What House is This?

Did anyone watch the TV show, House, last night? What happened there? How can a thing like that sneak into prime time TV?

For those of you who don't know, House is a show about a doctor ... named House. Go figure. He is a super-cynic, hates everyone, and doesn't mind letting everyone know. He works at the hospital, however, because he is the keenest mind there is when it comes to solving obscure medical problems. So every week he and his team faces bizarre maladies, working feverishly to save lives all while Dr. House (and his crew) diminish the meaning of life as we know it by denying the existence of the supernatural, God, oh, you get the idea.

In last night's episode, he was faced with a 40-ish pregnant woman. Her baby (I think 21 weeks old or so) had some unknown medical problems that were feeding back to the mom and killing her. As the show progressed, House did all he could for mom and child, but was ever careful to never refer to the baby as a "baby". He explained at the outset, "I don't want to get anyone's hopes up." He corrected anyone who used the term. "It's a fetus." And he finally gave up. There was no hope. If the fetus wasn't terminated, both mom and baby -- er, fetus would die. Sad. But the hospital administrator (a 40-ish woman who wishes she were pregnant) wouldn't stand for it. In the climactic scene at the end, they gathered to do open-uterus surgery to fix the baby's problem and save the mom. The cynical Dr. House cut open the uterus and started removing the fluid when a tiny hand came out and grasped his finger. You've all seen it, I'm sure -- that picture of a surgeon's hand being held by a baby's hand out of the womb. That was it. That was the shot.

Well, everyone lives. House is still cruel and cynical. The 40-ish woman is fine. The 40-ish administrator goes back to her office. Everything is wonderful. But when House checks on his now healthy patient, he assures her she will have a healthy baby. Not fetus -- baby. The mom even comments on it.

So what happened here? Fox is no better at morality than the other networks. House is certainly not an oasis of wisdom and moral values. And, sure, admitting that a 20-week-old fetus is a baby isn't the finish to the debate on abortion or any such thing. But something happened on a television network that caused them to slip in a controversial value -- that a fetus in the womb is a baby, a human being, every bit as valuable as the mother and worth every amount of effort possible to save it. Where were the censors? Where were the executives? Were they asleep at the wheel when this TV show did something right???