Last year saw more depictions of abortion on TV than ever before

As conservative lawmakers continue to attack reproductive rights in this country, the way media represents abortion to the American public is very important. 2019 saw many heartbeat bills, and general abortion bans passed at the state level. But at the same time, a recent study found that there was also an unprecedented number of discussions about abortion depicted on television — more than ever observed in a single year. The quality and accuracy of this representation, however, varied from program to program. 

The study, conducted by Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), found that 65% of the characters who obtained abortions on TV this year were white. Only one of all the people portrayed having abortions was black, even though most people who have abortions in this country are people of color. White characters were also more frequently presented as engaging with abortion in terms of it as a political issue or health care. In contrast, people of color merely talked about it, often as a detriment to their lives. 

Despite this skewed representation, there were a few notable firsts for characters of color. On the Amazon Prime show “Made in Heaven,” for example, a Punjabi character disclosed that she had an abortion. ANSIRH notes this is the first mention of abortion by a South Asian woman on television. Freeform’s “The Bold Type” also showed the first conversation about abortion had by a queer black woman on the air. The episode also touched on the predatory nature of Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs), places that advertise themselves as healthcare providers but are not medically licensed and attempt to deter patients from having abortions. 

Another groundbreaking portrayal of abortion on TV was an episode of Netflix’s “Orange is The New Black,” in which a character named Santos Chaj, an undocumented immigrant who does not speak English, is pregnant in a detention center. She is unable to communicate that she needs an abortion, so she tries to induce one using parsley tea. She is, fortunately, able to have an abortion because a warden slips her a pill. This is important because it shows the barriers to obtaining health care and abortion services immigrants and those who are incarcerated face. 

Another noticeable change in the presentation of abortion this year was that the actual procedures were depicted on a number of shows, rather than just references to or conversations about the procedure. Hulu’s “Shrill” showed Aidy Bryant’s abortion procedure in the first episode of the series, making it the first episode of a series to do so. Netflix’s “Sex Education” portrayed a mother getting an abortion because she was struggling to make ends meet with her own kids. The episode portrayed the procedure as more of a surgical process than it is, serving as one example of a trend of misinformation that was seen on other TV shows that depicted abortion.

In terms of harmful depictions, “Chicago Med” depicted ordering abortion pills online as a dangerous choice when self-managed abortion is, in fact, a safe practice. Additionally, an episode of “Law and Order: SUV” followed a young woman in Ohio who had to travel to New York to obtain an abortion. While Ohio is a restrictive state and is working to restrict reproductive rights even further, it is still possible to get an abortion in Ohio, which the episode does not make clear. 

It is important for abortion to continue to be represented on TV, as it has the ability to give viewers the opportunity to connect to subject on a personal, rather than strictly political, level and also show how diverse the experiences of the people who choose to have the procedure truly are. In the future, networks should work towards providing accurate information and continuing to depict those diverse experiences to have an even more significant impact in 2020.