Miscellaneous Videos - 325

Miscellaneous Videos - 324

The 1916 Movie "Where Are My Children?"

The Turner Classic Movies (TCM) cable-television channel recently broadcast the 1916 silent movie titled Where Are My Children? This must be the first movie ever made about the subject of abortion. The movie opposes abortion but advocates contraceptives as a good alternative.

YouTube provides the entire movie:

The Embryo Project Encyclopedia provides an informative article about the movie. In particular, the following passage summarizes the story:

In the first scene, Richard Walton is introduced as a district attorney who wants children. He is involved with an obscenity law suit, in which a physician has been distributing illegal contraception information to poor families. The physician advocates for birth control literature to promote the claim that wealthier families should have more children, as those children would have supposedly superior traits. Walton argues the case against the physician because the literature was considered obscene and inappropriate, violating the Comstock Act. The scene concludes with the court's decision to jail the physician for distributing illegal materials.

In the next scene, Walton returns home and sees his neighbor's three children playing outside. The film suggests that the sight saddens Walton, as he wants children, but the scene also implies that Walton wants children as a means to pass down his and his wife's supposedly superior physical and social traits. The film depicts Walton and his wife as an example of an ideal eugenic relationship because both are white and are upper class and thus have supposedly superior traits. His wife is depicted as a selfish woman because she does not want children, as they would disrupt her social life. In the following scene, Walton's sister-in-law visits the couple with her healthy child. The film introduces the child as the product of a eugenic relationship, from white, upper class parents. Despite her sister's visits with a healthy child, Walton's wife reinforces her sentiments about not wanting to have children by always engaging in social parties with her friends.

In those scenes, the film shows unwanted children from aborted pregnancies as angels in the sky with messages from Weber and her co-writers who advocate against the practice of abortion. The scenes are depicted with clouds, fanfare, and golden gates slowly opening, revealing unwanted children. The unwanted children appear throughout the film to indicate that a woman is pregnant and plans to get an abortion.

The next scene shows Walton's wife after she becomes pregnant. When Walton's wife is aware of her pregnancy, the presence of an unwanted child flies down from the sky and appears faintly besides her. Based on her socialite friends' suggestions, she visits the physician Herman Malfit to abort the unintended pregnancy.

In the middle part of the film, two visitors surprise the Waltons: Mrs. Walton's younger brother and the daughter of the Waltons' maid's. The brother seduces the maid's daughter and becomes pregnant. In the meantime, Walton's wife is busy socializing with her friends, and she becomes pregnant again but schedules another abortion. At the same time, her brother finds out about the maid's daughter's pregnancy and convinces her to abort the pregnancy. With the help of Walton's wife, who recommends the physician Malfit, the maid's daughter aborts her unwanted pregnancy. However, unlike in the case of Walton wife's, Malfit errs during the abortion procedure, and the maid's daughter dies from the complications. Before she dies, she confesses to her mother, the Waltons' maid, about her pregnancy.

In the next scene, Walton hears about the death of his maid's daughter and is angered by the news of the abortion. He physically confronts his wife's younger brother, who tells him who performed the abortion. In response, Walton brings Malfit to trial for performing an illegal abortion. In response, Malfit asks Walton's wife to persuade her husband to stop pursuing the case. He threatens to expose her abortions to her husband if she does not comply. Walton's wife tries to dissuade Walton, but he refuses to stop the trial. Throughout the trial, Walton's wife is shown socializing with her friends. At the trial, Malfit is not allowed to present evidence for his case, and he is sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

The film depicts Malfit as angered by his sentence, and in a fit of rage he shows his schedule book to Walton telling him to look at his own household. Walton looks into Malfit's papers and realizes that he has no children because his wife aborted her multiple pregnancies. Walton comes home after the case and finds his wife engaged in a social party with her friends. He yells at her friends, declaring that he should bring them all to trial for being murderesses and demands that everyone leaves. When her friends leave the house, Walton confronts his wife, asking her, "Where are my children?"

In the next scene, Walton is shown looking sadly at his neighbor's children, and as the film progresses, he eventually forgives his wife. The scene implies that Walton understands that his marriage is not a eugenic marriage, one where they would be able to pass down his and his wife's supposedly superior physical and social traits, and that he would never be able to raise a good family. Walton's wife, with a guilty conscience, prays for children. However, the film implies that because she had aborted her previous pregnancies, she could no longer become pregnant. The end of the film shows the couple sitting in front of a fireplace. In the scene, three imaginary unwanted children play in front of Walton. The scene then changes, showing that the unwanted children have grown and embrace Walton imaginatively. The film ends with the couple sitting alone in front of the fireplace with Walton's wife immersed in her guilty conscience.

The movie was written, produced and directed by a woman, Lois Weber.