Thursday, July 28, 2011

That rare?

Woman has healthy baby at 50

Not that I know anything about this topic, apart from a dim memory from a sitcom in the 1970's, but I didn't think this was so rare:
A 50-year-old Queensland woman has made history as the oldest Australian woman to fall pregnant naturally and give birth to a healthy first child.
The sitcom I refer to was Maude, which had a controversial story in which the title character fell pregnant at an advanced age and decided to have an abortion. I thought she may have been in her 50's in the episode, but I see through the wonders of Wikipedia, that she was meant to be 47. Here's the summary:

Maude had an abortion in November 1972, two months before the Roe v. Wade decision made abortion legal nationwide, and the episodes that dealt with the situation are probably the series' most famous and most controversial. Maude, at age 47, was dismayed to find herself unexpectedly pregnant. Her daughter Carol brought to her attention that abortion was now legal in New York State. After some soul-searching (and discussions with Walter, who agreed that raising a baby at their stage of life was not what they wanted to do), Maude tearfully decided at the end of the two-parter that abortion was probably the best choice for their lives and their marriage. Noticing the controversy around the episode, CBS decided to rerun the episodes in August 1973, and members of the country's clergy reacted strongly to the decision.
TV was indeed controversial in those days. I was never a fan of the Norman Lear sitcoms, but for some reason I remember seeing at least a bit of this episode. I must have only been a young teenager myself at the time; I'm surprised I was interested enough in the controversy at that age.

1 comment:

PB said...

I know Mad Magazine did a double page spread on spin-offs from the All-in-the-family with existing and proposed spin-offs. I'd never seen Maude but Mad's summary stuck in my mind. It was "Maude does really funny things like have abortions".