But that was merely one viewpoint, and it was contradicted by the dialog at the end, where House admonishes Cuddy that the result was a matter of pure luck, that “99 times out of a 100,” the result would have been a dead fetus and a dead mother. So the show doesn’t try to say that life-of-the-mother abortions are never really necessary; on the contrary, the show makes absolutely clear that the choice made here was successful only by the greatest of good luck.
Nor is it inconsistent with other episodes – as Loach cogently observes, medical miracles and wow-what-are-the-odds events happen weekly on this show.
House suddenly deciding it was a ‘baby’ (as evidenced in the final visit to the patient afterwards) after the fingergrabbing scene is the big moral play of this episode. He lost his ‘objectivity’ when it went from fetus to baybay.
Cuddy went overboard, the reason House was for terminating after the second failed attempt to “patch the baby” was because the problem in the fetus couldn’t be found (due to teh lungs not being developed enough). When Cuddy darn near killed the both of them with the doubled steroid treatments, she was able to then “do what house would do since they done messed something up” and continued the double treatments to get the lungs of the fetus to the point they could identify something.
Then they had the miracle surgery, the restarted heart, and the happy song at the end.
I didn’t see so much a pro/anti choice/abortion issue as a objectivity lesson… had cuddy not lost her objectivity early on, and kept pushing, either the mother would have chosen to terminate, or not. If so, she would’ve lived, if not, she would’ve likely died. It was Cuddy’s ill advised treatment for the fetus lungs that lead to teh eventual ‘miracle’.
House has shown himself very pro-abortion in previous eps. he didn’t change his stance in this ep. The PT didn’t take his advice, which, if her desired outcome was her own survival could’ve been a bad thing. That didn’t happen to be her primary goal. People don’t always do the rational thing, which drives House crazy.
In the ep with the rape victim, he talked her into aborting. I don’t see him changing his stance here. He clearly states at the end he would still make that choice. But it wasn’t his choice, it was hers.
Speaking as a pro-life viewer, I didn’t see it as a very pro-life ep. House is supposedly the voice of reason and intelligence and he plainly said he thought Cuddy and the PT were acting stupidly. And there wasn’t enough Wilson.
Deadly for your theory is that SUBSEQUENT to the finger grab, when the patient when into v-tach, House clamped off the umbilical cord and was preparing to cut it when Cuddy threatened to shock him.
Only because the mother’s heart had stopped, and cuddy’s attempt to paddle had failed… He wasn’t going to take the fetus at that point for any reason other than to save the mother’s life… he called it a “baby” in the visit to the mothers room after everything was ‘fixed’… that’s the jump. (In all bits prior he insisted calling it a “fetus”, even calling it a “tumor” or a “parasite” at one point to keep his objectivity obvious).
Which is no different than how he felt the entire episode. The surgery had already begun. Of course he wasn’t going to randomly reach over and snatch it out of the womb for no other reason. It is not to far to stretch to call a fetus a baby once it has a face, hands, feet, toes and fingers. Especially if you have held it and seen that it had blonde hair. Still didn’t change the fact that he felt the abortion was the correct action to take and everything else was just luck. Of course if it had been his idea it would have been different.
Of course it set up some internal conflict. He is House. He is only heartless on the outside. Everything is just a defense mechanism. Every week they throw something at him and make him dance for us. That is the show. It’s just that this week there was a pregnant woman involved.
WHole point is that until he “saw the hands/feet” it was a fetus… it would still be a fetus until it was born. He had seen hands/feet/face etc earlier via ultrasouind and other images and it was still a “fetus”. The finger touching made it a “baby”.
IOW, his deciding to call it a “baby” while still in the womb was the “morality play” for the episode… his changing the term from “fetus” to “baby”, something that in no earlier episode, or earlier part of this episode would he do, and he kept deriding the other doctors for doing.
That’s it.
Yes, he still would’ve went to terminate the pregnancy even after that ‘event’ had it been the medically “smart” choice to do for the mother…
The finger touching didn’t make it a “baby”, the fact that the kid and mom were going to live, after all the surgeries, procedures, made it a “baby.”
Really, the only reason at the beginning of the episode that House was calling it a fetus is because he figured it was going to die and wanted the mother not to be too attached. Cuddy said as much to him. (IMHO)
Really, I think people that are seeing some huge PRO-ABORTION or ANTI-CHOICE message in this episode are projecting their own politics onto it.
In other news, I’m sort of annoyed by the Chase/Cameron affair - but I find Cameron really annoying generally.
Just because abortion is a huge political issue (duh), doesn’t mean every story involving it is taking a political stance. And House calling the fetus a “baby” doesn’t mean he’s turned into a raging pro-lifer, it just means that he’s become slightly more understanding the emotional attachment mothers (who generally don’t call their fetuses fetuses, in my observation) form to their unborn children. I think he still thinks the choices that were made were extremely foolish.
FWIW, I’m apolitical and easily entertained, so I enjoyed this episode as usual. Cuddy’s irrational decisions were pretty out of character, however.
I was just fine with the ep until the wee fetus developed sufficient motor skills to reach out to grab House’s finger. Shit, few full term infants do that (cite)
That’s at a full 40 weeks gestation; take a fetus at half that stage of development and make it do things it couldn’t at full term birth? May as well show a 1 month infant saying "mama’.
I thought the fetal hand (when in utero, they are fetuses, once born and sucking air, they are infants) was exaggerated for size, but the actual fetal surgery link previously posted indicates the size on the show was pretty accurate.
The happy ending of this episode is one of the reasons I rarely watch House anymore-too many happy endings, too many miracle cures. For the show to retain any authenticity-and emotional impact- there has to be a fairly reasonable chance that the freak disease of the week will kill or seriously maim the patient. Hell, I was flicking betwen this episode and a rerun of Enterprise-and that was because I wanted to see the pictures of the staff the patient was taking.
Not the right (meaning ‘moral’) message, but a realistic message. People remember the mom who noblely gives her life to ‘save the baby’- but how often does the Movie-of-the-Week focus the story on the baby dying anyway? No one remembers how many people quietly and privately choose to not use heroics to maybe save a fetus, because those stories don’t end up on the 6 o’clock news or as the Good Housekeeping magazine heart-tugging-story of the month. People make real life decisions based on what they know, and if all they ever see on TV is the miracle cure, are we setting them up for unrealistic expectations?
No that is their doctor’s job to give them realistic expectations. As I said earlier if you want a message watch an after school special. This is a totally unrealistic show. I read there is no Department of Diagnostic Medicine like this anywhere in the country. If there was it would be the Department of Where Most People Die After They Give Them the Most Expensive Tests in the World. If you are looking for realism go elsewhere.
[…thick Southern drawl…] And thank goodness! What with my sensitivities, I might just faint from the vapors!
On the Cameron-Chase thing, I don’t think Chase would be the one to be hurt. Last night, when Chase and Foreman were talking, Foreman said something like, “She’s only doing it to get House’s attention. But the question is, why are you doing it?” Chase didn’t hesitate before answering, “Are you joking?” The implication is that he’s in it for the pussy and isn’t attaching to her beyond that. It seems to me that she has latched onto him, though. She’s usually the one to instigate the meetings — “Want to get lunch?” (wink) — and she’s the one who wants to do it everywhere all the time. I don’t think her character has fleshed out yet. There’s an undercurrent there of suppressed sensitivity. Of course, I could just be all wet…
I think he started for the obvious reason but it is becoming more than that for him. Not so much for her I think. At least I think thats where they are going with it.
[paraphrase] “I’ve already broken her lungs…I can do anything I want now!” [/paraphrase]
She used Wilson as a sounding board, same as House has done. And, this isn’t the first time they’ve used the Patient Of The Week as a surrogate for one of the cast members.
The whole Cameron/Chase thing is being about as ham-handed as possible. The fact that Chase “glowed” while looking at Cameron’s picture, and the photog noticed right away that he was enamored with her. Then he throws out a pathetic “are you joking” to Foreman’s question, obviously he’s just trying to be the cool detached stud-boy, instead of admitting that he’s really into her. Then Cuddy is trying to end it so that “poor widdle Cameron doesn’t get hurt.” No way that’s going to play out straight up, it’s tailor made for a twist with Cameron hurting Chase’s feelings.
She started the whole fuck buddy relationship, and just wants to get laid, that’s why she’s asking for it all the time and Chase has to try and fend her off. If he just wanted to get laid, you’d see him asking for it, not her.
