The Rabbit Died

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In time, the test and science advanced enough for the doctor to be able to check whether the rabbit had an estrous reaction without killing it, much to the relief of cute little fluffy bunnies everywhere. —Karl Smallwood, Today I Found Out, "The Surprisingly Recent Time Tests Using Rabbits and Frogs Were the Gold Standard to Accurately Detect Human Pregnancy"

In the long-gone days before fifteen-minute home pregnancy tests made it obsolete, the only way a woman had to find out she was pregnant – at least before the physiological effects made it obvious – was the classic "rabbit test". Properly known as the "Friedman test", this involved injecting a female rabbit with a woman's urine, and then examining its ovaries a few days later to see if they had enlarged from the presence of the hormone hGC in it.

Consequently "The Rabbit Died" became a Stock Phrase for a positive – that is, pregnant – result. Although it was replaced in the 1960s by immunoassays that didn't involve animal testing, "the rabbit test" and "the rabbit died" remained in the popular lexicon for several decades afterward. Today in the early 21st century it is almost but not quite a Forgotten Trope, still hanging on despite all the variations on the different ways various home pregnancy tests announce their results have tried to displace it over the years. It can still be heard now and then, though, usually in a humorous context, as well as in period works, of course.

Interestingly, because of their legendary fecundity rabbits and hares have long had an association with fertility and pregnancy in myth and folklore, which no doubt contributed ironically to the popularity and longevity of the phrase – as well as the persistent (although not universal) appearance of rabbits as a symbol or thematic element in works where pregnancy (or to a lesser degree sexuality) is a prominent plot element.

Not to be confused with Doctor Rabbit, anything involving Bugs Bunny, or the metalcore group The Dead Rabbitts.

Examples of The Rabbit Died include:

Fan Works

• In chapter 26 of Fool's Consequences, a Harry Potter/Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfic by "EllandrahSylver", Buffy invokes and discusses the trope:

Calypso sighed, "Your mum mentioned that if it had been more than a week since Harry and I..." she paused, blushing, and Buffy grinned. "Well, anyway, she said that if it had been more than a week, we could go to Madame Pomfrey and she could tell if we'd... er..." "Killed the rabbit?" Harry and Calypso both gave her confused looks. "What?" Harry asked. Buffy rolled her eyes. "Geez, you guys are SO out of the loop that the loop doesn't know you exist, I swear. I don't even really know where the saying came from, but I think it has something to do with a really, REALLY old way of figuring out if a girl is pregnant. It's just a cliché. Sorry, go on."

Film

• Alluded to in Grease 2 during the song "Reproduction", when one of the T-Birds holds up a white rabbit and says, "See what happens when a boy and girl don't know how to play it safe?"
• Provides the title for the 1979 Billy Crystal film Rabbit Test about a man getting pregnant.
• Similarly, the 2016 Short Film The Rabbit Died is about a man getting pregnant.
• Roman Polanski's 1965 film Repulsion has a persistent motif of rabbits connected to issues of sexuality.

Literature

• The 1995 short story "Rabbit Test" by Jeffrey Ford depicts the husband of woman having trouble with a pregnancy feeling himself haunted by rabbits at all turns.
• "Year of the Rabbit", a short story by Lisa Meltzer Penn, mixes rabbit symbolism for general fertility with genuine rabbits at large with a pair of pregnancy tests a generation apart.
• Invoked in "What Are You Looking At?", a short story by Chris Kuriata published in 2018 by the Saturday Evening Post:

As soon as possible, Olivia and Otto met with Dr. Janowski for what Olivia termed "a proper rabbit test." Otto was surprised anyone still used the term "rabbit test." The procedure was already obsolete by the 1950s, replaced by the "frog test." ... Unfortunately, frogs were not cute and fuzzy, which was why "rabbit test" succeeded in becoming the euphemism. Made sense. Otto couldn't imagine a home pregnancy kit using a cartoon frog as their mascot, but wouldn't be surprised to find one with an anthropomorphic rabbit on the box.

Live-Action TV

• In "What's Up, Doc?", a sixth-season episode of M*A*S*H, the only way for Margaret to find out if she's pregnant (by her now-estranged husband) is to use one of Radar's rabbits for a rabbit test. Subverted, actually, in that Radar insists that they not kill his pet rabbit, and Hawkeye and Margaret perform surgery on the rabbit to remove its ovaries non-fatally – leading to the rabbit surviving, in both senses of the term.
• Invoked in the episode "The Coat Hanger" of American Horror Story when Sister Mary Eunice says "The bad news is, the rabbit died" to Lana.
• The phrase is used in Maude, when Maude discovers she's pregnant at age 47 in the episode "Maude's Dilemma: Part 1":

Walter: Maude, we've seen enough movies together. This is the place in the movie where we say we're kidding. You were kidding, right? Maude: We're not kidding, Walter. The rabbit died. Walter: I know how he feels!

• Becomes an elaborate motif and multi-level pun in "Rabbit Test", a third-season episode of Ugly Betty. While the episode initially revolves around Easter and its associated festivities, the plot eventually turns to focus on young William McKinney and his actual parentage, with Christina and Wilhelmina both taking part in a DNA test to discover which of them is his natural mother. (It Makes Sense in Context.)

Music

• Invoked in "Sweet Emotion" by Aerosmith:

You're telling her things but your girlfriend lied You can't catch me 'cause the rabbit done died Yes it did