Netflix’s popular drama series Dead to Me released its second season on Friday. But the first season, which debuted last May in the midst of the abortion controversy over the Alabama ban and similar restrictions across the United States, featured a curiously compelling line about fetal heartbeats.
If you haven’t caught up yet, now is the perfect time to binge both seasons. The highly entertaining, smartly written series stars Christina Applegate as Jen Harding, a recently widowed real estate agent, who meets Linda Cardellini’s Judy Hale at a grief group. The two women kick off a friendship that steers the course of the show’s narrative. Minor spoilers for the show’s pilot follow.
After Jen explodes at Judy for lying to her about the death of her fiance, Judy tells her the real reason she attends the grief group is because she suffered a series of miscarriages. She tries to diminish the importance of such a trauma, saying it’s not an “actual thing.” But Jen, in an effort to apologize and reconnect with her, validates her experience in a moment of empathy.
“I think it is an actual thing — I mean, not if a Republican is asking,” Jen confesses. “But you heard a heartbeat. And you fell in love in that heartbeat.”
The line is surprising in its self-awareness, coming from pro-abortion Hollywood, but it works from a screenwriting perspective. In order for the show’s narrative to continue, the two women at its head must reconnect in a genuine, heartfelt manner that both restores and strengthens their friendship. That this reconciliation occurs over a shared recognition of the humanizing power of a fetal heartbeat is remarkable.
Series creator and showrunner Liz Feldman is no friend to unwanted fetuses, having retweeted several posts promoting wider abortion access. But whether she knows it or not, this line may be tapping into the growing movement against abortion among younger generations, a movement that transcends the boundaries of politics, religion, and other social issues.
Pro-choice fans of Dead to Me might be quick to point out that the fetal heartbeat is a source of reconciliation between Jen and Judy only because Judy actually wants children — and they would be right to do so. Judy’s heartbreaking struggle is shared by more than 6 million women across the U.S., and Feldman even revealed in a vulnerable opinion piece that it echoes her own fertility journey. Motherhood is a huge theme of the show throughout its 10-episode first season, and this year’s offering will likely continue that thread. The fact that Dead to Me touts both motherhood and feminism as interlinked is inspiring and empowering, and it really works for the show’s characters as they navigate through the plot’s twists and turns.
But regardless of how much Judy wants to be a mother and how powerfully that desire enriches her friendship with Jen, whether a preborn child is wanted has nothing to do with its inherent humanity, a fact continually proven by every scientific and technological advancement in the field. To ignore the fetal heartbeat as a sign of life only because that life wasn’t planned is dangerously unscientific. Jen and Judy’s touching moment of connection over the heartbeat is a much more appropriate response, and it provides a faint glimmer of hope for the growing pro-life movement.
It’s doubtful, of course, that Hollywood will become a pro-life haven anytime soon, but it is encouraging to see within the echo chamber a growing awareness of the value and impact of a fetal life. While it may be frustrating to hear the hypocritical sentiment that someone might hide that opinion “if a Republican is asking,” at least it shows that even progressives might be slowly, privately, catching up with scientific truth — one heartbeat at a time.
Brian Ericson (@brianscott67) is an editor and political writer from Nashville. His writing has been featured in the Washington Examiner, Free the People, Townhall, The Tennessean, and Spiked magazine.
