Three young women wake up, confused and terrified, in a room that looks like a cross between a normal hospital room and the creepy underground lair of some mad scientist from a horror movie. A video screen flickers on and a creepy older man, looking a bit like Academy-award-nominee Robert Loggia, appears on it, telling the women that he’s their “jailer.” The women, you see, had all been getting abortions when their jailer’s shadowy accomplices kidnapped them and brought them to this strange prison, where they will be forced to live for the next seven months until they gave birth. “You were all on the operating table, all ready to commit murder,” announces a mysterious doctor. “Your babies will be given life just as God planned.”
This is the premise of a new horror film called The Life Zone, which recently had its world premiere at the prestigious, er, Hoboken International Film Festival, a festival that was, perhaps not coincidentally, founded and chaired by the film’s writer and producer, Kenneth del Vecchio. In case you think I’m making all this up, here’s the film’s trailer, which makes The Life Zone look a bit like an equal-parts mixture of Saw, Human Centipede, and The Handmaid’s Tale, with Robert Loggia in the role of Jigsaw/Dr. Heiter/The Commander:
Now, if you thought that something seemed really … off about that trailer, well, you’re not alone. For the film is not, as you might have assumed from my description, a warning against the fanatical misogyny of many in the anti-abortion movement.
No, the film – produced by a pro-life former judge, crime thriller author, and Republican New Jersey state senate candidate – is meant as pro-life propaganda. As the offical press release for the film’s premiere put it:
The film, which appears to cut right down the middle [of the abortion debate], examining the topic from both sides, offers a powerful, anti-abortion climactic twist. Del Vecchio and the cast invite pro-lifers to come to this historic event.
During the months the three women are held in captivity, you see, they are exposed to a barrage of films and books intended to, er, educate them about abortion –what their attending obstetrician Dr. Wise describes as “an abortion think tank.” Two of the captive women do indeed convert to the pro-life side; apparently we in the audience are supposed to develop Stockholm Syndrome along with them. The third, as we see in the trailer, tries to induce a miscarriage, which doesn’t go quite as planned.
And this sets us up for the final twist, which I’m just going to go ahead and reveal: once all three women have given birth, Dr. Wise tells them she’s going to sew them all, mouth-to-vagina, into a Human Abortion-pede!
Actually no: the twist is that the “life zone” the three women in has actually been … purgatory! All three “captives,” you see, had died on the operating table while getting their abortions. (Apparently they went to the world’s worst abortion clinic, as first-trimester abortions don’t involve anything more surgically invasive than the insertion of a suction tube; the risk of death from a legal surgical abortion is 0.0006%, one in 160,000 cases, making the procedure many times safer than childbirth itself.) Their time in the “life zone” was a test: the two women who changed their minds were whisked up to heaven, while their miscarriage-attempting, stubbornly pro-choice companion is sent straight to H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks. Dr. Wise, despite being on the right side of the abortion question, also goes to hell for committing suicide. And, oh yeah, their jailer – Loggia – was Satan. Why Satan and a hell-bound doctor were the ones trying to convert the abortion ladies to the pro-life side I can’t tell you; del Vecchio’s theology is evidently more sophisticated than I am.
The real twist here? As Jersey Journal writer Alan Robb notes:
The Life Zone went viral across the internet [last] Friday after blogs The Frisky and Talking Points Memo picked up on the film’s trailer. … But despite garnering more than 20,000 hits on YouTube in the last four days, only fifty people – including the film’s cast and producers – attended this weekend’s screening, and even those who starred in the movie didn’t know how to interpret its twist ending.
It’s impossible to tell from the trailer if the film is bad in a so-bad-it’s-good way, or if it’s just plain awful. I will try to get hold of it when it hits video, and will report back with my results.
In the meantime, if you’re looking for a good horror film set in a creepy hospital, try renting Infection, a Japanese film from 2005. Or, if you’ve got a longer attention span, try Lars Von Trier’s supernatural soap opera The Kingdom, a darkly comic miniseries which takes place in what one might call, paraphrasing Bill Murray’s character in Tootsie, “one nutty hospital.” Both are conveniently available on Netflix instant watch, so you don’t even have to leave your pregnancy dungeon to see them.
EDITED: Added some info on the minimal dangers of abortion procedures.
I actually appreciate that tremendously, MRAL. Whatever you conclude, being able to question your beliefs and accept arguments from your opponent is something that no one (and yeah, I do include us–not that we’re wrong, just that we certainly can get stubborn and closed up, or at least I know I can sometimes) does easily.
CHOICE 4 MEN IS NOT ABANDONING A CHILD.
It wouldn’t be if someone else picked up the check. After he “aborts”, who takes up the slack in his stead? I assume you’re ok with setting up agencies (with taxpayer funds, natch) to compensate?
Yeah, I’d be okay with that too. What do you say, MRAL — how should we set that up? How about a tax on men, which they would be allowed to stop paying if they chose to take responsibility for a child they fathered?
CHOICE 4 MEN IS NOT ABANDONING A CHILD.
No, it pretty much is.
Her: “Honey, I’m pregnant!”
Him: “Well, we had some okay sex, and the orgasms were nice, but I don’t really want to pay for a child. I’m not going to give up any of my money or time for your child.”
Her: “Well, okay then. I think I can have the baby on my own anyway, and I really want to be a mother”
Him: “Peace out!” :: goes and finds other women to fuck ::
TEN YEARS LATER
Child: “Mommy, where’s my daddy?”
Her: “He didn’t want to be a father, so he abandoned us before you were born. Mommy loves you very much, though!”
So how is this NOT abandonment?
You’re assuming that women get pregnant so they can siphon off a man’s resources, and so if a man decides to not be a father at all, then the woman will automatically get an abortion. But in the real world, women decide to become mothers for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with getting money from a man (and given the cost in both real dollars, time spent and intangible sacrifices made, becoming a mother in exchange for a few hundred dollars a month, if that, is a shitty, shitty trade-off).
Here’s a newsflash: The so-called ‘paper abortion’ happens in this country almost every day, when women get unexpectedly pregnant and have conversations with the father. I personally know one woman who decided to go the abortion route when her partner made it clear she would get no support from him.
Even if there was a stable, sustainable funding alternative for women whose partners chose not to support their children, I still don’t like it. A child has a right to know who their father is. So much of who I am only makes sense to me because I know my parents. It gives me a sense of continuity, of belonging in the world. The only case where I would be okay about concealing knowledge of a living father from a child would be in cases of rape. But even then, I think if the child wants to know, they have a right to.
I looked up some statistics about single mothers and decided that maybe Choice 4 Men is not ideal after all. But it’s not fair and I think we can emphasize that and not mock men who are upset at their lack of rights. tThese men deserve sympathy because, again, it’s not fair at all. And I still don’t like the way feminists discuss the pro-choice issue (calling it “anti-choice”, mocking men, etc.)
MRAL – I agree that it can be a raw deal to be a father against your wishes, with the caveats of:
1) It’s a raw deal to raise a child alone
and
2) It’s a raw, raw, raw deal to be an unwanted child
Frankly, any scenario (other than a pre-agreed sperm donation) where the kid isn’t wanted by both parents is a less than awesome situation, but the solution for that isn’t to put all the responsibility on one parent.
But it’s not fair and I think we can emphasize that and not mock men who are upset at their lack of rights.
By ‘lack of rights’, you mean ‘not able to have sex and then possibly abandon the child’.
These men deserve sympathy because, again, it’s not fair at all.
Sure, and if a male friend of mine unexpectedly became a father before he was ready to do so, I’d commiserate with him about being in a challenging situation. But I’d still expect him to do right by another human being, i.e., his child.
And I still don’t like the way feminists discuss the pro-choice issue (calling it “anti-choice”, mocking men, etc.)
But people who are against abortion are actively trying to take choices away from women. They are not pro-life, because they don’t act like they value life. Especially not now that the newest item on the anti-choice agenda seems to be restricting contraceptive access to people.
Please show me where feminists are mocking men as a gender, and not the few anti-choice asshats who deserve mockery.
And what do you think is worse: mocking some guys on the internet, or shooting some guy in church? Mocking some guys on the internet, or mocking some women on the internet for being ‘bytchys’ who won’t say hi to you?
I really wish there were some way that a person could find out, before they have sex with another person (in cases where one of those people could become pregnant), what that other person thought of birth control and pregnancy and abortion and sex in general, and then could somehow convey their thoughts on those topics back to that person. That way, fewer people would be surprised to find out that the person they had sex with wasn’t using birth control, or was morally against abortion, or didn’t want children. Oh why oh why won’t some bright person think of a way … some kind of communication devise or tool … for people to impart this very important information to others at an appropriate time!
I don’t know. Maybe some kind of medallion/bracelet thing? Or … oh, there MUST be an easier way! Wait a minute, wait a minute! No. I lost it. Oh well. Maybe some genius inventor will some day figure out how a man and a woman can find out what the other thinks about life-changing topics.
I think if the child wants to know, they have a right to.
Indeed, it may even be a medical necessity. Al this talk of setting up funding agencies to compensate for dickwads walking away from their pregnant partners is really just a thought experiment to show MRAL how utterly fucking unworkable it all is.
The reason it’s unworkable is because there is a real biological inequity here: some people have uteri in which to gestate fetuses, and some people don’t.
Having a uterus gives you an extra set of choices about whether to reproduce, since you’re the person who’s going to be physically constructing the body of a new human being with your own blood and bones and nutrients.
Trying to give people without uteri that same set of choices is idiotic, it amounts to a denial of reality. In fact, it is one of the most honest manifestations of womb envy that you’ll ever see.
Bee – People (male and female) do lie and change their minds.
I actually do have a lot of sympathy for guys whose partners keep pregnancies when the guy didn’t want or expect them to. But it’s “shit, you’re going to be dealing with some tough consequences” sympathy, not “shit, you deserve to walk away from all consequences” sympathy.
For what it’s worth, I find the concept of paper abortions interesting. I just don’t know how to get around the fact that it’s basically asking the government to subsidize these paper non-fathers.
considering the likely quality of some of these putative fathers, I can see trying to get them out of the picture also. As long, as someone else pointed out, teh mother and child are supported through other mechanisms.
Of course, then the dickweeds will get all butthurty and try to weasel their way back into the child’s life.
“I actually appreciate that tremendously, MRAL. Whatever you conclude, being able to question your beliefs and accept arguments from your opponent is something that no one (and yeah, I do include us–not that we’re wrong, just that we certainly can get stubborn and closed up, or at least I know I can sometimes) does easily.”
Yes, I’d like to second that.
As for the whole paper abortion thing – I have mixed feelings about it, but like Holly said, as long as it’s mostly women* that can get pregnant, it’s not ever really going to be fair. I don’t think the father should ultimately get to make the decision about whether or not someone has an abortion, because the father doesn’t have to carry the baby to term. On the other hand, I am a little squeamish about the fact that a mother can decide “I’m not personally or financially stable enough to be a good caretaker for a child/not mature enough/etc” and a father can’t decide the same thing. From a fairness perspective it seems like the paper abortion would have to happen before the two even had sex, but that’s sort of silly and impractical.
Over all though, as a few people have said before, I think that GOOD, COMPREHENSIVE, sex education and easily available contraception are the best solutions here.
*I just want to point out, really quick, that yes MRAL, men can get pregnant – specifically, transmen. Regardless of your legal or chosen gender, I think any pregnant individual should be allowed to get an abortion.
“Bee – People (male and female) do lie and change their minds.”
Absolutely true. But I don’t think it’s too idealistic to think that talking about these kinds of things before p-i-v sex couldn’t hurt, and might in a few cases help get people on the same page so that there are … fewer big surprises.
Or too jaded to think that the same MRAs who support the idea of paper adoption might be the kinds of people who don’t bother finding out what their sex partner thinks because *shrug* bitches.
Womb envy? That’s a fucking laugh. More misandry from feminists, female supremacy and a belief that the female body is better when it’s not. Sounds like a fascist Nazi eugenics state to me.
*sigh*
Just once can we get through a thread without Godwinning it? Please?
Do believe penis envy exists?
You’re preaching to a choir in which probably many have oft heard, “Tsk tsk tsk, she shoulda kept her legs shut”, so we know just how convincing that kind of argument really is.
Yeah Pam, that’s what I usually tell the feminists, and then they run and hide behind their moderator who bans me for no reason. Typical feminist behavior.
MRAL, thank you very much for taking the time to listen and research and revise your opinion. I am pleasantly surprised.
And just for the record I said cis-men’s opinions are LESS valid, not invalid. That’s an important distinction, really. I also think my opinion on such topics as male circumcision, and prostate cancer are probably less valid then people who have prostates and penises.
And, also, for the record, some trans men can get pregnant. That’s why I’ve been trying to specify cis-men.
I reckon penis envy can be a real thing. Of course it’s easily mitigated by the purchase of a prosthetic cock.
Uterus envy isn’t as easy to deal with. I’m speaking kind of tongue-in-cheek about it, but it really does seem to me that a lot of these arguments boil down to “WAAAH YOU HAVE A UTERUS AND I DON’T IT’S NOT FAAAAAIIRRR!!” Well, if you had a uterus then you’d be all set, right? So, uterus envy.
I still don’t think men’s opinions are less valid, really. If that were the case women’s opinions would be less valid in a WHOLE hell of a lot of different areas in society.
Right, we’re back to all that equipment that only operates if you stick your dick in it.
Translated, Sally is a Hitleresque female supremacist who believes female bodies are better than male ones.
Penis envy is AT LEAST as widespread as this new “womb envy” thing.
Anyway, what does it matter WHY you don’t do something? All that matters is that you don’t, therefore your opinion “matters less”. That opens a fucking big ass can of worms.