If you missed Law and Order Friday night, you missed one of
the program’s most controversial episodes.  Recently L&O has been predictably liberal, but this
episode deals with late term and partial birth abortions in a balanced manner. While
the standard L&O structure is maintained–detectives arrest a murderer of
an abortion doctor and the lawyers try the case–the show is actually about pro
and con abortion arguments between the detectives and then among the lawyers.

Here is how LifeSiteNews.com describes the episode entitled “Dignity.”

As Dave Andrusko writes on the NRLC’s website: “What makes the Law
& Order episode so riveting is that virtually every pro-life
argument you knew you would never hear on a network program is a part
of ‘Dignity.'” 

“More important, it occurred to me as I
listened in utter astonishment that each of these observations could
have been presented in a way that was artificial, forced, or (as so
often is the case with network portraits of pro-lifers) something that
you would expect from an idiot. None of that was the case. These were
real flesh-and-blood people, not caricatures.” 

Early in the
episode, for instance, Detectives Lupo and Bernard argue with each
other over abortion.  Lupo says that forcing an 11-year old rape victim
to give birth is unthinkable, to which Bernard responds: “You got it
backwards, man! The horrible thing is the rape! Not the bringing of a
life into the world.” 

He continues by pointing out that he himself was born to an unwed mother, and that Lupo very nearly had another partner. 

Similarly,
when Executive Assistant District Attorney, Michael Cutter argues with
District Attorney Jack McCoy about whether they should give Grogan a
plea bargain, Cutter compares abortion to slavery and Grogan to John
Brown.  He continues by arguing that Roe v. Wade conformed but to the
science of its day, and that it deserves another look.   

When witnesses begin to take the stand, however, the contrast between the pro-abortion and pro-life position only grows. 

One
abortionist, called as witness for the prosecution, says that the life
of the disabled child Benning was going to abort would be without
dignity.  He continues to say that even if politicians make abortion
illegal and “bow to the hypocrites and fools” of the pro-life movement,
he would continue to perform abortions despite the law. 

Perhaps
the most surprising issue the episode raised is the connection of
abortion with infanticide.  Over the course of the case, the defense,
desiring to show that Benning was a murderer, calls a witness to
testify how a breathing, born-alive infant was killed by Dr. Benning. 

“The
boy was crying a little cry, moving his arms and legs,” she says.  “Dr.
Benning cut the umbilical cord; then he took the surgical scissors and
inserted it into the base of the baby’s skull.”