“The Captain’s Hand” faces religious fundamentalism head-on as a pregnant teen seeks asylum, as well as an abortion, aboard the Galactica. Admiral Adama meets with Roslin on Colonial One to discuss the matter of the pregnant girl. Roslin stands by her pro-choice beliefs, saying that she has fought her whole life for a woman’s right to choose, but Adama tells her that the number of survivors in the fleet doesn’t go up very often and he reminds her of her earlier statement that the fleet “needs to start making babies” in order for the human race to survive. Roslin goes to Baltar’s lab to ask him about the fleet’s population and he tells her that at the current rate humanity will be come extinct in 18 years. This analysis later forces her to act against her previous beliefs on the rights of women. Later, Roslin allows the girl’s abortion and grants her asylum, but subsequently issues an executive decree making abortion a capital crime, citing “current circumstances” that make reproduction vital to humanity’s survival.
The Gemenon delegate sees abortion as a theological issue and approaches Roslin as soon as she finds out about the girl on board Galactica and as soon as she learns that the girl has not been returned to her parents, in spite of Roslin’s decision to criminalize abortion. The Gemenon delegate seems to want to make this government into a theocracy and is a staunch supporter of Roslin when she embodies their scriptural ideals, but is her enemy (not willing to negotiate) when Roslin goes against her fundamentalist beliefs. Their last conversation ends with an infuriated delegate, enraged that the girl had her abortion because the procedure was begun just before Roslin announced her decision. Roslin steely tells her “you have your pound of flesh,” so let it be. Roslin’s reply is a reference to the debt owed Shylock by Antonio in one of my favorite Shakespearean plays The Merchant of Venice. The phrase is used a lot and has come to mean a debt that a creditor insists on collecting regardless of how much suffering it might cause the debtor.
I find it interesting that now that Roslin no longer seems to be dying of a “wasting disease,” a key characteristic of the leader according to scriptures, there has not been very much mention of theology in the last few episodes—not much mention by neither Roslin nor Baltar and Head Six. Is Roslin no longer a scriptural figure? Regardless of if she thinks of herself as a scriptural figure, she does not seem to regard scripture as holding infallibility, that not all of its commands should be followed, that there are certain scriptural commands that may have been contextual to scriptural times; perhaps those passages were answers to certain problems confronted by those ancient peoples—perhaps those ancient peoples were confronted with dwindling populations much like Roslin’s dwindling people and were desperate to grow their population numbers for survival.
The Gemenon delegate sees abortion as a theological issue and approaches Roslin as soon as she finds out about the girl on board Galactica and as soon as she learns that the girl has not been returned to her parents, in spite of Roslin’s decision to criminalize abortion. The Gemenon delegate seems to want to make this government into a theocracy and is a staunch supporter of Roslin when she embodies their scriptural ideals, but is her enemy (not willing to negotiate) when Roslin goes against her fundamentalist beliefs. Their last conversation ends with an infuriated delegate, enraged that the girl had her abortion because the procedure was begun just before Roslin announced her decision. Roslin steely tells her “you have your pound of flesh,” so let it be. Roslin’s reply is a reference to the debt owed Shylock by Antonio in one of my favorite Shakespearean plays The Merchant of Venice. The phrase is used a lot and has come to mean a debt that a creditor insists on collecting regardless of how much suffering it might cause the debtor.
I find it interesting that now that Roslin no longer seems to be dying of a “wasting disease,” a key characteristic of the leader according to scriptures, there has not been very much mention of theology in the last few episodes—not much mention by neither Roslin nor Baltar and Head Six. Is Roslin no longer a scriptural figure? Regardless of if she thinks of herself as a scriptural figure, she does not seem to regard scripture as holding infallibility, that not all of its commands should be followed, that there are certain scriptural commands that may have been contextual to scriptural times; perhaps those passages were answers to certain problems confronted by those ancient peoples—perhaps those ancient peoples were confronted with dwindling populations much like Roslin’s dwindling people and were desperate to grow their population numbers for survival.
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