“Veep” and the Politics of Pregnancy

[Note: This post contains discussion of abortion from a pro-choice viewpoint. If the pro-choice point of view offends or upsets you, you’re entitled to your opinion, but any comments denouncing me or an attempt to change my mind will be recognized as an attempt to derail discussion, and will be deleted. If you’re a first-time commenter and feel compelled to call me derogatory names based on my point of view, please be aware that all first-time comments have to be approved before they’re  made public. No one will see your nasty comments except for me, and I will promptly mark said comments as spam and then laugh at you.]

I’m watching Veep and I’m loving it. Are you watching Veep? If you’re not watching Veep, you should definitely be watching Veep, because it’s really funny. The dialogue fires at a rapid pace, the political satire is biting and sharp, and the cast is fantastic.

In addition to all of that, I love that this is a show with a female protagonist who struggles to be relevant in policy decisions, but the whole show isn’t, “It’s hard to be a woman in politics!” The central conceit of the show is that the vice-presidential position is largely ceremonial and has very little real power. Sometimes Vice-President Selina Meyer faces particular sexist challenges that a male vice president would not have to face (such as rumors about a catty feud with the First Lady about stylists and hairdressers), but the fact that she is a female vice-president is not the most important aspect of her character or the show.

I also find the show fairly complex in its comedy. A show about a female vice-president could easily become a tiresome, one-joke Sarah Palin parody, but Veep doesn’t go for that easy route. Sometimes the show is funny because Selina makes a gaffe or unfortunate comment in front of the press. Sometimes the show is funny because Selina is good at her job but she and her team are surrounded by jerk politicians with competing interests. Sometimes we’re laughing at her and the other characters because they seem like horrible people, and sometimes we’re laughing with them because we empathize with their frustration. She’s written as an intelligent, competent person who sometimes makes mistakes – some that are entirely her fault, some that are a result of being caught in a no-win situation.

The latest episode of Veep introduced an entirely new challenge for Selina, one that is both her fault and the result of a no-win situation. After a night of unprotected sex with her lover, she’s pregnant, a suspicion that was confirmed at the end of the episode while she was forced to put on a happy face for a classroom of elementary school students.

While watching this episode, I was convinced that Selina would find a negative result when she took that pregnancy test. The show had already touched on several of the challenges she would face as a female vice-president who had a child out of wedlock. Abortion was hinted at only once, when Amy said, “You know you’ll have to keep it, right?” and Selina responded, “Yes…or go to Mexico and then kill the doctor.” But they both knew abortion was too big of a political risk, and instead, Selina called her boyfriend and assistant to arrange an engagement that supposedly took place weeks ago. Her only chance of saving face over an out-of-wedlock baby would be to marry the father and pretend the engagement was longer than the pregnancy.

Having explicitly made the point about Selina’s no-win bind, the show could have given her an easy out with a negative test result, but no – she was right all along. She’s pregnant.

I seriously doubt that a political satire like Veep would have Selina carry a pregnancy to term and then follow her journey as she tries to raise a newborn while serving as vice-president. It’s a storyline that would distract from the main focus of the show. So, assuming that the show doesn’t take the route of “whoops, it was a false positive!” there are only two choices available: a miscarriage or an abortion.

Having a female character miscarry an unwanted pregnancy is pretty standard for television. This way, the abortion issue is addressed and hinted at without having a character actually go through with it. The writers can pay lip service to the pro-choice crowd without seriously offending the anti-choicers.

However, Veep is on HBO, a pay channel that doesn’t have to follow network rules. Would Veep actually allow Selina to have an abortion?

I don’t know the answer to that question and I won’t know until next week, but I do wonder: what would be the implications of a character like Selina Meyer going through with an abortion?

A lot of pro-choice people desperately want to see more honest representations of abortion in television and film, where the woman wasn’t vilified, presented as a terrible person, or haunted by the decision for the rest of her life. But if Selina Meyer had an abortion on Veep, a show where the characters are mostly portrayed as hilariously awful people working in the hilariously awful world of Washington, D.C., how would that decision play with the audience? Would her choice to have an abortion be presented, or interpreted, as another example of the Selina being hilariously awful? Or would the choice be affirming, showing that abortion is normal, something that’s done by women who are neither saints nor villains, but simply human?

I’m not sure how to answer this question, and the show might not answer it either. Maybe she’ll miscarry or turn out to have a false positive. But I still think it’s worth thinking about and discussing, since portrayals of abortion are so few and far between.