USA – Medication Abortion Is the Future, so Why Don’t TV Shows Depict It More?

"This year, what's happening politically right now is just so divorced from the representations of abortion that we're seeing on TV."

Dec 14, 2021
Caroline Reilly, Rewire News

Abortion is normal and common, but you wouldn’t know it from watching television. Just ask Steph Herold, a research analyst with Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) who studies onscreen abortion narratives and how they impact viewers’ understanding of abortion care.

The results are mixed. In 2021, Herold and her colleagues at ANSIRH’s Abortion Onscreen project found 47 abortion plotlines on 42 television shows, from The Handmaid’s Tale to This Is Us.

Continued: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2021/12/14/medication-abortion-is-the-future-so-why-dont-tv-shows-depict-it-more/


Opinion: On TV, abortion is the road less traveled. Life’s not like that.

Kate Cohen
Feb. 19, 2021

After the sixth episode of “Atypical,” I stormed into my daughter’s room.

“Please tell me the therapist is not going to have that baby.”

She paused to remember which show she had told me to watch, and then she shrugged sympathetically. “Sorry, Mom.”

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/19/tv-abortion-is-road-less-traveled-lifes-not-like-that/


Cuban Soap Opera Fuels Abortion Debate

Anti-abortion posts triggered by a fictional story on TV are stirring up controversy on social media, where opinions in favor of this right Cuban women possess dominate.

September 7, 2020
By IPS-Cuba

HAVANA TIMES – There is a heated debate about legal abortions going on in Cuba today, with hundreds of comments from activists, experts and citizens taking over social media, because of one of the storylines in Cuban soap opera “El rostro de los dias”.

As a result of the sexual abuse Lia (the teenage character in this show) suffers, controversy stirred on social media. Raped by her stepfather the question is whether the girl should keep the baby or not. Heated exchanges about legal abortion in Cuba have unfolded because of conservative posts about the issue.

Continued: https://havanatimes.org/features/cuban-soap-opera-fuels-abortion-debate/


USA – The unsentimental abortion scene in ‘Shrill’ isn’t groundbreaking. Here’s why that’s a big deal.

The unsentimental abortion scene in ‘Shrill’ isn’t groundbreaking. Here’s why that’s a big deal.

By Bethonie Butler
March 19, 2019

About 20 minutes into the pilot episode of Hulu’s “Shrill,” the millennial writer at the center of the story has an abortion.

Annie, played by Aidy Bryant of “Saturday Night Live” fame, doesn’t dwell on her decision to terminate her pregnancy. And after a roughly two-minute scene that shows Annie undergoing the procedure with her best friend at her side for support, she barely mentions it again — save for a few passing references and one awkward encounter with her boyfriend’s mother that’s played for laughs.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/03/19/unsentimental-abortion-scene-shrill-isnt-groundbreaking-heres-why-thats-big-deal/