Enough already. It's just a baby. It is not Rosemary's baby. It is not even the Virgin Mary's baby. Frankly, if you don't subscribe to the idea that life begins at conception (and not everyone does) you could argue that is isn't even a baby yet.
And under no circumstances, none, should the existence of this baby, or this fetus, have led to the unspeakably tragic circumstances under which a nurse at a London hospital apparently took her own life.
I am happy for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge the way I am happy for any couple that is ready and excited to start a family. Even though they have courted the culture of celebrity in which they now live, I feel sorry for them: forced to divulge her condition weeks before most mothers-to-be — wary of the viability of a pregnancy in its first trimester — might blab the big news.
U.S. talk shows even speculated as to when the royal fetus might actually have been conceived. Eww.
Will and Kate will spend the next several months under even more intense scrutiny than usual, because we, the consuming public, are supposedly interested. But beyond celebrity interest, Middleton's pregnancy is wholly unconnected to me — and frankly, to most Canadians. We aren't going to be invited to her baby shower. I will not be cuddling, kissing and playing with this baby. I will not be asked to babysit.
The only tangible connection this unborn child has to Canada is its place in line to the throne. But given that recent polling suggests only one-third of Canadians surveyed say they'd like to see this country remain a monarchy, given that there are two more heirs set to reign first, and given that the Windsors live remarkably long lives, it may come to pass that by the time "Baby X" ascends the throne, we may no longer be a constitutional monarchy.
People here love their Queen. They will feel more ambivalent about her successors, both living and not-quite-yet of this realm.
Australia, with its fierce republican sentiment, ought to care even less. And yet that country produced the two imbeciles who thought it would be fun and "lighthearted" to breach one woman's privacy, and literally destroy the life of another.
Any broadcasting standards that exist in that country surely couldn't have been followed. Was there journalistic impetus to lie about who they were and then run tape, without anyone's consent, of a flustered nurse giving intimate details of the duchess' condition? No.
Was the story aimed at exposing lax security? No. It was two yahoo morning show DJs doing what yahoo morning show DJs do. They've since been yanked off the air. That should give them time to reflect on the fact that one of the two nurses involved in their stunt apparently killed herself after the fact.
What a mess. It was inevitable that Kate's pregnancy would have given birth to breathless media coverage and celebration whenever it was divulged. It should have been happy, frothy, celebrity news. Instead, a woman going through a very rough, early pregnancy goes to hospital and the whole world knows about it.
A nurse, fooled by broadcasters, mistakenly transfers a call that should have been hung up on, and is found dead days later. It is a sad, macabre state of affairs. The worst part of it is: we should be ready for more. Because in the long term, nothing is likely to change.