No One Talks About the Icy Speculum of the Marketplace

I am totally fascinated by the recent wave of bloggers and columnists scratching their heads and wondering what it means that two different 2007 movies feature pregnant ladies who decide not to have an abortion.

What's happening to this country? Does this mean it's cool to get knocked up by accident? Can we expect a spike in unplanned teenage pregnancies? Etc.

Yes, yes, all fascinating. Except for one thing: If you want to make a movie about people dealing with the fallout of pregnancy, you need someone to be pregnant.

And that's why the protagonists in "Knocked Up" and "Juno" don't have abortions. The characters justify their decisions in various ways, but that's really the bottom line. The same principle obtains in "Nine Months," but I don't recommend watching it to verify my claim. Just take my word for it.

The very, very bottom line is that film is a visual medium, and a lady doesn't get babylicious until the fourth month. Your best visual gags will take place between months six and nine -- when you are way, way past the point of no-return, abortionwise, both medically and culturally. Bump=baby.

I know I'm teetering on the edge of becoming an insufferable old bore. Two and a half years of film school has turned me into the narrative equivalent of the irritating economics major I worked with in New York, who insisted that taxes restrain economic activity. I hated his smug ass then -- and still retain a lingering hatred for Princeton alums as a result -- but I concede, he had a point. Not one worth extrapolating into the WSJ's stated policy of No Taxes Ever For Anyone, but a point nonetheless.

But just as reduced income will limit spending, it is also true that if you want characters to deal with a situation, you have to put them, irrevocably, in that situation, whether it's pregnancy or an office tower being held hostage by terrorists or a plane full of snakes. You have to deal with all the possible exits, and block them off, one by one.

And that, really, is the only reason why no one has an abortion in a movie about pregnancy.