The expansion of the crowd outside Vista View to include not just paparazzi but also commercial opportunists develops the theme The Politicization of the Female Body. When a PR director for a fertility clinic and an agent for an adult diaper company shout offers at Pepper, her body is framed by two contradictory commercial narratives: one of miraculous fertility and another of age-related decline. This juxtaposition reveals how the public struggles to categorize her, reducing her complex reality to a set of marketable, and mutually exclusive, stereotypes. This spectacle transforms her private medical condition into a public resource to be bought, sold, or leveraged, illustrating a core aspect of how a woman’s reproductive life is treated as public domain. Maisie’s observation that the other residents are grateful because Pepper has made them “visible for the first time in years” adds a complex layer to this intrusion (165). While the horde is invasive, its presence inadvertently counteracts The Dismissal of Elder People’s Agency by forcing the outside world to acknowledge the existence and relevance of the Vista View community. This dynamic echoes the literary context of Gabriel García Márquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” in which a miraculous being is reduced to a sideshow attraction that makes money.

The separate confrontations with anti-abortion and pro-choice activists highlight the ideological and political battleground that Pepper’s body has become. First, the young women from Family Futures attempt to recruit her as the “star” of their campaign, presenting photoshopped images of wholesome domesticity. Later, Evangeline from the pro-choice organization She’s Worldwide presents her own manipulated photos, this time making Pepper appear frail and victimized to argue for abortion access. Both groups, despite opposing goals, employ the same tactic of visual manipulation and deceptive infiltration to co-opt her image and story for a political agenda, reducing her personhood to a powerful symbol. 

However, Pepper’s refusal to be a pawn for either side frames Autonomy Over One’s Body as something that transcends partisan politics. She asserts that her agenda is “not forcing [her] body into someone else’s service, not reducing [her] to the potential of [her] flesh” (194). For Pepper, true autonomy is not about picking an ideological side but about resisting any force that seeks to control her body’s narrative, whether it is a state, a corporation, or an activist group. Ultimately, her right to choose what is best for her body is a personal choice, not a political one. The intimacy of controlling one’s own body extends beyond the realm of the pro-choice and anti-abortion debate, specifically through Dot. She makes decisions about her final days on her own terms. Her decision to throw Pepper a baby shower is an example of this, for by orchestrating this celebration, Dot exerts control over her own narrative as she approaches death, choosing to focus on a new beginning rather than her own ending. Her subsequent announcement, “I’m ready now” (186), and her deliberate move to the nursing wing illustrate how she chooses the terms of her final chapter, a stark contrast to the way others try to impose terms on Pepper. The scene where Pepper encourages the panicked Dot to stand one last time before sitting in the wheelchair becomes a small but significant moment of mutual support, reinforcing their community’s power in facing life’s most difficult transitions. This portrayal of a chosen, dignified end complicates the simplistic public debates about “life,” suggesting that quality and autonomy are as important as duration.

In addition to these personal decisions, the community at Vista View provides a support system that buffers against the public onslaught. Father Frank’s delivery of a home-cooked meal is a simple act of kindness that stands in opposition to the transactional offers from the horde. The initial resentment from other residents melts away, replaced by invitations and shared stories, demonstrating their capacity for empathy once they understand Pepper is also a victim of the intrusion. The baby shower becomes the pinnacle of this communal support, where the women’s “wisdom of their collected years” and offers to babysit create a nurturing environment grounded in shared experience (185). This sense of found family is mirrored by Darcy’s changing perspective; her confession that she finds the pregnancy “cool” and wants to support her mother signals a healing within Pepper’s biological family as well. These interwoven acts of care demonstrate that community can be a defense against a world that seeks to isolate and exploit individuals.

Father Frank represents community and the antidote to those trying to exploit Pepper. Michael from Phymore Pharmaceuticals claims his company’s cancer drug, Protocol 183, is responsible for Pepper’s pregnancy, tying the fantastical event to the real-world history of SERM clinical trials. However, his goal is to monetize it. His request to “sequence [her] genome” and develop fertility-extending drugs reveals a desire to package and sell her unique biological circumstance (206). Later, Father Frank offers a rebuttal to this scientific-capitalist worldview. He reframes the public fixation not as a search for an explanation but as a basic human desire to witness “a miracle they can see” (213). His final, blunt assessment that Pepper is “just fucking lucky, I guess” is a secular and pragmatic alternative to the competing ideological, commercial, and medical frameworks (213), suggesting that some events are best understood not as problems to be solved or products to be sold, but simply as deep, inexplicable occurrences.