Pro-Choice Bella
Bella is not a perfect movie; but I think it’s an important one, and just about everything you would want in a film.
It is a bit choppy in its use of a creative mix of flashbacks and foreword-shots to force the viewer to discover what is happening a little bit at a time. This necessitates that the plot be kept simple so the viewer can figure it out, so the challenge is never overwhelming and more like putting a puzzle together. Just like the way you hear neighborhood gossip, in bits and pieces a little bit at a time in no special order.
Bella is the story of a young single waitress who gets fired because of a few absences caused by pregnancy related illness, and about how the restaurant’s chef is attracted to her and eventually adopts her baby. The plot is actually a good deal more complicated as it portrays the emotional and ethical struggles over abortion in their broader social context.
Many have seen this as a pro-life movie ( 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 ), because it takes a stand against the abortion trend; and in the positive sense of promoting the better option for choosing life it is indeed pro-life, since it illustrates how real human life is not some isolated existence – not the mere fact of existence as an embryo or as another body count statistic – but rather the quality of the interconnectedness of caring relationships that sustains us all, and which we each need.
But I would argue Bella is actually a pro-choice presentation when it comes to the politics of abortion.
The story works because it respectfully leaves the ultimate choice of whether to have an abortion in the hands of the mother; and it only works because someone was motivated to help the mother find a hopeful future for her baby. The rights of the fetus are not in focus, and quite properly, an emphasis on preventing abortion is not presented as the pro-life message.
Bella emphasizes that for a human being to thrive a child should have a loving family – a baby should be wanted. Social conditions need to exist where families and neighborhoods characterized by positive relationships can thrive. The mother had nothing to offer her child. The chef had all the connections for a rich family life.
Bella is pro-life in a positive sense. It is against abortion when you have an option to provide a viable family for your baby, an option the film recognizes not everyone has, though perhaps every pregnant mother wants it for her unborn child. And it demonstrates that it will take a lot of interpersonal love and caring outreach to unwed mothers to really address the challenge of unplanned, unwanted pregnancies.
I wonder how many pro-lifers really understand the social implications of this film. Or if they can still think their main responsibility is to protest abortion and just get laws against it passed? There really is a big difference between simply being against something and taking action to reduce the need for it.
How can we help reduce the pressures that lead people to see abortion as the solution to their problems? There are a wide range of preventive and alternative measures that could reduce the abortion rate, and there is also a need for more preschool options to support working families as children grow older and young families continue to need support at the most vulnerable time of a child’s development.
Pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion.
Pro-choice means allowing mothers to choose a real life for their child.
Supporting pro-choice means promoting a social environment where children will be wanted, cared for, and where they can thrive.
