8 TV Shows That Weren’t Afraid to Talk About Abortion

Despite being a safe and legal medical procedure, abortion doesn’t make a lot of appearances in popular culture. Frequently, when it does make a cameo, it’s in the form of a cautionary tale, where something terrible happens to the woman who decided to get one (see: Penny in Dirty Dancing).

Thankfully, some of the more recent examples of abortion on TV do a better job of showing the nuances of the decision and procedure.

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But why does it matter whether we see accurate depictions of abortions on TV? In short, because pop culture has a bigger impact on our views than we think.

“As individuals, we often look to pop culture for ways in which we fit into society,” Melissa Grant, chief operating officer of Carafem Health, explains. “When pop culture doesn’t accurately portray abortion for what it is—a commonly shared experience for 1 in 4 women of reproductive age—it perpetuates abortion stigma. While we frequently see sex as a common thread amongst much of popular culture, with hypersexualized messages being shared in multiple forums daily, accurate portrayals of abortion are still rare.”