Religion Has NO Place In A Hospital. Yes, Catholic Hospitals Absolutely SHOULD Be Forced To Perform Abortions

Religion has NO place in a hospital. Yes, catholic hospitals absolutely SHOULD be forced to perform abortions against their will, especially if they're providing emergency healthcare. Shut the fuck up. Healthcare professionals take a vow to care for their fellow man whether they agree with the individual's decision or not, this is taught in medical school. If they're discriminating, by ANY measure, they need to be prosecuted full stop.

Grave of the Fireflies and Selfishness

Both Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies do an excellent job depicting the tragedy and destruction of war. However, while Barefoot Gen focuses more on documenting how the Hiroshima bombing physically hurt the people of Japan, documenting death and sickness and disfiguration; I believe Grave of the Fireflies is an example of how war affected the people psychologically.

Although many people come together in times of adversity, sharing their struggles and depending on each other in times of need, hardships can also cause people to become self-centered and unsympathetic out of their own fears and worries. In a time where so many people are suffering from death and starvation and homelessness and loss, very few people had any sympathies or resources to share with Seita and Setsuko. One of the most prominent ways we see this is with their Aunt. Although she should be a pillar of comfort for them, someone who will love them and grieve with them and take care of them without bitterness, instead we see the opposite. She not only begrudges them for staying in her household, but leeches upon their resources, steals from them, treats them differently than her husband and daughter, is indifferent to their suffering and their well-being, and makes them feel as though they are a burden, despite just being children. We see this theme of selfishness continue in others, though perhaps not quite as strong, as Seita gets more and more desperate for food and resources. When Seita steals food and offers everything he has to trade so that his sister might be taken care of, people are unsympathetic, simply stating that they need the resources more, or outright assaulting him. People see him and Setsuko struggling and yet they do nothing.

In the center of war and destruction and selfishness from others, Seita is a figure of selflessness, doing anything and everything in his power, to take care of her and keep her alive. However, time and time again, his selflessness often costs him or ends up being all for naught. When he tries to keep Setsuko from the reality of their mother’s death, his aunt has no care for her innocence and tells her about it anyways behind his back. When trying to make her happy at their aunt’s singing songs with her and comforting her in the night and encouraging her to it, they both just get rebuked for it. In trying to have Setsuko grow up in a place where she’ll be happy, he ends up having to sacrifice their security. When trying to get food for her so that she’ll live, he gets beaten up and yelled at. And even when he spends every resource he has to get her more food, Setsuko is already too far gone. And in her death is the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back, with Seita finding himself with no other reason to live or go on.

While we most often associate war with death, Grave of the Fireflies shows us that the destruction of war does not stop there. War brings suffering and hardens once sympathetic hearts and above all it takes. It took people’s open generosity, the siblings’ security, their innocence, and in the end, it took Setsuko too.

darling, will you saturate?

Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Trilogy