Last night, NBC's Law & Order portrayed pro-lifers as terrorist bombers who target IVF (in-vitro fertilization) practitioners.
In the episode, "The Meaning of Life," on Thursday, an IVF doctor named Sarah Heartwood (Erica Sweany) is left in an irreversible coma after receiving a bomb-laden package.
Heartwood's husband is a well-known atheist author. Law enforcement initially suspects the bomber is a Muslim plumber who attacked her husband at a book lecture. When the plumber provides an alibi, NYPD next arrests a black man who delivered the package. Of course, neither the Muslim nor the black man are the killer. The real killer turns out to be a "random white guy," in the words of one of the detectives. Surprise!
The black man who delivered the package tells Detectives Jalen Shaw (Mehcad Brooks) and Vincent Riley (Reid Scott) that a white guy paid him to drop it off at Heartland's house. The white man wore a bracelet with the words "Jeremy 15."
Shaw and Riley discuss the "Jeremy" mystery with their Lieutenant, Jessica Brady (Maura Tierney).
Brady: Was he able to give you a description of the bomber?
Shaw: One that fits half of New York City.
Brady: What about security cameras in the area where the bag was supposedly handed off?
Shaw: We're not gonna have a lot of luck down there. Most of the cameras are busted. The one thing he did give us was that the so-called perp might go by the name Jeremy.
Riley: All right, what if Jeremy 15 is actually Jeremiah 1:5? "Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee." 13 years of Catholic school. But blue bag, pink box. Those are pro-life colors.
Brady: And our vic's a fertility doctor, right?
Riley: Yeah.
Brady: Well, that's close enough for some anti-choice people these days. Check it out.
From this point onward, the episode morphs into a full-blown democrat propaganda piece. Detectives Shaw and Riley visit the IVF facility where Heartwood worked. While there, a female staff member rails against "the anti-choice, anti-science, anti-woman groups."
Nurse: She was one of the top fertility doctors in the country.
Riley: Did Dr. Heartwood ever perform abortions?
Nurse: From time to time those are medically necessary, but they get referred out. Why?
Shaw: She might have been targeted by somebody in the pro-life movement.
Nurse: The anti-choice, anti-science, anti-woman groups, you mean?
Riley: I'm guessing there's some issues there, huh?
Nurse: Especially since the new fetal personhood movement came knocking.
Shaw: I'm sorry, fetal personhood?
Nurse: [Sighs] The largest embryo we ever freeze is a mere 100 cells, invisible to the human eye, but the Alabama Supreme Court just ruled those cells a human life.
Shaw: And I bet the fetal personhood movement doesn't like you guys destroying unused embryos.
Nurse: They think it's mass murder.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled in favor of grieving parents who filed a wrongful death suit against a clinic that negligently destroyed their human embryos. The Alabama legislature later passed an "IVF immunity law" for clinics. However, this episode's clunky dialogue has no interest in grappling with questions about the medical ethics of in-vitro fertilization. It instead spends most of the episode vilifying both right-to-lifers and religious believers.
"Meaning of Life" has a brief moment of nuance when Detective Riley mentions the grief he and his wife experienced after losing a child from an early miscarriage. Riley's dialogue gives obligatory nods to pro-abortion rhetoric but rejects the view that the child was mere "cells."
Riley: In the tri-state area alone, there's over three dozen pro-life organizations.
Shaw: All affiliated with some religion, I presume.
Riley: Yeah, mostly Catholic and Southern Baptist.
Shaw: Yeah, well, way to make a stand, fellas.
Riley: I mean, I get it, but it's complicated.
Shaw: Oh, yeah. Forgot I'm talking to a nice Catholic boy over here.
Riley: Not really. I mean, my wife had a miscarriage between our two kids.
Shaw: Oh, sorry.
Riley: Yeah. It was early on in the pregnancy. And my wife, she's the furthest thing from a churchgoer, let me tell you. She's never gonna tell another woman what to do with her body, but she grieved it, man. I mean, I felt that too. So I get it. I get the importance of choice and I get the science, but she was not grieving cells, let me tell you that.
Shaw: Sorry, brother.
The episode soon returns to its in-your-face ideological agenda when Assistant District Attorney Samantha Maroun (Odelya Halevi) comes on the scene. Week after week, Maroun is the voice of left-wing women everywhere. Her character has all the subtlety of a pussy-hat marcher.
Since Heartland has been declared brain-dead but is still breathing, the district attorney's office wants to charge the bomber, Patrick Wayne (Chase Ramsey), with attempted murder. Maroun argues for a murder charge instead.
"He killed a woman for giving other women reproductive choices. And Patrick Wayne is not some lone lunatic. He is part of a movement, a growing movement, who is mounting an attack on women's rights. We have to send a message," she cries when prosecutors are discussing charges.
Such dialogue slanders the entire pro-life movement as potential terrorists. This sort of accusation is very much in line with the extreme rhetoric and behavior of the Biden Administration. Biden's Department of Justice has targeted and imprisoned peaceful pro-lifers and portrayed them as a dangerous threat to the nation. Law and Order is just pushing Democratic fear-mongering right before election day.
Heartwood's husband, who is still grieving after the bombing, is reluctant to shut off his wife's life support. Maroun wants to make sure Wayne gets life in prison for murder and knows the jury will not convict him for that charge if the victim is still breathing. She pressures Heartwood's husband to shut off the machines even though he does not yet feel ready to do so. Her character is so radical that she ultimately behaves in a coercive manner toward a grieving husband to ensure the verdict she wants.
Law and Order regularly takes its cues from Democratic talking points. In the end, the character in "Meaning of Life" who most reflects the Democrats' ideology and intended audience is also the character who comes across as the most heartless.
