Days of our Lives has decided to join the pro-choice soap opera bandwagon when abortion is foremost in people’s minds after the June 24th Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Like General Hospital’s pro-choice tale involving Willow Tait, DAYS also got the whole thing wrong.
A Tale Of Two Abortion Stories
On GH, Willow Tait (Katelyn MacMullen) was thrilled to find out she was pregnant but soon horrified to learn she had leukemia. She was in a committed relationship, desperately wanted another child, and chose to delay chemo until her second trimester for the sake of her baby when so many women in the United States are currently being denied cancer treatment due to the Roe decision.
They are not legally allowed to make a choice for their own health when they have other children to take care of, while Willow made a choice for an embryo’s health rather than her own, not thinking about her other child, Wiley Corinthos.
On DAYS, Jada Hunter (Elia Cantu) made a choice about her own pregnancy, but it didn’t seem to be her own choice. Instead, it was someone else’s advice Jada didn’t want nor need, but for some reason, she took it anyway.
Nicole Opened Her Mouth, And Out Came Garbage
Since arriving on the Salem scene, Jada has been presented to us as a strong, smart, ambitious, and independent woman who can make her own decisions in life and who certainly doesn’t need a man. That doesn’t mean she didn’t quickly fall for a man — a man who was available and seemed to also fall for her. By the time Jada learned she was pregnant, that man, Eric Brady (Greg Vaughan), decided to reunite with his ex-wife, Nicole Walker (Arianne Zucker), which left Jada wondering what to do.
After careful consideration, Jada decided she’d have the baby, and she and Eric would co-parent but no longer be romantically involved. It’s something two people decide every day in the real world, and although it has its difficulties, it is a choice Jada was allowed to make with no interference. After all, her life was not at risk, and she knew she wanted children one day, even if the timing was not what she had planned.
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A week ago, Jada seemed thrilled with her decision, and she and Eric shared the news with their loved ones. Then, Nicole decided she had to have her say and what she said left our jaws on the floor. It was clear that Nicole did not care one bit about Jada or her baby when she callously lamented to her the woes of being pregnant and raising a child on her own. She then asked her why she would even want to have a baby with a man who didn’t love her.
Days of our Lives Had Nicole Make Jada’s Choice
First, Nicole had no business talking to Jada about her pregnancy, no matter what decision Jada made. Jada wasn’t the other woman when the child was conceived. She was in a relationship with Eric, and Nicole was married to Rafe Hernandez (Galen Gering). Just because Nicole and Eric ultimately decided to be together, it didn’t mean she had any say or any right to give Jada advice on Jada’s pregnancy.
When Jada quickly kicked Nicole right out after her snarky little speech, we were proud and assumed she would just take Nicole’s words with a grain of salt. By the end of the episode, we knew she was rethinking things, but we didn’t expect she would have an abortion within a day and then tell Eric that she changed her mind after Nicole’s interference. Yes, she also told Eric that Nicole wasn’t her sole reason for doing what she did, but Nicole was the first reason she brought up as she recited Nicole’s words right back to Eric. Clearly, Nicole had a lot to do with her decision.
Out there in the Twitterverse, some fans suspect Jada might be lying to Eric about the abortion to keep the baby away from Nicole. Even if that turns out to be the case, using a fake abortion as a plot point is probably worse than having one woman influence another woman’s decision about her body and whether to allow that body to carry a child.
Abortion is neither a black nor white issue and is filled with shades of grey. If soaps want to tell abortion stories, then they need to get it right, read the room (or, in this case, the country), and handle the choice and reasons for the choice with care. Neither GH nor DAYS have done that this year, the one year in U.S. history when it was so important to get this right.
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