Florida is more understanding than Georgia towards a young woman who desperately needs an abortion because her foster father raped her? Or at least that was the case in a flashback to 2001 in last week’s new episode of Will Trent, a police drama on TV based on the fiction books by Karin Slaughter.
The first episode aired back on January 3, I gave it four and a half stars out of five. On last week’s episode, the show’s seventh, Special Agent Will Trent (Ramón Rodríguez) of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations (GBI) investigates the theft of several boxes of rifles by a group of white supremacists, and is almost beaten to death.
Earlier on in the episode, Will’s dog, Betty (Bluebell), is toying with the instructions for a pregnancy test. Will calls his girlfriend, Detective Angie Polaski (Erika Christensen) of the Atlanta Police Department (APD), but gets no answer.
My first thought, though, was that maybe Nico (Cora Lu Tran) was pregnant, no idea by whom. Other viewers thought about Polaski getting pregnant by Detective Michael Ormewood (Jake McLaughlin), he’s kind of a jerk. That would have the vibe of Nick Newman and Adam Newman fighting over Sally Spectra on The Young and the Restless. But Polaski hooking up with Ormewood was a one-time fling years ago, so he’s not the father, if Polaski’s pregnant.
Will goes to Angie’s APD precinct and she explains that she hasn’t taken the pregnancy test yet. They both remember a time more than twenty years ago she was pregnant, not by Will nor Michael but by a foster parent. This prompts several This Is Us-style flashbacks, though these have an edge of grit.
Angie (Savannah Hutson) of course did not want to carry her rapist’s baby, so she had Will (Andres G. Velez) drive her to Florida. It was the first time Will had ever been outside of Georgia. On the way, Will contemplates killing their foster father, Angie talks him out of it. Maybe Angie’s the one who kills that bastard. I don’t know, I haven’t read any of the books.
I’m not sure how realistic the story is. In 2003, the Florida Supreme Court struck down a law requiring parental notification for a young woman’s abortion, two years after a lower appeals court upheld it.
But that was back when the right of abortion was, as alleged rapist Brett Kavanaugh said at his confirmation hearing, “stare decisis.” Don’t anyone forget that Kavanaugh was the second of three illegitimately seated Supreme Court justices as part of Moscow Mitch’s court packing strategy. The fanatical court packing quickly led to the hasty repeal of Roe v. Wade.
That put several red states in a race to outdo each other in the cruelty and inhumanity of their forced birth laws. In Florida in particular, the overturn of Roe v. Wade is already having tragic consequences. The laws in Saudi Arabia look enlightened by comparison.
In Florida, it doesn’t matter if a woman was raped by her foster father or if the doctors agree the baby’s not viable, she must carry the baby to term, even if only to die soon after in the case of unviability. And who cares about the viable babies born into otherwise horrible situations.
Republicans shed so many tears about the “murdered babies,” but what about holding rapists accountable? Or what about funding research into genetic abnormalities? What about anything that might reduce the need for abortions?
But you already know Republicans don’t care about any of that. You already know it’s about controlling and punishing women. If men could get pregnant, a very nebulous criterion of well-being of the father would be sufficient to justify terminating any pregnancy.
In the story, teenage Angie was already very jaded, much more so than teenage Will. She had no faith in the legal system to hold her foster father accountable for raping her. Terminating the pregnancy without pressing charges against her rapist was the least terrible option, and Will supported her in her decision.
Will Trent airs on ABC Tuesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern. The episodes are also available for streaming on Hulu the day after first airing. According to TV Guide, in tonight’s episode,
Will gets a case that hits close to home, but there’s more to the incident than meets the eye. Meanwhile, Angie and Ormewood investigate a murdered magician while uncovering some extra tricks up his sleeve.
P.S. On The Young and the Restless, Nick, not Adam, is the father of Sally’s baby. Don’t know if she would have considered abortion had Nick turned out to be the father instead.