Henrietta Hay's Column

I knew it. I knew it. I knew that sooner or later somebody was going figure out a way to blame the Rodney King verdict and the Los Angeles riots on a woman. But Murphy Brown? I thought it might be Pat Schroeder or Phyllis Schafley or Gloria Steinem, or maybe Mother Theresa. But Murphy Brown?

By now every columnist in America has had his/her say on Murphy, and the riots have been nearly forgotten. There is nothing in any part of the recent situation in Los Angeles and other big cities that is remotely funny, but the way the power brokers have lined up to place the blame and gain political advantage does give it a touch of the ridiculous. And then Dan Quayle jumped in and blamed Murphy, At least there is one laugh in the situation.

The "blame" for society's ills probably goes back to the cave man and got a big boost during the industrial revolution. There is plenty of blame to go around and every one of us has a piece of it. Murphy and the media do not have to bear it alone. But that's the American way: Pass the Buck. First the White House blamed Lyndon Johnson. Then Dan Quayle blamed Murphy Brown. To date I have not read one word out of Washington accepting any part of the responsibility for the situation that caused the riots.

The problems facing us today are so great and so complex that for any person to claim to have a simplistic solution is beyond my understanding. But now we have moved from the King verdict and the riots to unmarried mothers. In a perfect world perhaps every child would have two loving parents, one and a half siblings and a dog. The child would live in a house with a white picket fence, have enough to eat and go to a good school. The parents would teach integrity and compassion and tolerance. But it is not a perfect world, and just saying it SHOULD be will not make it so.

If, however, we insist on blaming pop culture for the problems of the world, let's not make Murphy and unmarried mothers the only offenders. Let's worry about the hours and hours of macho movies we watch, Rocky 4 and Terminator 11, or is it 9? Let's make the kids throw away their violent Nintendo games. Let's worry about the violence everywhere, including sexism and racism. Or let's go back in time and agree with Joanne Ostrow, who commented that, "It was 40 years of bumbling TV fathers who mocked the importance of fathers, ruined the institution of the family and put a hole in the ozone. Ward Cleaver and Jim Anderson -- it's their fault."

Or what about the pregnant doll called Mommy-to-be with the swelling midsection? She has a removable belly and when you take out the anatomically correct baby, a flat stomach pops up to take its place. What it teaches little girls is that childbirth is fun and easy and requires no responsibility at all. Also, it requires no Daddy.

Of course irresponsible parenthood is tragic, wherever it exists, but it is only a part of the whole problem, which nobody, but nobody, is willing to face. Dan Quayle is unhappy with unmarried mothers but for every unmarried mother there is an unmarried father or a father who is married to somebody else. They're not unimportant. They just aren't there a lot of the time.

And did anybody notice that Murphy chose to have her baby rather than abort it? Imagine what would have happened if she had chosen to go the legal abortion route, a choice which women may not have much longer.

This looks very much like the first shot in the coming Presidential battle. Murphy Brown never intended to go political, but Dan pushed her. It's going to be a long hot summer and November is a long way off.