Timeline for Has there been a movie or a TV show where an abortion was portrayed without negative connotations?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
40 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 8, 2022 at 22:57 | answer | added | Yasskier | timeline score: 0 | |
| Feb 5, 2022 at 23:36 | answer | added | Princess Ada | timeline score: 2 | |
| Aug 31, 2021 at 0:34 | answer | added | Anton Sherwood | timeline score: 0 | |
| Apr 22, 2019 at 22:23 | comment | added | Thunderforge | Of interest: this article, while unashamedly biased against abortion, examines the reasons that it's difficult to positively portray an abortion on screen. | |
| Sep 3, 2017 at 21:23 | comment | added | halfer | I'm surprised that Mike Leigh's Vera Drake has not been mentioned yet. Vera Drake is an amateur abortionist at a time in the UK prior to legalisation. Whilst it is set up against a backdrop of moral and religious disapprobation, as the central protagonist she is portrayed as kind and decent-minded, and abortion is portrayed as necessary and practical. However, I don't know if this meets your criteria: even though the audience is invited to sympathise with the protagonist, the social environment is condemnatory. | |
| Sep 3, 2017 at 4:09 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackMovies/status/904194564390518784 | ||
| Sep 1, 2017 at 17:37 | history | protected | Napoleon Wilson | ||
| Sep 1, 2017 at 17:28 | answer | added | Rodney P. Barbati | timeline score: 0 | |
| Sep 1, 2017 at 11:50 | answer | added | MSpeed | timeline score: 2 | |
| Aug 31, 2017 at 12:01 | comment | added | Him_Jalpert | I believe Annie's Abortion Adventure tries to come off as a happy go lucky tale about a woman getting an abortion. I believe it's also part musical. | |
| Aug 31, 2017 at 1:41 | comment | added | Barmar | Does the Plan B pill count? I don't remember what show it was, but a recent sitcom had a plotline about trying to get a Plan B pill and the process running into problems. | |
| Aug 30, 2017 at 22:14 | comment | added | PoloHoleSet | There are certainly movies where a person goes in, and has an abortion. It is still portrayed as a trying and difficult decision, but not a life-shattering event. In the Heat of the Night, Delores Purdy's trip to get an abortion is where things kind of come to a conclusion, so it's not shown that she gets one, but it was handled in a very matter of fact way, and she was not at all conflicted, despite it being illegal at that time. That was depicted very much as a matter of birth control. More of a tragedy for people to know you had sex and got pregnant than to hide it via abortion, to them. | |
| Aug 30, 2017 at 19:11 | answer | added | user182812 | timeline score: 5 | |
| Aug 30, 2017 at 16:14 | answer | added | jhocking | timeline score: 3 | |
| Aug 30, 2017 at 16:06 | comment | added | Flater | @Thunderforge: Abortion itself doesn't necessarily need to be seen as positive. E.g. a man killing himself is not positive, but a man killing himself while possessed by an evil demon (thus killing the demon) is considered self sacrifice (which is a net positive, narratively speaking). Similarly, aborting the Antichrist could be considered a net positive without needing abortion to be considered positive in and of itself. (Extreme example, I know). OP's question of "without negative connotations" speaks to the abortion that takes place (as a whole), more than the principle of abortion. | |
| Aug 30, 2017 at 14:44 | comment | added | Konrad Rudolph | Good question, though I’d argue that Juno did fairly well in actually considering abortion as a legitimate option and, even though Juno decided against it, this is done without portraying abortion as morally wrong (the director specifically responded to criticism by emphasising that the stance in the film was explicitly pro choice, rather than anti-abortion). | |
| Aug 30, 2017 at 14:19 | comment | added | user1803551 | @Zaibis Not really, it's a necessary part of the plot progression and there's nothing in the question about drama. It meets all the conditions in the question. Don't know where you read the plot but it's obviously not enough to get the picture. It's a difficult movie to watch and understand alike. | |
| Aug 30, 2017 at 14:11 | history | edited | JonathanReez | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Aug 30, 2017 at 13:27 | answer | added | Amicable | timeline score: 19 | |
| Aug 30, 2017 at 7:10 | comment | added | Zaibis | @user1803551: I jsut read the plot description and Enter the Void sounds like absolute following the trope. From looking at the plot there the abortion is used to give the situation even more drama. | |
| Aug 30, 2017 at 6:59 | vote | accept | JonathanReez | ||
| Aug 30, 2017 at 4:29 | answer | added | user1118321 | timeline score: 4 | |
| Aug 30, 2017 at 2:50 | answer | added | ariff romeo | timeline score: -2 | |
| Aug 30, 2017 at 1:18 | comment | added | user1803551 | Possibly Enter The Void if you can stomach watching it. | |
| Aug 29, 2017 at 23:42 | comment | added | Dai | I might suggest the Family Guy episode where Louis has an abortion - albeit off-screen: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_Terms_of_Endearment | |
| Aug 29, 2017 at 21:17 | comment | added | JonathanReez | @EldritchWarlord I'd say all the examples where there is a huge debate about the procedure don't count as it implies there is a negative moral aspect to it, which is also why Maude is a bad example. | |
| Aug 29, 2017 at 21:13 | comment | added | EldritchWarlord | There isn't much reason to include an abortion plotline without it contributing drama or comedy in some way. Would you count something like the Battlestar Galactica episode in which a woman seeks asylum from her home community which does consider abortion morally "obscene" but all the main and supporting characters either think she should be able to have the procedure done if she wants or have no opinion? They do end up banning abortion for practical reasons, so probably a bad example but is the 2nd condition violated if only a couple extras think it's morally wrong? | |
| Aug 29, 2017 at 21:07 | comment | added | Zach Lipton | There's a list from Indiewire worth looking at: The 11 Most Honest Portrayals of Abortion on TV. From Maude to Girls, there are a number of prominent examples. | |
| Aug 29, 2017 at 20:19 | comment | added | Mark Dominus | I don't care to post an answer, but in the 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High, one of the main characters (Stacy Hamilton, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh) gets an abortion. I haven't seen the movie in a long time, but I think all your desiderata are satisfied. | |
| Aug 29, 2017 at 19:15 | answer | added | Michael Seifert | timeline score: 14 | |
| Aug 29, 2017 at 17:49 | answer | added | BrettFromLA | timeline score: 27 | |
| Aug 29, 2017 at 17:14 | answer | added | Anne Daunted GoFundMonica | timeline score: 22 | |
| Aug 29, 2017 at 16:33 | answer | added | Walt | timeline score: 72 | |
| Aug 29, 2017 at 16:27 | comment | added | JonathanReez | @JohnnyBones even so, lots of movies show that various things are good despite them being bad in real life. It's all fiction in the end. | |
| Aug 29, 2017 at 16:26 | comment | added | JonathanReez | @Thunderforge could be a minor detail in the movie, something like an accidental pregnancy that was terminated with a pill and nobody mentions it again. | |
| Aug 29, 2017 at 16:17 | comment | added | Johnny Bones | I'm not sure how ending a pregnancy can be seen as a reason to party. It's never a good thing, even to people who are pro-abortion. | |
| Aug 29, 2017 at 16:16 | review | Close votes | |||
| Aug 29, 2017 at 18:34 | |||||
| Aug 29, 2017 at 16:11 | comment | added | Thunderforge | I suspect that the only way this would happen is if abortion were seen as a positive thing. Otherwise if it's a neutral thing, it would be hard to make it add anything to the narrative. I mean, you don't see anybody going to the doctor's office for a routine checkup unless it reveals something bad or otherwise provides new information for the plot. | |
| Aug 29, 2017 at 16:02 | history | edited | JonathanReez | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Aug 29, 2017 at 15:11 | history | asked | JonathanReez | CC BY-SA 3.0 |