When TV gets the morality right.

I am a big fan of the U.S. TV series CSI Miami. (1) The concept behind CSI is that, in the case of more heinous crimes such as homicide, it is less the detecting abilities of the old-style "gumshoe" and more the hard-nosed forensic work of the police science laboratory which solves the crime in the 21st century. Filmed using the latest computer graphic techniques, it aims to reveal, in occasionally harrowing yet compelling clarity, something of the effect of bullets, chemicals, and explosions on the human body and other objects. It is little wonder that the series has regularly found itself in the top ten viewing lists for the last couple of years and with the occasional TV Emmy Award thrown in.

Another thing that is impressive about this fifty-minute modern take on detectives with science degrees is its propensity to deal with difficult issues, including the failures of the justice system itself. Even with the aid of the incredible strides made by modern forensic science, the occasional known perpetrator cannot be prevented from "walking" (hardly the happy-ending syndrome favoured by the Hollywood film machine). But it is in the minutiae of the storylines and the relentless pursuit of objective, forensic truth that, just occasionally, we glimpse a little more depth than is found in the average cop thriller.

God in the works?

One of the attractions of this science-based programme is the regular insight we receive into the laws of forensic science--laws which bear (and they will, won't they) the hallmark of design by a higher power; a power which can mitigate even the grossest evil and secret designs of human "wisdom."

Take, for instance, the episode where our hero waits outside a grand suburban house as his friend and bomb-squad officer colleague defuses a necklace bomb. (2) In fact the real target in this episode turns out not to be the "necklace" victim per se, but rather the bomb-defusing team itself. When the worst happens and the bomb explodes, killing both the bomb disposal officer and the necklace victim, we witness, in slow motion, the spectacular impact as the front windows of the house shatter and blow out.

But it is as part of the ensuing investigation that we learn an interesting and important fact about bomb explosions--the preferred weapon of the modern urban terrorist. As a member of the investigation team explains to a colleague, bomb explosions have two phases. The first carries much of the bomb material, and other objects surrounding it, away from the vicinity of the detonation. This causes a vacuum to develop at the seat of the explosion, setting up a second phase which draws much of the debris back into the original detonation area. This is very important, as it means that what would otherwise be a massive crime scene area, with its essential clues which can aid in discovering the all-important "signature" of the bombmaker, is thus vastly reduced, aiding the subsequent investigation enormously. As this was being explained, the slow motion rerun graphically illustrated its truth by focusing on an unfortunate domestic bird (no doubt a fake) which was first hurled through the window only to be sucked back through it again in phase two.

What came home is how the natural laws often operate pro-actively to aid those pursuing truth and justice in identifying those responsible for crime. Even the cleverest of bombmakers, it seems, is now forced to run the gamut not only of state of the art detection techniques, but also our greater understanding of the laws of nature, laws by which all of us are governed. As a Christian, it is hard for me not to detect something of the hand of God in this small example of the two-phase explosion process which ultimately enables justice to prevail. Good may yet come out of even the very basest of murderous evil.

In many of the CSI shows, but especially the Miami version, there have been many key moments which suggest a moralism to the show, especially in the lead character, Lt. Horatio Cain (played by the excellent David Caruso), who is driven by an overweening sense of truth and justice to get to the heart of the matter, no matter what. Now I do not for one minute suggest (as I simply do not know) that the producers and writers of CSI Miami are specifically setting out to make, subliminally or otherwise, powerful moral points. What I do think is that whenever objective truth and logic are employed and pursued, as here through real (not popular) science, to their natural conclusion, moral godly truths have a habit of revealing themselves, get me give a prime example of what I mean by reviewing briefly another CSI Miami episode, one where its scripted assertions and observations concerning abortion, ran counter to the prevailing, liberal-dominated, attitudes of modern TV culture.

Is it a baby, or is it a fetus?

In the first season's episode "Ashes to Ashes," we learn that a wealthy man has brutally murdered his unconscious pregnant girlfriend by driving her car into the fiver, causing her to drown. Later we discover that the sick and cynical motive for the murder was simply that his girlfriend's pregnancy would have "cramped his lifestyle."

That the leading CSI, Horatio Cain, is visually upset by the death not only of the mother but of the unborn child, is quickly established. That he is equally determined to employ all the forensic evidence he needs to "get this man," also becomes apparent. What is particularly moving is Cain's compassionate pursuit of justice, not only on behalf of the murdered adult but on behalf of a murdered seven-week-old child. Think about it for a moment, only seven weeks old. In the parlance of today's pro-abortion world, seven weeks barely registers as a child at all. That the programme had no compunction about treating the death of such a young "unborn" in the womb as of equal concern with the death of the mother, and refusing to adopt the contemporary ruse of using the less emotive word fetus (3) for "baby," is novel on prime-time TV. It would have been just as easy for the writer or producer to make the pregnancy a lot more advanced, creating perhaps an even greater sense of melodrama at the loss. But who in today's mass media, with its blatantly liberal ethos, considers a seven-week-old as a baby? The fact that it did give the baby the respect for its human status which it deserved, spoke volumes about how the mass media almost always fail to accord the unborn its true status, and gave a powerful, perhaps unwitting, message to any "pro-choice," in reality, "pro-abortion" person, watching.

After all, who today would be bothered concerning the loss of a seven-week-old "undeveloped" fetus? Given Western society's propensity to treat young life in the womb as having almost no human rights, as the "pro-choice" (4) brigade do, even up to the age of 24 weeks, this was a refreshing change indeed. But the reality of the pain attached to all early human death, even death at seven weeks, was about to be crystallized when Cain requests that the dead fetal tissue (the body) be removed from the mother's corpse. The pathologist, acceding to the request, notes that performing this activity was one of the most distressing she ever had to do.

Next, the pathologist having complied with his request, we see Cain in his laboratory viewing the now deceased seven-week-old under the microscope--and we are allowed to see for ourselves the very formed, even at seven weeks, dead baby. Visibly moved to the edge of tears by what he sees, Cain has to leave the room to compose himself. It is only later that we realize his true purpose in all this. When the forensic and other evidence prove to be insufficient to charge or prove the guilt of the perpetrator, the killer and his lawyer arrogantly make to leave police custody But Cain stands in front of him and holds up to his face a picture. It is a composite picture of a little girl--a mock-up prepared by laboratory colleagues. "This," says Cain slowly and very deliberately, "is your daughter as she would have looked on her second birthday had you not killed her and her mother." Now, Cain's action did nothing to prevent the killer from "walking." But what it achieved, and very dramatically, is the reality of what it means to murder an unborn child in a singular and powerful screen moment. It portrayed the truth that a seven-week-old fetus is indeed a baby, a human child. Just as Cain himself perceptively and gently observed as the dead fetal tissue was earlier being removed: "Not just skin cells, is it?" No indeed, it is not. (5)

I have no reason to believe that the programme makers were set on making a specifically anti-abortion case here, but it was as good and clear and dramatic an instance in support of the anti-abortion case as I have witnessed on prime-time TV in a long time. In the world of the liberal-minded, amoral, often immoral, culture of entertainment-dominated mainstream TV, when the medium does occasionally get the God-given morality right, it can yet make for powerful broadcasting--and Christians should be gracious enough to say so.

And when it comes to the much more important issue of abortion generally, though there are some difficult issues involved on occasions, each one of us needs to know that God has already spoken on the matter thus: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I sanctified you.--Jeremiah 1:5.

In the modern, often vacuous, debate over the issue of when a child becomes a child, God has made the matter very clear. It is illogical and odd, is it not, how some people will one moment happily treat the baby in the womb, right from conception, lovingly as "the baby;" and how, the moment it is unwelcome or in some way burdensome, it reverts, inexplicably, to becoming "a fetus" and something to be disposed of at the earliest opportunity? A perverse people, are we not; a people who do indeed have a natural propensity to suppress the truth of God (Romans 1:18); that, "professing to be wise, [we become] fools" (v. 21)? But such is the mindset of the uninformed, the uncaring, and the self-serving.

Endnotes

(1) CSI--Crime Scene Investigator. CSI Miami is a spin-off from the original CSI series set in Las Vegas. For me, the balance of scientific logic and the high premium placed on "truth," mixed with occasional bouts of a genuine compassion expressed through the lead character, Horatio Cain, is where the Miami version scores over the original. At the time of writing, CSI New York was yet to get under was

(2) A bomb placed around an individual's neck that can explode with the merest sudden movement (a device favoured by some terrorists).

(3) Fetus is merely the Latin word for "baby."

(4) It is a constant practice among those of a liberal mindset to obscure the truth of the matter by devising more socially "acceptable" language. Thus "pro-choice" (which is meaningless) is preferred to the more controversial "pro-abortion" (which is more appropriate). We should not let them get away with this practice.

(5) The duplicity of much liberal thinking never fails to amaze me. The same liberal couple who are excited at the prospect of an impending birth, get excited referring to the unborn as "the baby," even as "little Joe" or "little Beth" can just as easily, given it is an "inconvenient" pregnancy, instead describe the unborn in the wife's womb as "the fetus," denying that it is yet a baby at all!

Peter C. Glover is a British freelance writer on social, cultural, & Church affairs & author of The Politics of Faith: Essays on the morality of key current issues and other books.