Even on TV, It Was Hard to Get an Abortion This Year

The end of Roe last summer heralded a frightening new future for reproductive rights in the U.S. Perhaps not shockingly, it also marked a new era for how abortion is portrayed onscreen, according to year-end findings by researchers who have analyzed these representations since 2016.

In 2022, there were more abortion plotlines and mentions on television—at least 60—than any year before, according to the new report from the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) program at the University of California San Francisco. And for the first time ever, one-third—at least 20—of these plotlines portrayed barriers to access; there were only two in 2021, reflecting the harsh new reproductive-care landscape that pregnant people across our country face. Art imitating life, I suppose.

Still, although the entertainment industry has come a long way in depicting abortion accurately after decades of largely ignoring it altogether, gaps remain. Stories in 2022 still distort the reality of exactly who gets abortions, underrepresenting people of color and those who are low-income while highlighting the woes of middle-class white women. Medication abortions, in which drugs are administered to induce an abortion as opposed to a surgical procedure, are still vastly underrepresented, even though they make up more than half of all national abortions.

What we watch on television is important—it shapes cultures and shifts norms; it educates. Will and Grace reduced homophobia nationwide thanks to its weekly charms. Dirty Dancing kicked off a national conversation about the perils of illegal abortions. The whole controversy surrounding 13 Reasons Why boiled down to how dangerous media depictions of suicide can be for teens. Hell, I’d argue that The White Lotus is a weekly, hour-long manifestation of what the zeitgeist has been demanding: that we feast on the elite and knock them down a few pegs. The point is, TV and movies matter, and while certain plotlines got it right—or at least, more right—in 2022, there’s still a long way to go. Here’s what we can learn from how abortion and reproductive rights were depicted onscreen this year.

Obstacles to abortion care were in the spotlight in 2022

The contemporary struggles of pregnant people to obtain abortions were underscored in a number of television shows this past year, and ranged from long-distance drives to abortion clinics (P-Valley, Grey’s Anatomy, New Amsterdam) to gestational limits (Pretty Little Liars, Law & Order). This year, we also saw our very first (yes, ever) abortion fund volunteer in an episode of Law & Order about the daughter of a staunchly pro-life Texas governor who travels from Texas to New York to get an abortion.

...Along with compounding barrier plotlines

As we know, the journey to obtaining an abortion is rarely straightforward, especially in hostile, anti-choice states, and there can be multiple hurdles. This year’s study notably found that several plotlines included “compounding barriers”—such as characters who need to travel, raise money, and negotiate time off of work to receive abortions—reflecting the complex financial, legal, and logistical challenges that many people face in accessing the care they need.

Exactly *who* is getting abortions on TV remains statistically inaccurate

This past year, the majority of characters who obtained abortions (58%—a small drop from 2021) were white cisgender women, even though white women make up roughly one-third of abortion patients in the United States. Meanwhile, 23% of plotlines featured Black characters obtaining or disclosing past abortions, the most seen in recent years but still an underrepresentation of the one-third of real-life abortion patients who are Black. Per ANSIRH’s research, “similar patterns of underrepresentation hold for all characters of color, including Latiné, Asian, and biracial characters.” A significant exception was an episode of P-Valley where a Black mother and her pregnant teenage daughter drive across Mississippi to the state’s sole abortion clinic, racing against the then-legal limit of 14 weeks to get an abortion.

In terms of financial status, the researchers found that, oddly, “the vast majority (80%) of characters who faced barriers to abortion care were white and depicted as middle class or wealthy.” In reality, those who actually face such barriers are people of color and those who live below the federal poverty line.

Pop culture wasted no time depicting the post-Roe landscape (hellscape?) we live in

Medical and legal dramas in particular, namely New Amsterdam, Grey’s Anatomy, and Law & Order, featured plotlines where characters lived in and discussed life post-Roe. “These depictions often included multiple types of abortion content, such as series regulars disclosing past abortions for the first time, a discussion of the ramification of the Dobbs decision on their workplaces, and characters deciding to change the way they practice based on Dobbs,” the study revealed. On Grey’s Anatomy, a pair of doctors volunteer at an abortion clinic in Washington state that’s taking an influx of new patients from Idaho in the wake of Roe’s fall. Only time (and the ANSIRH reporting team) will tell whether these were simply “one-off plotlines” or “season-long storylines.”

Abortion narratives were very problematic at times

Case in point? In both FBI: Most Wanted and Law & Order, patients who sought abortions “either die or kill others in the process of obtaining an abortion”—a storyline that could potentially equate abortion “both with death and criminal behavior,” according to researchers. In fact, the young woman helped by the abortion fund volunteer in Law & Order ends up…murdered. Not great.

Another theme our eyeballs were treated to this year, according to the study, was the doctor-as-savior trope, namely on shows like Grey’s Anatomy and New Amsterdam. Here, abortions are shown as a grave last resort, such as in the case of ectopic pregnancies and fetal anomalies rather than more commonplace examples, like someone who is simply struggling to make ends meet for their family.

For a summary of the entire study and even ones from prior years, head right over here.

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