media in order to scare women back into the home to breed) moot?

Please read Backlash by Susan Faludi.

There are actually plenty of movies about young women getting abortions?! Such as?

M.Pony: Perhaps you're forgetting about a little movie called Muriel's Partial-Birth Abortion, featuring the songs of Christopher Cross.

M.Pony: Perhaps you're forgetting about a little movie called Muriel's Partial-Birth Abortion, featuring the songs of Christopher Cross.

norbizness beat me to it, but here's another.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362004/

They exist, but get less publicity because the man doesn't like us to have a good abortion story when we could get bombarded with tales of how child-bearing can be a positive growth experience for teenagers in highschool. Ick.

And

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1032846/

And, the Cider House Rules centers around abortion as one of the basic plot themes, though admittedly from the doctor's perspective, and it was released in general theatres and nominated for Oscars

I have never heard of the two linked by Sera, and Cider House Rules is almost a decade old.

Sera, Is your comment director to Courtney? Or to one of the other commentors? I can't figure it out.

Did anyone say that it was wrong to like movies these movies? Did anyone say that they were worried they would get yelled at by the big bad feminists for liking these movies?

I really don't understand what you were responding to (also with the fertility panic comment). It's like we read two different posts.

Also, I'm pretty sure norbizness was kidding...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Months,_3_Weeks_and_2_Days

This was a good movie about abortion which I happened to catch at my local art house theatre less than a year ago.

It's Romanian, though, so obviously it would fall outside the purview of a conversation about Hollywood.

"I'm sorry. As a mother who relinquished a child for adoption, Juno was the antithesis of anything remotely feminist. Juno did not receive any counseling about the process of relinquishment nor the emotional aftermath of grief and loss associated with placement."

I just wanted to let you know that not everyone gets any sort of counseling, and not everyone suffers grief and loss in that situation- some people are relieved, even.

"I'm sorry. As a mother who relinquished a child for adoption, Juno was the antithesis of anything remotely feminist. Juno did not receive any counseling about the process of relinquishment nor the emotional aftermath of grief and loss associated with placement."

I just wanted to let you know that not everyone gets any sort of counseling, and not everyone suffers grief and loss in that situation- some people are relieved, even.

The films also play into oppressive tropes about successful women who don’t prioritize their fertility and then get punished with shitty partners, expensive interventions, and/or a whole lot of heartache.

I'm sorry but if you look around that's the reality for many, many women of my generation which is why infertility is a 3 billion dollar a year business. Sometimes I think that it's one of feminism's dirty secrets. We're supposed to pretend that it all worked out okay when for a ton of women the choices we made had consequences that were far costlier than we could have known. I hope that younger feminists are able to learn from our mistakes and can find a better path.

Whoa, I hope you're not SERIOUSLY suggesting that Cider House Rules was a reasonable example of an abortion movie- a book/movie that focused around the point of view of a man, with a male abortion provider,written by a man and directed by a man? A major plot point of that book/movie was that the main character Homer thinks it's terrible that Wilber does it, and only then performs an abortion on an african american girl who is pregnant by her FATHER. I won't even start on what kinds of fucked that is.

The films also play into oppressive tropes about successful women who don’t prioritize their fertility and then get punished with shitty partners, expensive interventions, and/or a whole lot of heartache.

I'm sorry but if you look around that's the reality for many, many women of my generation which is why infertility is a 3 billion dollar a year business. Sometimes I think that it's one of feminism's dirty secrets. We're supposed to pretend that it all worked out okay when for a ton of women the choices we made had consequences that were far costlier than we could have known. I hope that younger feminists are able to learn from our mistakes and can find a better path.

The films also play into oppressive tropes about successful women who don’t prioritize their fertility and then get punished with shitty partners, expensive interventions, and/or a whole lot of heartache.

I'm sorry but if you look around that's the reality for many, many women of my generation which is why infertility is a 3 billion dollar a year business. Sometimes I think that it's one of feminism's dirty secrets. We're supposed to pretend that it all worked out okay when for a ton of women the choices we made had consequences that were far costlier than we could have known. I hope that younger feminists are able to learn from our mistakes and can find a better path.

As a forty-one year old pregnant woman, I'm wondering why does it have to be women with or without bassinets? There should be more movies featuring women in their thirties and forties, period. There are too many movies where women are the accessories. One character from the age group who sprang to mind was Joan Allen's in the Bourne series. Does she have kids? Who knows, who cares? She's a great character and that's all that matters. I wish there more like her out there in theaters.

As a forty-one year old pregnant woman, I'm wondering why does it have to be women with or without bassinets? There should be more movies featuring women in their thirties and forties, period. There are too many movies where women are the accessories. One character from the age group who sprang to mind was Joan Allen's in the Bourne series. Does she have kids? Who knows, who cares? She's a great character and that's all that matters. I wish there more like her out there in theaters.

And Palindromes? Did you actually see that movie? Despite the dubious hipster honor of being the sequel to Welcome to the Doll House, this movie is about a teenage girl who winds up helping a family shoot abortion doctors and their children. the girl's infertility is ultimately blamed on her abortion provider (because she gets pregnant at 13), as she skips along the rest of the movie trying to get pregnant by random men. Yeah, SUPER example.

Tori - I think people are a lot more likely to suffer depression and loss and need counseling after being a birth mother and going through the birth process, especially if they choose a closed adoption.

Most adoption reform advocates argue that no one, least of all a teenager, should make that decision on their own. She can be relieved - but it would be better after she talks to a professional about the reality of the rest of her life not being able to contact or know anything about the baby she carried in pregnancy and gave birth to.

The film makes the decision seem ridiculously easy and noble.

True enough, but how tragic do we really need a film to make this? Lifetime does a stellar job of making it a heart aching movie plot. And we all know how realistic their work is.

I guess the abundant counseling is more recent than 10 years ago, because no one even suggested it to me. Well, good thing they improve the process every day in the real world, but if you are making a film, and you want to make a statement, then the tendency is to oversimplify it. So, it's not that extreme to expect that every once in a while and individual will not react like most others, and movies usually aren't about average girl x.

"I have never heard of the two linked by Sera"

But that doesn't mean that they don't exist. After all, as Robos said, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" is largely unheard of in the U.S., and I think that's true of many abortion films as well (at least those that don't seek to demonize abortion).

"I have never heard of the two linked by Sera"

But that doesn't mean that they don't exist. After all, as Robos said, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" is largely unheard of in the U.S., and I think that's true of many abortion films as well (at least those that don't seek to demonize abortion).

Hm... of the movies listed, I've only seen Juno, and I saw the character of Vanessa as always having kept a place open in her life for a child. If/when I see it again, though, I'll probably look at her from this angle.

Er, of course everything ends more neatly than in real life. That's one of the things fiction does.

Regarding "fertility panic": Didn't we just have this conversation like a week ago? Right, here in the comments to the birth control poll: http://feministing.com/archives/009143.html

"I have never heard of the two linked by Sera"

But that doesn't mean that they don't exist. After all, as Robos said, "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" is largely unheard of in the U.S., and I think that's true of many abortion films as well (at least those that don't seek to demonize abortion).

Abortions for some fictitious characters, miniature American flags for others!

Didn't Mulan abort like 4 or 5 fetuses? Does it not count because it's a cartoon?

M.Ponygirl: It's old, but the plot of Dirty Dancing unfolded due to an abortion. It showed a woman who wasn't a bad person needing an abortion at a time it was still illegal. She was glad for the abortion, but because of the laws, she was hurt by the quack who did it.

As for Cider House Rules, I kind of liked that it looked at abortion through doctors' perspectives. Yes, Homer is against abortion and doesn't want to perform them. In the end, however, he does (and continues to do so after the girl who gets pregnant by her father). The point, for me, was that abortion should be legal because they're women are going to get them, anyway, or suffer all sorts of consequences. Therefore, doctors should be allowed to perform them without fear of prosecution. That way, women can be taken care of, doctors do not need to fear breaking the law, and doctors who do not want to perform abortions can feel better in referring women to those who do. The movie and the book were both flawed, but the perspectives were still interesting.

As for Juno, I have a hard time finding fault. Adding counseling or changing the way she went about the adoption would have either a) been untrue to the character and/or b) distracting to the rest of the movie. Diablo Cody had a specific story she wanted to tell and it ended with an adoption. As happens with story telling, sometimes authors have a starting point and an ending point and the hard work is to connect those points with a compelling story. Abortion was seriously considered by Juno, but rejected in a way that stayed true to her characterization. Could Juno have gone through X Y, and Z and explored therapy and the different kinds of adoptions and made it a movie about adoption rather than the character of Juno? Yeah, but that would have been a profoundly different movie and one that the screenwriter was not intending.

I liked Juno in that it showed Hollywood that the story of young women can make money at the box office. As a result, we may start seeing more nuanced leading women characters whose stories are more representative of women in general. So, while Juno may have missed the mark with some women, it opened some doors so that there are other opportunities for other filmmakers to get that story right.

I just have to second what someone said above about Joan Allen's character in the Bourne movies. She was badass, smart, not super young and pretty, and ended up being the only good person in the whole series - basically, an awesome role model. I wish they would do a series of movies about her backstory, 'cause I would guess it would be interesting....

Oh, and I wish some of these movies would show the incredible mix of emotions that go into decisions on having/not having children, abortion, adoption, etc. I have yet to meet a single woman (or man) who is 100% confident/happy/whatever in every one of their reproductive decisions, but these movies always seem to smooth over any doubts or concerns in favor of a too-neatly-packaged single emotion or drive.

SPOILER ALERT:

Baby Mama could have done a lot more for me. Fey's and Pohler's chemistry was great, but the movie's ending makes it seem like Greg Kinnear saves the day by getting Fey pregnant. A non-traditional family situation that is becoming increasingly common is "fixed" by creating two nuclear families. That was the writer's idea of tying up the loose ends, and it comes off as really hokey. I think Pohler should have dumped her loser boyfriend and raised the child with Fey, living happily ever after.

I didn't see 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, but isn't that movie about what would happen if abortion were made illegal? While that's a reality for millions of women (and may become one for millions more), it's still a circumstantial argument. Where's the movie about a woman who gets an abortion? There are certainly enough obstacles surrounding this issue, from anti-choice legislation to protesters outside of women's health centers, that can make for an eventful and interesting feature film.

"Oh, and I wish some of these movies would show the incredible mix of emotions that go into decisions on having/not having children, abortion, adoption, etc. I have yet to meet a single woman (or man) who is 100% confident/happy/whatever in every one of their reproductive decisions, but these movies always seem to smooth over any doubts or concerns in favor of a too-neatly-packaged single emotion or drive."

Those of us who have lost children to adoption have had this experience over and over and over again.

"But...you should be grateful!"

"But...you gave such a beautiful gift!"

"But you are a heroine, a good mother, putting the baby first!"

"But...nuts/sluts like you shouldn't be raising children!"

Adoption loss is not neat or easy. And the aftermath of adoption loss can be ( and has been) devastating for untold numbers of women.

Why Juno Matters:

http://babyscoopera.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-juno-matters.html

"Oh, and I wish some of these movies would show the incredible mix of emotions that go into decisions on having/not having children, abortion, adoption, etc. I have yet to meet a single woman (or man) who is 100% confident/happy/whatever in every one of their reproductive decisions, but these movies always seem to smooth over any doubts or concerns in favor of a too-neatly-packaged single emotion or drive."

Those of us who have lost children to adoption have had this experience over and over and over again.

"But...you should be grateful!"

"But...you gave such a beautiful gift!"

"But you are a heroine, a good mother, putting the baby first!"

"But...nuts/sluts like you shouldn't be raising children!"

Adoption loss is not neat or easy. And the aftermath of adoption loss can be ( and has been) devastating for untold numbers of women.

Why Juno Matters:

http://babyscoopera.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-juno-matters.html

"Oh, and I wish some of these movies would show the incredible mix of emotions that go into decisions on having/not having children, abortion, adoption, etc. I have yet to meet a single woman (or man) who is 100% confident/happy/whatever in every one of their reproductive decisions, but these movies always seem to smooth over any doubts or concerns in favor of a too-neatly-packaged single emotion or drive."

Those of us who have lost children to adoption have had this experience over and over and over again.

"But...you should be grateful!"

"But...you gave such a beautiful gift!"

"But you are a heroine, a good mother, putting the baby first!"

"But...nuts/sluts like you shouldn't be raising children!"

Adoption loss is not neat or easy. And the aftermath of adoption loss can be ( and has been) devastating for untold numbers of women.

Why Juno Matters:

http://babyscoopera.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-juno-matters.html

Getting back to the original article by Quart, the main point/feeling I got from it was that the only socially responsible and feminist thing to do is to choose not to have children at all. Did anybody else get that?
"All of these films end with a love object, a baby that is superior in the eyes of many women than a man would be. In these films, the baby represents eternity and the possibility of absolute devotion. It's a relationship that, unlike romantic love or marriage, female viewers are thought to believe in without sarcasm." And so the opposite is that women who choose not to have children are not delusional about relationships and responsibilty because their free from the constraints of love and relationships? Huh?
And:
"Women who once chose an unusual life path picked child-free independence—liberated Klutes or unmarried women. Now, conceiving of an infant without marriage or even love is the filmic symbol of independence."
Sure, if you actually believe that Hollywood has cornered the market on telling us what all women feel and choose.

And I whole-heartedly third the Joan Allen comments. She was fantastic!

You know, sometimes I feel like i'm on another planet than other people. On the planet I live on, positive portrayals of motherhood *from the perspective of the mother* are almost nonexistent. Women are *primarily* seen through the lens of wanting to get a man or having trouble with the man they've got, almost never from the perspective of "who gives a shit about the man, I want a baby."

I mean, more films of the nature of "who gives a shit about the man or the baby, I want to save the world from terrorists" would be cool too. Or "who gives a shit about the man or the baby, me and my female cop buddy friend just wanna bring in the bad guys." But *given* the enormous overprevalence of romantic plots in movies and TV, and given that mothers-as-main-characters of anything are pretty damn rare, I find all this bitching about the nitty gritty details of films about motherhood kind of annoying. I mean, yeah, okay, there are only about three films about getting an abortion. Guess what, there are only about twenty films about having a baby. Juno and Baby Mama may be the new zeitgeist, but that doesn't mean that *before* they came out we had a plethora of choices of movies where the main character is pregnant, or wants to be pregnant, and the plot is about her pregnancy or lack thereof.

What I see is that mothers as positive protagonist characters are really goddamn rare, and somehow other feminists look at the same pool of movies and see "OMG Hollywood is trying to reduce us to our fertility!" Not in my experience; Hollywood has always seemed to *me* to want to reduce us to our status as sex objects, and pretend that whole annoying inconvenient thing where sex gets women pregnant doesn't happen.

I mean, I'm all for a good movie about abortion, but complaining that there exists a movie about adoption and a movie about surrogate mothers and not a movie about abortion, therefore one of the above movies should have been about abortion, would be like complaining that there are stoner comedies, and drunk comedies, but there are no junkie comedies, so in the next Harold and Kumar I want to see them do meth and heroin. We're not talking about something like, say, Pixar's complete inability to have important female characters in their children's movies, which is true for about every single Pixar movie ever; we're talking about comparing a pool of maybe 20 movies to a pool of 3 movies, instead of complaining about the ten gazillion movies that are neither about pregnancy nor about abortion, nor in fact about women at all. Why is "Juno" competing with your imaginary abortion movie? "Juno" is rare. Let your abortion movie compete with yet another thriller about a male maverick cop on the run from the law, or whatever.

By the way, *is* there any way to make abortion a comedy? Because I'm having a hard time imagining it. Both "Juno" and "Baby Mama" are *comedies*, not dramas; is there actually a way to get comedy out of abortion?

You know, sometimes I feel like i'm on another planet than other people. On the planet I live on, positive portrayals of motherhood *from the perspective of the mother* are almost nonexistent. Women are *primarily* seen through the lens of wanting to get a man or having trouble with the man they've got, almost never from the perspective of "who gives a shit about the man, I want a baby."

I mean, more films of the nature of "who gives a shit about the man or the baby, I want to save the world from terrorists" would be cool too. Or "who gives a shit about the man or the baby, me and my female cop buddy friend just wanna bring in the bad guys." But *given* the enormous overprevalence of romantic plots in movies and TV, and given that mothers-as-main-characters of anything are pretty damn rare, I find all this bitching about the nitty gritty details of films about motherhood kind of annoying. I mean, yeah, okay, there are only about three films about getting an abortion. Guess what, there are only about twenty films about having a baby. Juno and Baby Mama may be the new zeitgeist, but that doesn't mean that *before* they came out we had a plethora of choices of movies where the main character is pregnant, or wants to be pregnant, and the plot is about her pregnancy or lack thereof.

What I see is that mothers as positive protagonist characters are really goddamn rare, and somehow other feminists look at the same pool of movies and see "OMG Hollywood is trying to reduce us to our fertility!" Not in my experience; Hollywood has always seemed to *me* to want to reduce us to our status as sex objects, and pretend that whole annoying inconvenient thing where sex gets women pregnant doesn't happen.

I mean, I'm all for a good movie about abortion, but complaining that there exists a movie about adoption and a movie about surrogate mothers and not a movie about abortion, therefore one of the above movies should have been about abortion, would be like complaining that there are stoner comedies, and drunk comedies, but there are no junkie comedies, so in the next Harold and Kumar I want to see them do meth and heroin. We're not talking about something like, say, Pixar's complete inability to have important female characters in their children's movies, which is true for about every single Pixar movie ever; we're talking about comparing a pool of maybe 20 movies to a pool of 3 movies, instead of complaining about the ten gazillion movies that are neither about pregnancy nor about abortion, nor in fact about women at all. Why is "Juno" competing with your imaginary abortion movie? "Juno" is rare. Let your abortion movie compete with yet another thriller about a male maverick cop on the run from the law, or whatever.

By the way, *is* there any way to make abortion a comedy? Because I'm having a hard time imagining it. Both "Juno" and "Baby Mama" are *comedies*, not dramas; is there actually a way to get comedy out of abortion?

is there actually a way to get comedy out of abortion?

Citizen Ruth?

FEMily, in "Baby Mama," two "nuclear families" were not created at the end...Amy Poehler's character has not gotten back together with her daughter's loser father and Tina Fey and Greg Kinnear aren't married...altho it does show Tina Fey wearing an engagement ring. Also "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" is about Romania in the 1980s when abortion WAS illegal.

Alara -- Citizen Ruth was pretty funny, and it was about Abortion. It too is pretty old and it's not really nice to either side (although it's a lot LESS NICE to the anti choicers)

I'm a little mystified at some of the arguments here. We have had half a dozen major multiplex hollywood films in the last year glorifying Women Who Keep The Baby or Women Who Want A Baby So Badly. Pointing to a couple of foreign or art-house films that came out over the past few years, or a couple of films that are mouldering in the VHS section of the local video store doesn't seem like it's "balanced."

I don't see why just because Juno doesn't have any abortion, people read it as anti-feminist. Juno considers abortion and then CHOOSES to do a completely self-less thing (hence, pro-CHOICE). And she gives her baby to a completely deserving woman who clearly plans to love and cherish the child, despite the fact that her marriage has just fallen apart. How is that anti-feminist?

No, she doesn't go through lengthy counseling in the movie, though it's not explicitly stated that she doesn't (and if she did, it would most likely be very boring and not funny at all). But I think the scene after the birth where Bleeker crawls into bed with her and holds her while she weeps is a shorthanded, artistic way to say the same thing and it speaks VOLUMES.

I won't go into too many details about why I loved it and why I think it certainly is feminist. But the fact that screen writer Diablo Cody and star Ellen Page are BOTH self-proclaimed feminists kind of does the math for me. Maybe some could argue that it is not a successfully feminist movie in it's execution, but the intent is CLEARLY a feminist one.

That's all I can say, since I have not seen Baby Momma. But I am glad to see so many women getting the comedic leads in films, rather than being a shrewish second fiddle to a male star, as per usual.

How is that anti-feminist?

You may argue that Juno is a feminist movie, but you overlook the fact that Juno has just engaged in behavior which has proven over andover and over to be exceedingly self destructive.

So I wouldn't call her freedom to choose perdition on earth feminist exactly. I would call it poorly informed, at best.

From Rickie Sollinger, BEGGARS AND CHOOSERS:

"Based on what I've learned about the experiences of [mothers] in the United States, I want to suggest that the conventional understanding of adoption should be turned on its head. Almost everybody believes that on some level, [mothers] make a choice to give their babies away. I argue that adoption is rarely about mothers' choices; it is, instead, about the abject choicelessness of some resourceless women."
Rickie Solinger, Beggars and Choosers, 2001.

BSERI,

Not all feminists always make good choices. But their choice is still their own, and their right to make choices (even ones we might think are stupid) have to be defended by feminists as a whole.

OK, now that I've finally seen Juno, I feel compelled to comment about the abortion scene. It didn't bother or offend me. First off, the movie was about her having the baby and giving it up, so there had to be some reason for her to not have an abortion. Second, I thought that the seemingly silly reason for her leaving was fitting considering she was only 16. It was a pretty immature argument on the part of the girl outside (who's name escapes me) and a somewhat irrational reason for her to leave. Also, afterward she seemed kind of annoyed with herself that that was the reason she left. When she's talking to her friend and she says why she left she's like "fingernails!" Like she's exasperated by the fact that fingernails were the convincing factor.

Also, to echo Danyell, not having an abortion isn't inherently anti-feminist. She considered it and chose another route. I was glad they addressed it at all, especially in a way that wasn't stigmatizing. I mean, sure she didn't have it, but she never said or implied that there was anything wrong with those that do. And frankly, the anti-choice girl outside was a little ridiculous.

And the scene at the end where she gave birth and Bleeker gets in bed and she's crying, then it cuts to Jennifer Garner's character all excited to finally get her baby? Yeah I was pretty much bawling. Both times I saw it.

Not all feminists always make good choices. But their choice is still their own, and their right to make choices (even ones we might think are stupid) have to be defended by feminists as a whole.

I do understand why you think adoption is a choice, and therefore an execise of personal power that can be called feminist.

Putting aside the psychological ramifications of adoption loss for a moment and considering only the philosophy of adoption, what you are missing is this: Adoption as we practice it is constructed as a class privilege. Adoption says that only women who can afford it are considered to be worthy mothers.

This denies the maternity of hundreds of millions of impoverished women around the globe.

Juno, in the abstract, may be an entertaining and hip comedy; but the reality of adoption is far removed from the movie.

There are good reasons why the pregnancies of only 0.8 % of all unmarried American women end with the baby going into adoption. Few of them have to do with choice. I will grant here are a few that do. There are a few women who don't want to be mothers. But by and large, adoption loss has to do with economics.

That was Rickie Sollinger's point.

"As a mother who relinquished a child for adoption, Juno was the antithesis of anything remotely feminist."

If the story was the *antithesis* of *anything remotely* feminist, Juno's family would have killed her for "dishonoring" them by being friends with a boy in the first place.

"Didn't Mulan abort like 4 or 5 fetuses? Does it not count because it's a cartoon?"

?

The original doesn't say she did, and it doesn't say she didn't either: http://www.chinapage.com/mulan.html

"I mean, more films of the nature of 'who gives a shit about the man or the baby, I want to save the world from terrorists' would be cool too. Or 'who gives a shit about the man or the baby, me and my female cop buddy friend just wanna bring in the bad guys.'"

This reminds me of the novel Halting State by Charles Stross. Two of the main characters are women, one of whom is a police sergeant. It's also a story in which the main kid doesn't have absent parents (Sergeant Smith and her partner Mary both look out for him well).

"Adoption as we practice it is constructed as a class privilege. Adoption says that only women who can afford it are considered to be worthy mothers.

"This denies the maternity of hundreds of millions of impoverished women around the globe."

True, and at the same time some adoption as we practice it today denies the maternity of corpses instead.

When I was little, my family planned ahead: if Mom and Dad died, my aunt and uncle would raise me via kinship adoption. Fortunately Mom and Dad are still alive :) , but if they had died when I was 2 I'd have been better off adopted than staying with them while bystanders said "but they shouldn't have died in the first place."

"As a mother who relinquished a child for adoption, Juno was the antithesis of anything remotely feminist."

If the story was the *antithesis* of *anything remotely* feminist, Juno's family would have killed her for "dishonoring" them by being friends with a boy in the first place.

"Didn't Mulan abort like 4 or 5 fetuses? Does it not count because it's a cartoon?"

?

The original doesn't say she did, and it doesn't say she didn't either: http://www.chinapage.com/mulan.html

"I mean, more films of the nature of 'who gives a shit about the man or the baby, I want to save the world from terrorists' would be cool too. Or 'who gives a shit about the man or the baby, me and my female cop buddy friend just wanna bring in the bad guys.'"

This reminds me of the novel Halting State by Charles Stross. Two of the main characters are women, one of whom is a police sergeant. It's also a story in which the main kid doesn't have absent parents (Sergeant Smith and her partner Mary both look out for him well).

"Adoption as we practice it is constructed as a class privilege. Adoption says that only women who can afford it are considered to be worthy mothers.

"This denies the maternity of hundreds of millions of impoverished women around the globe."

True, and at the same time some adoption as we practice it today denies the maternity of corpses instead.

When I was little, my family planned ahead: if Mom and Dad died, my aunt and uncle would raise me via kinship adoption. Fortunately Mom and Dad are still alive :) , but if they had died when I was 2 I'd have been better off adopted than staying with them while bystanders said "but they shouldn't have died in the first place."

True, and at the same time some adoption as we practice it today denies the maternity of corpses instead.

Invalid critique, red herring. Please address the point.

Adoption as we practice it in the United States is a
class privilege. It defines motherhood as a state based not on biology or even psychology but on economic status. In this model, "birth" mothers are breeders, incubators for women who are able to afford the privilege of motherhood. In this model, adoption is not so much a feminist choice as it is reproductive exploitation.

Adoption is not a matter of "choice" in most cases; but of profound ecomomic choicelessness.

Your family's plan in case of the demise of your parents is not what I call adoption. I call it kinship care. It is a form of natural family preservation, one that I support.

"True, and at the same time some adoption as we practice it today denies the maternity of corpses instead.

"Invalid critique, red herring. Please address the point."

Valid critique. I addressed your point "This denies the maternity of hundreds of millions of impoverished women around the globe." by noting that adoption as practiced in the West today doesn't always deny the maternity of a living impoverished woman.

"Adoption is not a matter of 'choice' in most cases; but of profound ecomomic choicelessness."

Especially when the parents are gone, the child still needs to be raised by *someone*, and that need outweighs birth-based first dibs.

I agree with you that adoption shouldn't be treated as primarily an alternative to fertility treatments for adults. It should be treated as primarily an alternative to being raised by wolves or whatever for children.

"Your family's plan in case of the demise of your parents is not what I call adoption. I call it kinship care. It is a form of natural family preservation, one that I support."

Kinship adoption isn't an oxymoron. Even if you don't want to call it adoption, my aunt and uncle becoming my legal guardians for the rest of my childhood (instead of telling me to wait, as children in foster care and orphanages often wait) would be a form of adoption.

Especially when the parents are gone

Red herring. Please don't be so disingenuous.

Let us specify that we are speaking about for profit adoption of newborns with at least one living parent.

Okay?

No one in their right minds objects to the adoptions of true orphans.

Maybe you haven't seen the movie Juno, but it should be clear to you in any case that Juno was very much alive - not deceased.

FEMily, in "Baby Mama," two "nuclear families" were not created at the end...Amy Poehler's character has not gotten back together with her daughter's loser father and Tina Fey and Greg Kinnear aren't married...altho it does show Tina Fey wearing an engagement ring. Also "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" is about Romania in the 1980s when abortion WAS illegal.

I thought the two couples were together at the end of Baby Mama. I knew they weren't married, but I thought they were at least together.

And thanks for clearing my misconception about 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days. I sort of half heard the review of the film when it first came out, and all I heard was the critic saying something about it being an indication of what could happen in the US if abortion were made illegal.

"'Especially when the parents are gone'

"Red herring. Please don't be so disingenuous."

It's still not a red herring.

"Let us specify that we are speaking about for profit adoption of newborns with at least one living parent.

"Okay?"

Now you're talking. ;)

"No one in their right minds objects to the adoptions of true orphans."

Unfortunately, I have seen people complain about that by claiming that adoption itself is bad instead of specifying the stealing of children from parents who were actually raising them.

"Maybe you haven't seen the movie Juno, but it should be clear to you in any case that Juno was very much alive - not deceased."

Yeah. I figured that the "hundreds of millions of impoverished women" statement meant we weren't just talking about Juno anymore.

There are good reasons why the pregnancies of only 0.8 % of all unmarried American women end with the baby going into adoption. Few of them have to do with choice. I will grant here are a few that do. There are a few women who don't want to be mothers. But by and large, adoption loss has to do with economics.

So? Economics seems to me like as good a reason as any.

I thought feminism was all about choices. When I think about women having a choice I wish the choice could be equal for poor women as well as wealthy women. I don't see that as being true.

A woman that is pregnant, and young should have ALL resources she needs to parent her child, her economics should not be a factor in her parenting.

I thought feminism was all about choices. When I think about women having a choice I wish the choice could be equal for poor women as well as wealthy women. I don't see that as being true.

A woman that is pregnant, and young should have ALL resources she needs to parent her child, her economics should not be a factor in her parenting.

Unfortunately, I have seen people complain about that by claiming that adoption itself is bad instead of specifying the stealing of children from parents who were actually raising them.

Adoption as an institution does have myriad problems.
IF adoption were practiced the way the majority of people believe it is,instead of the way it is, and IF adoption outcomes were the fairytale endings the majority of people believe them to be instead of what they really are, and IF adoption wasn't a business that made its profits on the backs of impoverished women maybe I would agree that adoption isn't an unalloyed evil.

BUT there are too problems with the way adoption is practiced, and too many problems with outcomes, and too much money being made at the expense of women for me to agree.

A woman that is pregnant, and young should have ALL resources she needs to parent her child, her economics should not be a factor in her parenting.

Standing, clapping, cheering. I could not agree more. Neither could the United Nations:

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Adopted and proclaimed by General Assembly resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948

Article 25: (1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Bseri,

I see your point a little more clearly now. And I do agree that adoption is for the most part reserved for the wealthy and often times in society, poor mothers are more likely to be found as "unfit" parents because they literally can't afford to provide certain things for their children, which is often misread as "neglectful" (I'm now referencing a really important and heart-wrenching article in this month's Ms. about the problems with CPS and prejudice).

But, that being said, in order for a woman to have the choice of giving her baby up for adoption, there has to be a parent willing to adopt her/him. This agreement in and of itself is quite nice & encouraging of feminist choice: One can't afford to keep the baby (whether "afford" applies to a concrete or abstract meaning), the other would love nothing more than to care for the child. The fact that the government favors the rich to approve this contract is not the fault of either individual parties in this scenario. If you recall, in Juno, she is offered "additional compensation" and she recoils in horror. "No, I don't want to sell the thing! I just want someone to love it and take care of it." (Or something to that affect.) I don't see how your point suggests that either the birth parent or adoptive parents is not making a conscious choice.

And yes, the movie is highly removed from the reality of adoption. Just like most non-documentary movies are removed from the reality of everything! (Because they're not real) There are fantasy and comical elements involved to make it an enjoyable comedy. If they had set out to make a serious, soul-searching drama, then that would change everything. But this is a hipster comedy and we can only critique its merit in the confines of it's medium, genre and execution therein. (I.E. You can't critique a Jackson Pollack for not being a Rembrandt. One is not necessarily better, they're just not even in the same category of each other.)

I think Juno is a very unique look on American teen pregnancy. We need to look, think about and discuss all different possibilities regarding issues like this, BECAUSE the experience is completely unique for each person involved.

I think that the fertility clinics and the adoption industry must have a big investment in the media. First we have Juno which is so unrealistic when it comes to how a mother losing a child to adoption really feels..no matter what the age. The few token tears at the end were not even a small part of the ongoing grief of a mother who is brainwashed into thinking that youth, fiancial problems, or lack of a complete education make her a poor candidate for motherhood. And, the character should have asked a few adult adopted people what they REALLY think about that "heroic sacrifice."

Baby Mama is just another case of women predating on other women for the sake of assuming the mantle of mother. Surrogacy, especially traditional, is just another form of women using other women like brood mares.

I'll have better reviews, I am sure, when someone comes out with a picture that is closer to the agonizing truth of the separation of mother and infant. It isn't all warm, pink and fuzzy, no matter who wants to make it look like it is. Parenthood is not a "right," but a privilege and a responsibility and a child starts needing his/her REAL mother while still in the womb.