Every Sperm Is Sacred

[4] Viewing Python as the "great originator" of combining provocative humour and high-quality original music, Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane regarded the song as his favourite Python number, stating: "It's so beautifully written, it's musically and lyrically legit, the orchestrations are fantastic, the choreography and the presentation are very, very complex – it's treated seriously.

They have sixty-three children, who are about to be sold for scientific experimentation purposes because their parents can no longer afford to care for such a large family with the local mill being closed.

[6] The hearty and cheerful nature of the musical number is counterpointed as the children are marched off to their fate as the song ends, singing a dour rendition of the chorus as their middle-aged Protestant neighbours (played by Graham Chapman and Eric Idle) comment on the teachings of the Catholic Church.

[10] Abortion-rights activists have sung the song outside abortion clinics to ridicule their opponents,[11] legal scholars have alluded to it in discussions of women's reproductive rights,[12] and Emily Martin describes its usage as a reductio ad absurdum of anti-abortion positions.

"[15] Richard Dawkins, in his The God Delusion, cites the song for that reason, the illustration of the "surreal idiocy" of some pro-religion, anti-abortion arguments.

[16] It is sometimes difficult to separate the comic from the serious application of the phrase, and two recent publications on the penis use it for precisely that purpose, Talking Cock, by Richard Herring,[17] and Dick: A User's Guide.