The A-word in popular media: A plea for help

I'm not up on my pop culture from the last year because the TV in Romania is about two years behind but there's a Romanian film 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days about an illegal abortion during communism that just won at Sundance. I don't know if that helps.

On 'Weeds', the son of the main character, 15-year-old Silas, gets his girlfriend pregnant. While he momentarily convinces her that they can raise the baby, she snaps back to reality pretty quickly (she's a good student and wants to go to college etc.), has an abortion and ultimately cuts him off. She ends up coming off in a much better light, while Silas seems whiny, selfish and flat-out dumb.

In Prime Suspect 7 (or Prime Suspect: Final Act) Helen Mirren plays a cop who's had an abortion and has to talk about it really openly. It's nicely done.

The WB television show, Everwood, featured in the very first season (episode 21) an episode about abortion - I think the title is "Episode 20". Also, beginning in the second season, an enormous plot line is created through the unplanned pregnancy of Ephram's ex girlfriend, and the events that happen after.

Skins is a UK series airing on the E4 channel, set amongst a group of sixth-formers (students in our final two years of high school). It generally has quite a good track record of addressing serious issues in a way that acknowledges the complexities and does not preach. Episodes 8 and 9 of season 2 deal in part with the unplanned pregnancy of one of the regular teenage characters. Health professionals are shown supporting her right to choose, as are her friends. The drama centres on her apprehension about telling her boyfriend that she is pregnant. I think it's generally a very responsible portrayal that neither demonises nor moralises, but unfortunately a lot of good work is thrown away when the boyfriend dies at the end of episode 9 as the result of a longstanding medical condition. This is actually drawing together some major threads of that character's arc, most of which are not related to the pregnancy, but the resultant melodrama does have the potential to be read as if his death is a punishment of the girlfriend for the "sin" of having sex. I'm pretty sure this is unintentional, but it's there. We've yet to find out whether the character will in fact continue the pregnancy - episode 10, the season finale, airs tomorrow. I believe a DVD of the season will be out shortly.

I have seen Bella and it is an exquisite film. Personally I would not consider it to be a very anti-abortion film. The woman in the film experiences an unplanned pregnancy and is having a rough time in her life at the moment. She decides to have an abortion but then changes her mind at the last possible second. I would say this movie celebrates choice. If you have no seen it, do yourself a favour and watch it. It is an extremely well-made movie (a rarity nowadays).

Saved! is a good film that deals with an unplanned pregnancy, especially an unplanned pregnancy in the Catholic school system.

As someone stated before Degrassi (the old series) dealt with various scenarios of unplanned pregnancy and abortion. They new series has dealt with these issues as well.

Canadian films, Cake and Ill Fated deal with the subject matter. In Cake, one of the characters works at an abortion clinic. In Ill Fated the main characters deal with an unplanned pregnancy within the confines of a small town, though the outcome is morbid (it is an excellent film nonetheless).

That is all I can think of as now, since a lot of the films I know have already been discussed.

In the TV show Reba, a good chunk of the entire show focuses on the eldest daughter that got pregnant by her boyfriend in high school. Her boyfriend had to move in because his parents kicked him out, he married her, and they live with a fairly accepting mother.

There was also an episode of Cold Case (not sure which one, but it is about a teenage murder case from 1998 that was brought up again ten years later) that talks a lot about the sins of premarital sex (from the perspective of Christians) and refrains from educating the students about safe-sex practices. One of the girls in this club for born again virgins has actually been having sex with her boyfriend and she thinks she got pregnant. Another more "promiscuous" girl finds out and tries to tell her that it is normal and ok. The gist of the episode revolves around sexuality being the cause of the "promiscuous" girl's death.

JLM

There have been a lot of references to abortion in recent films. "The Cider House Rules" obviously is an important one. In "High Fidelity" abortion is mentioned as well [if only for 5 minutes].

Just my own take on abortion - contrary to prior posts, I don't think anyone naturally feel "alright" with an abortion or even "comfortable" with it, really. That's quite impossible the way women are wired. I am pro-choice [but anti-partial birth abortion] and I think the media portrays abortion fairly well in recent films and programs.

There's "Secret Life of the American Teenager" on ABC Family which focuses on a "a smart girl, band geek.....who is pregnant" (from the wobsite).

Its made by the same producers I believe (don't quote me) as 7th Heaven...which also had some baby drama involved as I recall.

Also, I'm sure there are a few episodes of Roseanne which deal with this issue.

edit: I think that in "That 70's show", Kelso gets his girlfriend pregnant...but I'm not sure.
And has anybody mentioned soap operas? I think a lot of them use that as a topic, but again, I'm not sure.

Nip/Tuck has had several unplanned pregnancies.

Season 1- Julia gets pregnant. (Of course, 17 years before the series starts, she also got pregnant- unplanned.)

Season 1 or 2- Gina gets pregnant.

Season 3- Julia gets pregnant.

Season 4- Kimber gets pregnant.

Season 5- Christian meets the daughter he never knew he had.

While Julia's second pregnancy in series almost ends in abortion, she and her then ex-husband Sean change their minds at the last minute (on Christmas Eve, no less). Also, in one of the early season episodes around Christmas, Matt discusses his theory surrounding the "virgin birth" with his younger sister.

Oddly enough, abortion is seldom seen as a solution to the pregnancies in the show. Surprising given the fearless content the show has, in general. Indeed, numerous conservative organizations have tried with gusto to get the show pulled or to get advertiser/consumer boycotts against it.

Not last season, but the season before, JD and his girlfriend Kim unexpectedly got pregnant on Scrubs, despite the fact that they'd decided not to have sex because neither of them had a condom. It seems that he must have ejaculated near enough to her that she became pregnant.

They spend the entire episode in which Carla gives birth to her and Turk's daughter trying to decide as to whether they're going to have the baby, an abortion, or adoption. A small figure of Jesus comes to life in his daydream, and lectures him, saying abortion is never right. It seems unlikely that in a comedy, especially one in which a child is being born in the same episode, that abortion was ever a likely choice.

Jordan, another character who is pregnant unexpectedly, though she found out late the season before, (her ex-husband Dr. Cox who is basically her husband, had a vasectomy after they had their first child) admits she had an abortion when she was a young woman when speaking with JD and Kim.

I just noticed on the new articles RSS feed that an old Bitch article about this very topic was posted. Here's the link: http://bitchmagazine.org/article/go-forth-and-multiply

Also, if any of y'all don't get the new articles feed it's great! Whenever a new article is posted from old issues it lets you know. I just clicked on the link on the bottom of the home page but you can also get it here: http://bitchmagazine.org/new-articles/feed

Yay, I ♥ old bitch articles!

~tw~

...involved the apparent murder of a young woman who was 8 weeks pregnant. CSI checked her browser history and the night of her death, she'd been searching for local abortion clinics as well as checking out adoption services. The investigators acted fairly sympathetic and nonjudgmental towards her situation.

That was about it, though; the story quickly veered off in another direction (i.e., away from the baby daddy and bf).

(Episode 908, 'Young Man With A Horn', 12/4/08)