Space over kids

October 2022 – a short sequel to 2019’s post on Kill The Moon.

“Second-hand space shuttle, third-hand astronauts.”

“It was in a museum. They’d cut the back off it so kids could ride in it. We’d stopped going into space. Nobody cared.”

At one point the Doctor flippantly makes, by any metric, a poor argument against blowing up the Space-Dragon-Chicken: “you might have some very difficult conversations to have with your kids”. Given that the apparent alternative is risking the deaths of said kids, difficult conversations aren’t that scary a prospect. (Some people think difficult conversations with kids should be shut down at all cost, but they tend to be the sort who don’t respect kids’ autonomy at all…I digress.)

Undaunted by this prospect, Lundvik fires back, “I don’t have any kids.” Except this isn’t so much a rebuke to the Doctor’s point, as to his crude assumption that she’d feel threatened by the thought of kids being upset at something done for their own safety. And we know she’s taking kids’ safety into consideration from what she asks Clara later:

“OK, you imagine you’ve got children down there on Earth now, right? Grandchildren, maybe. You want that thing to get out? Kill them all? You want today to be the day life on Earth stopped because you couldn’t make an unfair decision?”

Following that line of logic, however, if Lundvik had kids then surely she’d be more eager to destroy the creature than she already is, not less. Kids represent a degree of personal investment in the Earth. Far from a softening force that would magically make her more defensive of the dragon-chicken, having children can be the exact opposite. Many adults would, and do, happily kill anyone and anything in the name of protecting kids.
So what’s the true significance of her having no kids?

A glaring answer to this question – and a marker of this story’s actual themes – lie in what she’s done with her life instead. She’s an astronaut in a world where astronauts no longer exist.

Kill The Moon is pro-abortion.

LUNDVIK: Oh, you want to talk about babies?. You’ve probably got babies down there now. You want to have babies? […] Okay. You imagine you’ve got children down there on Earth now, right? Grandchildren maybe. You want that thing to get out? Kill them all? You want today to be the day life on Earth stopped because you couldn’t make an unfair decision?

One of the most misunderstood stories in all of Doctor Who (though you can say this about multiple key Clara episodes), Kill the Moon has attracted a number of anti-abortion readings. CatholicVote.org has called it “the most pro-life Doctor Who ever”. I’m not here to point out why this interpretation is superficial and riddled with holes; others have done more than enough of that. Rather, I’m dissatisfied with the usual defences – I don’t think it goes far enough to say that KTM isn’t an anti-abortion episode, or even that it’s a pro-choice episode. I would like to argue that KTM is in fact a pro-abortion episode. Which is to say, it is actively opposed to the ideology of reproduction itself; to any sense of obligation where continuing the species is concerned.

CHIBSHOW: 05. A Man In Labour

< Prelude | 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 (Special) | Postlude >

1. Limit Case
2. CATEGORY: Writers’ Room
3. CATEGORY: Visual Big Finish
4. CATEGORY: Nostalgia
5. CATEGORY: Whittaker
6. CATEGORY: Faux-woke

hocus breaking in and centering / broke in and gave up on everything everything