On June 24, 2022, the radical majority on the Supreme Court brought about the end of Roe v. Wade in a ruling that the rightwing has been planning for decades. The constitutional right of a woman to have an abortion was eviscerated after almost 50 years, a decision that will impact mostly poor women in red states. The New York Times reports that 13 states have trigger laws that allow the abortion ban to go into effect. Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah will enforce the abortion ban immediately.  Within weeks, Idaho, Mississippi, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming will follow suit.

Among the companies that have stepped up to pay for their employees to travel for abortion care are the Walt Disney Company, Netflix, Sony Pictures, Comcast, and Paramount Pictures.

While there has been much chatter lately about Hollywood glorifying gun violence, the depiction of abortion in movies and television has been more nuanced. Here are some prominent movies and television shows with abortion storylines.

 

FILM

Dirty Dancing (1987)

Set 10 years before the passage of Roe v. Wade in the summer of 1963, Baby (Jennifer Grey) tries to help a dancer in a Catskills resort get an abortion by asking her doctor father for money. When the procedure is botched by a butcher doing the illegal procedure, she asks for her father’s help to save the woman. The abortion isn’t shown onscreen, and neither is the word ‘abortion’ used. The film was directed by Emile Ardolino and won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song, “(I’ve Had) The Time of my Life,” and was the first to sell a million copies of home video.

 

Grandma (2015)

Lily Tomlin plays Elle, a lesbian poet mourning the death of her partner, when her 18-year-old granddaughter, Sage, comes to visit, asking for money for an abortion. Elle has none and Sage’s credit card has been taken away, so the two drive across Los Angeles looking for ways to raise $640, extorting the baby’s father, calling in Elle’s old debts, and even asking Elle’s ex-husband for a loan. The film is written and directed by Paul Weitz who wrote the character of Elle for Tomlin. Tomlin was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance.

 

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)

Directed by Eliza Hittman, Never Rarely Sometimes Always tells the story of Autumn (Sidney Flanigan), a Pennsylvania teenager who travels to New York with her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) to have an abortion because of Pennsylvania’s parental consent laws. In New York she finds out that she was misled by the local crisis pregnancy center and that she is actually further along in her pregnancy, requiring a two-day procedure at a secondary clinic. The movie focuses more on the challenges that the girls have to face in order to get the money for the procedure than the actual abortion itself.

The film won the Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize at the 70^th Berlin Film Festival.

 

Plan B (2021)

Two teenage high schoolers from South Dakota have 24 hours to track down a morning-after pill in this female-centric debut movie from director Natalie Morales. After having sex with the wrong guy at a party, Sunny (Kuhoo Verma) discovers she may be pregnant. She and her friend Lupe (Victoria Moroles) visit the local pharmacy for the morning-after pill, but the local pharmacist refuses her citing the state’s “conscience clause” as a reason. Planned Parenthood is their next stop, but there are obstacles to be overcome along the way.

 

Unpregnant (2020, HBO Max)

Another high-school 17-year-old with strict Catholic parents finds herself pregnant in Missouri, a state where parental consent is required for abortions. Veronica (Haley Lu Richardson) has dreams of going to college and refuses her boyfriend’s proposal when he finds out she’s pregnant. With her estranged friend Bailey (Barbie Ferreira), Veronica travels a thousand miles to Albuquerque, New Mexico to get the abortion, finding out along the way how to make sound choices and what friendship really means. The film is directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg.

 

Vera Drake (2004)

Imelda Staunton is Vera Drake, the title character of the 2004 movie in which she plays a house cleaner in 1950s London. She is also secretly an abortion provider at a time when the procedure is illegal. She gets arrested; none of her employers will stand up for her and she is sentenced to long imprisonment. In jail, she finds others convicted of the same offense.

The film won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was nominated for two Golden Globes for Best Actress and Best Drama. It was directed by Mike Leigh.

 

 

TELEVISION

Grey’s Anatomy (Season 8, 2011)

Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) tells her husband Owen (Kevin McKidd) at the end of Season 7 that she wants an abortion when she discovers she’s pregnant. As an ambitious career woman and dedicated surgeon, her job means more to her than anything and she never wanted children. She cancels a number of appointments at the clinic until Owen gets on board with her decision. It’s worth noting that the character got pregnant in Season 1, but she has an ectopic pregnancy rupture that makes redundant the abortion appointment she had previously made.

It is rare to see a show in which a woman declares that she does not want to be a mother.

 

Shrill (Season 1, Episode 1, Hulu, 2019)

In the first episode of the first season, Annie (Aidy Bryant) finds out that the morning-after pill does not work for overweight women and that she needs an abortion. Seeing her pregnancy as a wake-up call to take charge of her life, she goes through with the abortion, getting empowered to break up with the jerk boyfriend, and standing up to her rude boss and condescending mother.

 

The Bold Type (Season 3, Episode 4, 2019, Freeform)

A gay, bi-racial woman running for the office of Councilwoman discloses the abortion she had at age 20 in college, in part because she wants to correct misinformation about the procedure. In the process, Kat (Aisha Dee), also discloses that she smokes weed and protests for immigrants’ rights. Her campaign manager also confides that she had an abortion as well. This is a relatively rare portrayal of two queer Black women discussing the subject onscreen.

 

Dear White People (Volume 2, Chapter 4, Netflix)

In this show about Black students at a white Ivy League college, the character seeking an abortion is shown researching the process and the attendant challenges of getting one. Coco (Antoinette Robertson), a hardworking young woman and the first in her family to attend college, takes her time making her decision, and the show plays out a scenario where she drops out of college and keeps her baby. But she forces herself to face the challenges and hardship of being a single mother and decides that she needs to go through the procedure to fulfill her dreams of a good life.

 

Jane the Virgin (Season 3, Episodes 1-2, Netflix)

The first two episodes of this season deal with Jane’s mother, Xiomara’s abortion. In a flashback in the first one, she discovers she’s pregnant and worries about telling her mother. In the second one, she’s already had the abortion.

Xiomara (Andrea Navedo) got pregnant with Jane as a teenager and had the baby because she was pressured to do so by her mother. 20 years later she gets pregnant again from a one-night stand and has no qualms about terminating the pregnancy. The procedure is not shown on television. Her thinking about going through with it is clear; she chooses not to be a mother again despite potentially alienating her mother and family. The episode focuses on the family’s reaction, not her decision.

 

13 Reasons Why (Season 3, Episode 2, Netflix)

Chloe (Anne Winters) goes to a crisis pregnancy center to get funding help when she gets pregnant, but the place is actually an anti-abortion center that tries to talk her out of getting the procedure by manipulating her psychologically. When she does go to a clinic to get the abortion, she is terrorized by anti-abortion activists as she tries to enter the facility, and one throws a fake fetus covered in blood at her.

She goes through the abortion without any support from family or friends, alone through the ordeal. The episode makes clear the hurdles that young women face when they try to protect their futures this way.

 

Scandal (Season 5 Episode 9, ABC, 2015)

Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) finds she’s pregnant with the President’s baby in this episode as a parallel storyline to a fight in the Senate to save Planned Parenthood’s funding. She takes matters into her own hands and goes to an abortion clinic as she has no intention of being a mother or a First Lady, finding life in the White House extraordinarily limiting and proscribed. The scene is handled matter-of-factly. Olivia doesn’t agonize over her decision, she gets through it and goes home.

 

GLOW (Season 1 Episode 8 Netflix)

In the show set in the 1980s, when Ruth (Alison Brie) discovers that she’s pregnant after having an affair with her best friend’s husband, her only option is an abortion. Wrestling coach Sam (Marc Marron) drives her to Planned Parenthood and asks her if she’s making the right decision. “It’s not the right time,” she answers. “Not the right baby.”

She goes through the procedure, eyes fixed on the ceiling, completely clear about her choice. The subject is never raised again in the show.

 

Euphoria (Season 1, Episode 7, HBO)

Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) is a promiscuous teenager with a troubled home life. Her parents have split up and her father is a drunk. She looks for love in all the wrong ways, hooking with boys who use her and leave her. Nude photos and sex tapes of her end up online. Then she gets pregnant and her boyfriend wants nothing to do with her. Cassie struggles with the decision to abort the baby and eventually, confesses to her mother and sister, who support her through the ordeal.