TV Law and Order: NOT

Last night Ward and I were flipping channels and this show caught our eye. We are not regular followers, we rarely watch any current TV shows, but the idea of a pregnant teen's boyfriend going on trial for killing the unborn baby of his girlfriend by beating it death in the womb caught our attention. As we watched there were subtleties about the case that we couldn't figure out. It became curiouser and curiouser, until BAM it hit us right between the eyes.

The show is Law and Order: Special Vicitms Unit and it was the episode titled Rockabye. Here is TV.com's summary:

After sixteen-year-old Lauren Westley loses her unborn child due to a severe abdominal beating, her father's insistance that Lauren was raped leads detectives to the baby's father, but it isn't long before the detectives realise that Lauren was an active party in her own beating, and the two teens had found it necessary to take the steps they did because the abortion clinic kept putting off Lauren's request for an appointment. Novak faces a tough opponent in her own office when she and Branch disagree over the appropriate action to be taken against Wayne Mortens, the young girl's boyfriend.

Isn't that interesting wording, that the two teens found it "necessary to take the steps they did"? No, they couldn't just have the baby and give it up for adoption, that thought never occurred to them. But I digress, the plot line follows the story as to the plight of their dire situation, that after having tried for two whole weeks to get an abortion. You see the doctor at the abortion clinic said she had a fever at 22 weeks and she shouldn't have the procedure done due to risk of infection. But she called the clinic everyday (gosh sometimes three times a day) for two weeks and then because she was past 24 weeks they NO CHOICE but to take matters into their own hands, gee these poor kids were forced to brutalize the fetus. Oh the inhumanity of it . . . as their case is told in court about how the cruel doctor kept them at bay, the judge realizes in a light bulb moment that here we have a very simple case of medical malpractice! This doctor obviously was subverting abortions!! It was the doctor's fault that they had to kill their baby, oh wait, we're only allowed to call it a "fetus" in court . . . but it was the doctor's fault that they had to terminate the pregnancy in the only way their feeble little teen minds could come up with . . . they pummeled it to death. Having aroused the sympathy of the entire court room, the judge says, let's let these poor kids go. Please see to it that the doctor is arrested on grounds of criminal malpractice (or some such charge).

So the twisted logic of the court seems to say, because the doctor didn't kill the baby, if was his fault the baby was killed!

Now I realize that I am getting all worked up about some idiot television show, except that I am told that these shows are based on real cases. And if that is true . . . God help us all!

Meet Me In St. Louis

Spring break is always a challenge. Stay home and be bored or venture out and try to do a road trip with the family. This year I got to do a bit of both. The guys (Ward and the Beav) headed off for a four day weekend of college wrestling magic with the finals in Omaha. It is a dream come true for Ward, who wrestled in high school. The Beav is just going along for the male bonding!

I, on the other hand, did a singular road trip of my own to do some serious female bonding. I spent the first half of the week in St. Louis, visiting a getting-to-be-very-pregnant Betty. She and the expectant father-to-be are amazingly informed and calmly ready. They are attending Bradley classes, watching birthing videos, reading and carefully monitoring protein intake. If they were any more prepared they would be having twins!

We went into St. Louis for some shopping and a short trip to the Art Museum. I was scolded by the concierge for loitering too close to a painting, and all I was doing was pointing out some wonderful detail . . . I remarked later how horrible to have a job whose sole purpose is to be negative . . . "You're too close! Step away from the painting! Don't touch the artwork!"
After the museum we went to have lunch at a little Tea Shop in the city. A turkey panini, keemun tea and lemon blueberry cake and oh, I didn't have to eat the whole thing! We split it just the way we used to when having lunches out at Starbucks. I love having a daughter!

I finally got to see the inside of a Trader Joe's and buy some "two-buck chuck". It should really be called "three-buck chuck" now, and really it is an awesome price for fairly decent wine.

We did some other shopping at Whole Foods, whose nickname is "Whole Paycheck" and I can see why, but really what a wonderful store . . . everything a "crunchy-granola-organic-mother-earth hippy" could possibly want.

The best part of the whole trip was seeing my daughter and her husband getting ready for my grand baby! They are waiting to know the sex until birth, which is wonderful but makes it very hard to buy cute little baby outfits. There are no unisex outfits and it has been hard to wait, but we did get to one little shop where I got to purchase the cutest little diapers and covers. It helped the craving to buy all things baby . . . but only a little!