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Ruby enters the procedure room alone, leaving a pained Noel in the waiting room. A moment later, she runs out, crying that she can't do it. Then, in the very next scene, Ruby talks about how she has been so unhappy in her life and now she has found the meaning to everything: She was meant to have a baby and be a mother; it will solve all her problems. It's not the motherhood I know, but that's another story.

I wasn't pleased. But I was even more upset to see the next episode. Ruby and Noel are at the doctor's once again. This time the sonogram reveals the age of the fetus, and Noel exclaims: "That can't be right." In other words, it's not his baby! There was a reason no one was touching Ruby; it's time for her to be demonized.

After all, only bad characters really have this problem. Ruby got pregnant, it turns out, not just because she was having sex but because she was cheating on Noel, her boyfriend. Remember: An unwanted pregnancy never happens to a good character in TV land. A nice girl, like Felicity, can be sexually active without ever having to fear an unwanted pregnancy. Maybe that's why when Ruby asks Felicity whether "it" had ever happened to her, the writers could easily brush it off with a simple "No." Of course it could never happen to Felicity -- she's the title character. She can't be written out of the show the way Ruby can be. (And, of course, Felicity could never have an abortion.)

Having revealed the untoward origins of Ruby's pregnancy, the episode focuses on the question of Noel's responsibility toward Ruby as she fades more and more into the background. Noel declares triumphantly that he feels free, as if a great weight has been lifted, now that the pressure of his impending fatherhood has been removed. He can focus on whether he wants to be a good guy, but the decision of whether to stay with and support Ruby has no downside for him. He is now fully justified in dumping her.

How much easier, I suppose, for the show to focus on Noel's beneficence toward the thoroughly denigrated Ruby than to deal with the messier questions that emanate from the fact that sex can result in an unplanned pregnancy, with the idea that an unwanted pregnancy could occur without anyone's being a cheating slut, without anyone's being at fault.

I know that the young women who watch "Felicity" don't buy all this stuff. I know it's just TV land. But abortion is my weak spot. I can't help thinking how nice, how important even, it would be for the young women in the audience to see -- for once -- that pregnancy is a consequence of sex, not of character.
salon.com | March 8, 2000

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