It features excellent sound and editing-regardless of one’s political stance, it’s a treat to watch. The technical quality of the video is outstanding. Part junior high school health film and part Monty Python, the program engages the viewer from its opening shot until its closing credits. What do a Chinese dry cleaner frogs a white, upper class, creationist politician his liberal medical student daughter a fundamentalist terrorist and a pot of boiling water have in common? Filmmaker Tiffany Shlain deftly weaves these elements, and many more, into a compelling cautionary tale about the repercussions of the gradual erosion of American women’s right to have an abortion since the 1973 passage of Roe v. The truth is that it’s very difficult to adequately describe this sly, tongue in check, funny, absurd, and incisive pastiche of video clips that ties many disparate elements into a well-developed narrative. This program attempts, in a brief 14 minutes, to give the viewer a political framework into which to put the abortion debate as it applies to a democratic society that is “based on enlightened principals of freedom.”Īpologies are extended to those who may, perhaps, find the above introductory summary to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness convoluted or dense. Constitution, government agencies, legislators, courts, and individuals have attempted to define and legislate what life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in a democratic society is.
In the two centuries since The Declaration was written, The U.S. The Declaration of Independence proclaims that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable rights.