Is Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who! About Abortion?

Theodor Geisel, also known by his pen name Dr. Seuss, will no doubt echo in the halls of history as one of the world's greatest children's writers. His phenomenally witty, amusing books like The Cat in the Hat and One Fish, Two Fish have become favorites for children of all ages, while his more profound works like The Lorax and The Butter Battle are considered to be penetrating classics.

Books like The Lorax became the center of controversy following their publication for predictable reasons, since they tied directly to populist political ideas. Surprisingly, however, the most controversial of Dr. Seuss' books was one that, according to his widow, had never been intended to communicate a political message: Horton Hears a Who!

A resurgence in Horton-based controversy spiked following the release of a CGI-animated film of the same name, based on Dr. Seuss' original story. Like the book, it quickly became associated with anti-abortion activism and the pro-life movement. Many fans of the book and movie have even gone so far as to say that it was Theodor Geisel's original intention for the story to be an allegory for the survival of an unwanted fetus.

Horton Hears a Who! follows the story of an eccentric, socially handicapped elephant who hears a small voice coming from a dust speck. When he rescues this speck, suspecting that it must have a tiny person on it, he quickly learns that it is inhabited by an entire city of microscopic people called the Whos. Horton's neighbors--all Seuss-style animals--do not believe him when he says he can hear these tiny people, and they are determined to boil the dust speck in "Beezelnut oil".

Horton defends and encourages his microscopic friends and ultimately saves them by enabling them to yell loudly enough for the other forest animals to hear them. The book concludes with the Whos' enemies accepting them and vowing to protect them. The story's conclusion, "A person is a person, no matter how small," became a hallmark of Seuss' simple, yet profound statements.

Many anti-abortion activists snatched this line for their own use, believing that the story was a deliberate parable for the pro-life movement. Several Seuss fans have cited Horton's appearance in another story, Horton Hatches the Egg, to defend the idea that Horton's purpose as a character is to defend the unborn.

Was this Seuss' intention? Not quite, according to his widow, Audrey Geisel. She explicitly stated in an interview with NPR that she "doesn't like people to hijack Dr. Seuss characters or material to front their own points of view." Philip Nel, who wrote a biography about Dr. Seuss, even stated in an Australian radio interview that Geisel was pro-choice, and threatened to sue anti-abortion groups that were using the "A person is a person" line on their stationary.

Still, anti-abortion activists view Horton as a fictional, iconic spokesperson for the unborn, often tying his role in Horton Hatches the Egg to the ideas advanced in Horton Hears a Who! A number of churches, pro-life advocacy groups, and republican family organizations. Some pro-choice activists have even called for a boycott of the books, films, and related products based on the misconception.

We may never know exactly what, if anything, Seuss had intended to communicate using Horton's character (some have even suggested that the Whos are a symbol of racism, war, or children's rights). This leaves the elephant's story open to all forms of analysis and interpretation, depending on the specific moral values of the person reading it.