Every March 2nd since 1991 when Ted Geisel died, Audrey Geisel has held a birthday celebration for her husband. There’s always a birthday cake and a beguiling Seussian performance by graduate students from the drama department at UCSD. Often, the party is held at the university’s library that bears his name, and outside is a huge Cat in the Hat balloon. There’s no sadness at the birthday event, but joy as we birthday guests recall the pleasure the Dr. Seuss books continue to bring to the world. 

Audrey Geisel and I became friends about a year before Ted succumbed to cancer at 87. I’m delighted to be on the guest list for the annual event and attend most of them. This year, however, the seasonal upper respiratory infection hit my household and we were forced to miss the festivities. This was particularly disappointing because the brand new Seuss film, “Horton Hears a Who,” was being prepared to premiere the following weekend, and party conversation was sure to be peppered with speculation about its level of success with the audiences.

And successful the premiere was! At $45.1 million, Horton was the biggest opening of 2008 and now ranks as the fifth-biggest G-rated opening of all time. But all was not smooth at the Hollywood premiere where a group of anti-abortion demonstrators showed up to claim Horton as their ally in the abortion debate. Their argument is based on the famous Horton line: “a person is a person no matter how small.” 

For many, those words about a village of Whos, living on a speck on a clover leaf, are about the equality of beings despite stature and status. But the protestors see the phrase as a motto for their movement.

The natural question then centers on whether Ted Geisel made political statements through his children’s books and whether “a person is a person no matter how small” attests to his attitude toward abortion. His wife has opinions on both. And, to put the dispute in chronological context, “Horton Hears a Who” was written in 1954, long before Roe v. Wade and the ensuing debate on abortion.