{"id":212738,"date":"2019-10-21T08:22:28","date_gmt":"2019-10-21T13:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=212738"},"modified":"2019-10-19T14:06:56","modified_gmt":"2019-10-19T19:06:56","slug":"law-order-svu-women-die-heartbeat-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/law-order-svu-women-die-heartbeat-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Law & Order: SVU’ says women will die because of pro-life heartbeat laws"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

(Newsbusters MRC<\/a>)\u00a0Abortion has been a surprisingly popular topic on television this week. New Amsterdam<\/em><\/a>, Bull<\/em><\/a>, and Empire<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>have all openly referenced, debated, or supported the right to kill an unborn child. Now NBC\u2019s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit <\/em>is joining the pack with a plot focused entirely around abortion.<\/p>\n

The October 17 episode \u201cThe Burden of Our Choices\u201d follows the SVU investigating a 13-year-old runaway named Evangeline (Kira McLean). Evangeline comes from a fundamentalist Christian family (because, of course) in Ohio, but after her stepfather rapes her (another easy trope), she escapes to New York to have an abortion due to Ohio\u2019s fetal heartbeat law (which, in real life, was blocked by a judge). Once the parents come to retrieve her, it doesn\u2019t take long for Evangeline\u2019s case to become a full-on court battle.<\/p>\n

You see, Ohio requires permission from a family member 21 or older to have an abortion, but New York<\/a> doesn\u2019t require any parental supervision, hence Evangeline\u2019s decision. Being the fanatically religious woman she is, Evangeline\u2019s mother Tammy (Lucy Walters) refuses to let her daughter abort her grandchild and refuses to believe Evangeline\u2019s claim that her stepfather is the rapist. Therefore, she takes on an extremely pro-life lawyer to sue the police department for attempted murder for allowing Evangeline to try and get an abortion. This sparks a protest of the lawsuit, complete with Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/a> <\/em>protestors.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Do preborn children have an actual heartbeat? The answer is yes.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The SVU themselves debate the case, which mostly consists of newest member Katriona Tamin (Jaime Gray Hyder) complaining about pro-life laws. She bemoans the \u201cold white men\u201d trying to control a girl\u2019s choice and also references\u00a0The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/a> <\/em>as a possible future. Lieutenant Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) concurs, fearing poor women will return to back-alley abortions, which were never that prevalent<\/a>. [Live Action News Editor’s Note<\/strong>: See here<\/a> for the truth about “back alley abortions” prior to Roe v. Wade.]<\/em> The resident Catholic Carisi (Peter Scanavino) hardly even puts up a fight against them since he\u2019s there to \u201cuphold the girl\u2019s rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n