In 2016 alone, 14 states passed laws that make it harder to get an abortion. In total, 26 of our 50 states "severely" restrict abortion access. With so many laws limiting access, getting an abortion is not always as easy as just walking in the clinic. But you wouldn't know that by watching TV. A new study found media portrayals of abortion make them seem much easier to get than they actually are, contributing to an overall lack of understanding about the realities of getting one.
The study, published in Feminism and Psychology, found that television by and large portrays abortion as easy to access. With NARAL Pro-Choice America ranking the country's overall access to abortion as restricted, and the seemingly ever-increasing laws limiting access, we know that's not actually the case. By continuing to portray abortion in a way that's seemingly at odds with reality, the study from Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, based at the University of California, San Francisco, suggests that these portrayals might "reflect and perpetuate low levels of knowledge about abortion restriction."
The study looked at 89 abortion plot lines on American television between 2005 and 2015. Of these plots, 49 resulted in the character actually getting an abortion, and 36 showed the character changing their mind about wanting an abortion or not having to make a decision because of miscarriage. Only four plot lines in the 10-year span showed a character coming up against restrictive abortion laws or other barriers to abortion access like cost or location that resulted in the character not getting an abortion.
In some cases where characters live in places where abortion is illegal, they are able to access abortion anyway, making the kinds of legal restrictions increasing across the country seem like mere inconveniences. For example, Joan on Mad Men considers having an abortion (but ultimately does not) and is able to easily visit a doctor willing to provide an illegal abortion in the 1960s. Few plot lines show women unable to afford abortion, despite that being one of the biggest challenges for women in real life, and even fewer show women facing abortion stigma as a barrier to access. Other challenges not portrayed often or accurately include women facing state-mandated waiting periods (think Friday Night Lights), or young people wanting abortions needing parental consent (like in The Good Wife).
Leaving out these critical challenges to abortion access on television could be a reflection of how most people think about abortion, or it could be part of the reason why people think the way they do.
"Television portrayals of women not encountering or easily overcoming barriers to abortion access simply do not reflect reality for many women across the country,” lead author Gretchen Sisson, Ph.D., said in a press release according to Refinery29. "By minimizing the very real and tremendous challenges women often face when seeking abortion care, TV shows can perpetuate misperceptions among the general public about the existence and consequences of real-world restrictions on abortion."
That said, some shows do get it at least partially right when it comes to abortion. In The Secret Life of the American Teenager, we saw stigma at play when both Amy and Adrian consider abortion. We saw cost as a barrier in Shameless, though it was easily overcome by holding a fundraiser, which leaves out the stigma that surrounds abortion. In both Orange is the New Black and Jessica Jones, characters are incarcerated when they want an abortion, showing a very realistic challenge that many women face. In both of these cases, the shows also show what actually can happen when women are denied or can't access abortion: they turn to potentially unsafe, illegal self abortions. In Orange is the New Black, character Daya drinks a tea purported to induce abortion (it does not) and becomes ill. In Jessica Jones, the character knows she won't be able to access abortion in a timely manner in prison so she takes medication designed to induce abortion that was smuggled into the prison.
In real life, women who are denied abortions or can't access them do often turn to unsafe methods like self-induced abortion. That's why portraying abortions as easily accessible is doing us no favors. It minimizes the challenges and stigma many women face, and it contributes to the ideas that result in so many abortion restrictions.
Related:Scary Statistics About Reproductive Freedom in the United States