NBC’s comedy Superstore joined the ranks of other Hollywood shows that devalue unborn human life, likening a preborn baby to a “horrible parasite eating and pissing inside” of the surrogate mother and comparing him/her to a “bag of garbage” who should “figure out its own gender.”
Thursday night’s episode “Gender Reveal,” had surrogate mother Dina (Lauren Ash), an employee of “Cloud 9” superstore who is carrying a baby for her boss Glenn (Mark McKinney) and his wife Jerusha (Kerri Kenney), become frightened after seeing the unborn child she’s carrying for the first time on a 4D sonogram.
It's all becoming too real for Dina and she is sent into a panic when customers all share horrific birth stories and she watches a documentary on farm animal births. She walks up to Glenn and tells him she needs to talk to him. When he asks if something is wrong, she says, “No, no, no. They just sent us the wrong receipt paper again, and I also decided I no longer want to carry your baby, so we'll just go over all that.” Which leads to the conversation where she compares the baby to a bag of garbage. Dina has this idea that she can somehow transfer the baby from her womb to someone else's, like "moving a bag of garbage from the kitchen to the side of the house."
Thankfully, there was no mention of abortion as a “solution,” but the devaluing of unborn human life got worse as fellow employees Amy (America Ferrera) and Cheyenne (Nichole Bloom) try to comfort Dina and ease her concerns about giving birth:
Dina: I did not think this through. And now, I have a horrible parasite just eating and pissing inside me.
Cheyenne: My friend Corona swallowed a tape worm to lose weight, and it ate one of her organs. She looked really good at prom, though.
Amy: Look, Dina, it's just for a few more months.
Dina: Yeah, and then I get to endure the most gruesome pain imaginable. The phrase "Cut from hole to hole" was said to me.
Amy: You know, it really didn't hurt that much. I remember thinking, like, big whoop. Way to over-hype it, women.
Cheyenne: Really? 'Cause for me, it was like...It was--it was like nothing.
Amy: Yeah, it was like bad cramps.
Cheyenne: Yeah, or like pooping, with blood and screaming and then a face comes out of you.
Amy does fortunately share that when she took a pregnancy test recently that turned out to be negative, she, “kind of realized I kind of wanted to be pregnant again...Because I remembered how amazing it felt,” Amy says. “It's like, you're carrying this life. You're a god.” Well, no, God is God and He is the one that knits life in the womb. But at least they acknowledged the humanity of the unborn and showed a positive side of pregnancy, emphasizing the amazing life-giving role God gave to women.
It didn’t last long though, as we discover that Amy took a Cloud 9 pregnancy test which ended up being defective. When she takes several other tests, they all show that she is in fact pregnant after all. Dina then turns from the frightened one to the comforting one and points out to Amy, “You said you wanted to be pregnant again.”
Amy is visibly upset and answers, “I was obviously lying. No one wants to be pregnant. It's terrible.” As it turns out, Amy is pregnant by her ex-husband with whom she had a one-night-stand - she couldn’t resist him because he was wearing an Obama shirt. “I just miss Obama so much,” Amy says. “Wow, it’s like, 'Thanks, Obama,'” Cheyenne replies.
After staring at baby clothes in the store, and seeing Glenn carrying baby supplies to give to Jerusha at the gender reveal party, Amy starts panicking further and Dina offers to take her for a drive to get away. But Dina has something planned that thankfully Amy wants no part of:
Dina: So, are we talking broken condom, or a pull and pray situation?
Amy: Can we not talk about that?
Dina: Sure. Sure, sure. What do you think Alex is gonna say when he finds out you're pregnant with Adam's baby?
Amy: Let's not talk about that either.
Dina: Okay, all right. Are you gonna get an abortion?
Amy: How about we just listen to the radio? Oh, right, no radio.
Dina: Look, we can ride in silence. That is fine by me. I just needed to know if I should head towards the clinic. The abortion clinic. For an abortion.
Amy: No. Let's not head to the abortion clinic.
Dina: You're sure?
Amy: Yeah.
Dina: Hey, Siri, cancel route.
Siri: Okay, I've stopped navigating.
At least that storyline ended on a positive note with a big no to going to the abortion clinic. But then comes the gender reveal party.
Unbeknownst to Glenn and Jerusha, the envelope containing the gender of the baby was lost by employee Garrett (Colton Dunn), who was supposed to keep it safe and away from Glenn who was tempted to peek before the party. Which leaves Garrett scrambling for a way to hide his mistake, and he ends up using liberal arguments on gender identity as a cover for not knowing the gender:
I don't know. You don't know. The doctor doesn't even know. I mean, what is gender, anyway, right? It's just a construct. I mean, look around. We got a football, you got ballet. You guys are writing this baby's code before it even comes out! You're perpetuating gender stereotypes! How about we let this kid figure out its own gender? You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.
"You guys should be ashamed of yourselves." My thoughts exactly, only the shame is on Superstore. Because a few positive quotes about unborn human life do not make up for comparing an unborn child to a "horrible parasite."
