Willow Tait should have thought about the GH child she had at home.
Since the beginning, General Hospital has treated Willow’s cancer-ridden pregnancy in a tone-deaf and off-putting manner, and the happy conclusion she received a la Hallmark smacks of recklessness.
General Hosptial Misses A Big Opportunity
We hoped the soap would take a chance and give us a pro-choice story about a woman who desperately wanted a child but was forced to abort due to uncontrollable circumstances when TJ (Tajh Bellow) first revealed to Willow (Katelyn MacMullen) that she was pregnant when it was obvious there was also something else going on with her body. After all, states all over the nation were passing antiquated laws that required some women to forgo cancer treatment just because they were pregnant, despite the fact that Roe v. Wade had recently been rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.
It was the ideal opportunity for the soap to explore the agonising choice women have to make every day when they decide they need to live for the child or children they still have at home because GH is set in New York, a state where women can still have abortions and get their cancer treated on their own terms. As an alternative, we got Willow, a lady who neglected to consider the little child who calls her Mommy before refusing cancer treatment for months out of concern about harming an embryo.
She also delayed notifying Michael that she had cancer until she learned she was in stage 4 of the disease, which she had caused by treating her cancer as an afterthought and failing to battle it for such a long time.
Willow Needed To Whisper Her Cancer
To make matters worse, once Michael (Chad Duell) found out she was ill, she was afraid to inform anybody else for fear they would treat her differently, as if she were still living in 1923 when cancer was a filthy word whispered in dark corners.
Despite the fact that everyone she knew could have been tested to determine if they were a bone marrow match, she continued to keep her illness a secret even after learning she required a bone marrow transplant. Although Willow would soon have two children who would need her, it seemed as though she had already made up her mind to pass away.
General Hospital Sends A Dangerous Message
Make no mistake: Willow was just dumb in what she did. The greatest methods for overcoming cancer include early identification and therapy. Cancer is a serious disease that should not be taken lightly. Willow won’t pass away since she received a wonderful miracle. Normally, if you ignore your cancer and refuse treatment, you die.
It turns out that if you are pregnant and find out you have leukaemia, it’s totally fine in Port Charles to forgo therapy and wait until your kid is viable so you may obtain stem cells from the child’s cord and have a miraculous cure given in a matter of minutes. Why would a pregnant leukaemia patient choose therapy when she could just go to the point of no return and then wait for her unborn child’s stem cells to become available?
A person with stage 4 cancer will eventually pass away if they refuse treatment for months on end, even though Willow’s cure is a medical possibility. On GH, though, that means you get a Hallmark movie finale with a journey to and from the light. Yes, this is a soap opera, but in no way could a soap ever again feature a pregnancy and cancer scenario.
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