Isabel recently finished playing through the old Super Nintendo game, Super Mario Land 2: Yoshi's Island (technically speaking, we were playing the Super Mario Advance 3 GBA version).
For those unfamiliar, it is yet another sequel in the Mario dynasty, but with some quirky differences. The protagonist is the titular Yoshi, a muppet-like cartoon dinosaur that eats enemies and converts them into eggs. Yoshi originally appeared as a power-up for Mario in the previous Super Mario Land game, but this time he is the central figure -- mostly because Mario is a baby.
And this is where things get interesting from a pro-life standpoint.
Mario is technically not just a baby in the game. He is a trans-natal fetus (to coin a phrase). This is because, according to the game's plot, Mario and his brother Luigi are being transported to their parents via stork. While en route, they are intercepted by an evil, maniacal wizard character who plans to capture them both for some kind of horrible purpose. The wizard, thus, uses his magic to prevent the birth of Mario. He is essentially an abortionist. Of course, wizards are associated with alchemy...which is an early form of science...and witchcraft was also often a code word for primitive "reproductive" healthcare. I know, I know, it sounds over the top...I sound like I'm becoming one of those people who has to see something in everything...as if everything has to come back around to abortion. But hang with me, it gets less far fetched in a second.
When you beat the game (spoiler), the stork finally delivers Mario and Luigi to their parents. The game ends with an image of the babies being held aloft with human hands, captioned with the text "Our heroes are born." This implies that the heroes were not born before the stork delivered them.
The entire game is thus revealed to have been an adventure for an unborn Mario, striving to be born along with his twin. The evil wizard isn't simply kidnapping the Mario Bros. He isn't merely thwarting them from achieving some object of desire. He is -- by the game's own narrative logic -- trying to stop babies from being born.
I certainly don't think this is some kind of secret political statement on the part of Nintendo or its programmers, but I do think you could make a case that Yoshi could become a secret mascot for young pro-lifers (assuming, of course, that all of those eggs Yoshi tosses about are not fertilized).
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