A Pro-Life Eminem Song?

Just recently, on June 24th, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, putting an end to the 1973 decision that guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion. As I discussed the joyful news with friends and family, my mind began to think of all the ways to celebrate. Naturally, I thought of listening to music or watching a movie that upheld the value of life. These days, scrolling through many of the Netflix thumbnails or listening to new music releases will often yield negative results. The entertainment we all consume unfortunately has many topics that promote death and destruction rather than life. I admit it, pro-life messages often seem hard to come by in popular media these days, but looking further into it, I’ve found a surprising amount of modern songs, movies, and books that promote the pro-life view. Without further ado, here are a few sources of art that communicate the value of life, even from some unlikely sources.

 

“River”- Eminem

Rapper Eminem is one of the most popular and controversial singers of the past 20 years. He often has a reputation for stirring up discussion with his vulgar lyrics and bluntness about many topics. He’s known for songs like “Lose Yourself,” “‘Till I Collapse,” and “I’m Not Afraid,” but one lesser-known song caught my attention when I saw it being reviewed on several Catholic websites. In 2017, Eminem released the song “River,” featuring Ed Sheeran on the refrain. I was pleasantly surprised when I found that the song had a pro-life message to it, from a perspective that’s not often brought up: the father’s point of view. Eminem tells the story of a man having an affair with a woman, “Suzanne.” He regrets his decision in the lyrics, “Hi Suzanne, but I shoulda said, Bye Suzanne.” He wants to move on, but the guilt of using her weighs on him when he sings, “Why do I do this dirt that I do?” Then the man finds out that the woman is pregnant. In a panic, he wants the mother to get an abortion. “We can’t bring her into this world,” refers to the baby daughter he might have had. Towards the end of the song, the man takes full responsibility for his actions and selfishness: “I made you terminate my baby.” Eminem doesn’t shy away from his typical brutal honesty here. He wishes for what could have been had the baby lived: “bet I really woulda loved your smile.” However, he can’t run from the truth: “what’s one more lie/ to tell our unborn child.” 

The refrain is equally sorrowful and honest when Ed Sheeran sings, “All my sins need holy water, feel it washing over me. Well, little one, I don’t wanna admit to something if all it’s gonna cause is pain/ the truth and my lies now are falling like the rain.” It seems the man is asking for forgiveness here with the imagery of the holy water washing over him. “River” is a reminder that not only are mothers and children affected by abortion, fathers are too. Now I’m not here to argue for or against Eminem’s music. However, it’s nice to see a mainstream rapper tell the truth about how abortion affects men. It could be a nice way to ask men to embrace their role as fathers, even in the most difficult circumstances.

 

A Quiet Place

Now we turn to the cinema for pro-life themes. A Quiet Place was a hit in the horror movie genre when it came out in 2018. The movie starred husband and wife duo John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, with Krasinski also directing. The film follows the Abbott family, who are hunted by alien creatures who have taken over the planet. The aliens are blind, but they have acute hearing abilities, so the human survivors literally live like abbots of a monastery would, in almost total silence. There are plenty of moments of sacrificial love from each of the family members throughout the movie, especially from the parents. At one point, the father of the family, Lee, sacrifices himself to save his children, by shouting so that the aliens are lured away from his kids. It’s a beautiful and heartbreaking scene, but perhaps one of the greatest moments of upholding life in this story is the fact that the mother, Evelyn, is pregnant throughout the movie. Some might scratch their heads at why Lee and Evelyn didn’t decide to perform a makeshift abortion, given the difficulties of birthing and raising a child in the circumstances they’re in. Yet Evelyn carries the baby to term, and the whole family stands up to protect her during labor, even as the house is surrounded by monstrous creatures. By the end, the movie lets us know that even in a dangerous and challenging world, every life is valued, and life itself is worth living.

 

The Giver

The last pop culture icon I want to discuss is the classic book, The Giver, by Lois Lowry. In a dystopian future, a young boy, Jonas, is assigned to be the next Receiver of Memory. His job is to bear all the memories from history, in order to advise the Council of the Elders. The older Receiver of Memory, known as the Giver, begins transferring the memories to Jonas throughout the story. No one else in Jonas’ Community has the knowledge he bears, so they are completely oblivious to things like hunger and war, as they live rigid and controlled. At one point, Jonas’ father, who works at the Nurturing Center (where babies are genetically engineered), brings home a child whose health is concerning him. Jonas soon finds out the fate of the baby if he does not grow stronger. The Giver shows him a hidden-camera video that reveals that the members of the Community who aren’t wanted are given lethal injection and disposed of. Jonas is filled with horror and ends up rescuing the baby, risking everything in order to give him a better future.

 

Whether intentional or not, these three sources of entertainment, along with many more, have resounding messages and themes of pro-life. For me, it’s always refreshing to see the popular art and stories of our time promote the most fundamental human right: the right to life, from conception to natural death. I’ll end with a quote from another pro-life film, Horton Hears a Who: “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”

Written by the Holy Rukus