Abortion on TV Series

Cafe Society
1

In another thread, a main character is pregnant and a mention was made of her having an abortion.

I’m trying to think of show’s where there was an abortion. It gets mentioned as an option, but no one seems to have one.

The two I can think of are Maude (Maude herself, and it caused quite a stir), and St. Elsewhere (Lizzie Westphal).

Any others? I’m guessing in the modern climate, it’ll never happen again (at least not on network TV) - to much controversy, and no sponser would want to take the heat.

2

Uh…this character was pregnant before but didn’t have a baby. Did she have a miscarriage before, or another abortion?

Anyway, there are abortions on TV…but only magical ones. Cordelia on Angel and Phoebe on Charmed both had magical abortions that kept them from having demon-spawn. I think there was real potential there with evil offspring, but what can you do?

Oh, and I’m pretty sure that late in the series Abby on ER confessed to having an abortion, but it was supposed to have been when she wasn’t yet working at county.

3

It didn’t happen ‘on-screen,’ but Jordan from Scrubs admitted to having an abortion when she was a teenager.

4

Christina Yang on “Grey’s Anatomy” is planning on having one, though her husband isn’t happy about it, and she hasn’t acutally done it yet.

-Joe

5

On Sex and the City, Carrie and Samantha mention having had an abortion (two for Sam, actually) before the show started. Miranda almost gets one but then decides to have the baby.

6

She had one in season one (or had a convenient miscarriage after deciding to have one) with Burke’s child.

7

Didn’t Christina have one in like the third or fourth episode of season one?

8

Yup. Look up. :slight_smile:

9

Usually the way it goes on TV shows:

“Oh noes! I’m preggers! This is not good for one of several reasons. Maybe I should have an abortion.”

Then either:

“No, I can’t do that. I will Have And Raise The Baby.”
or
“Well, I’m gonna have the abortion next week.”

but either way, it’s almost always followed by:

“Whew! What a convenient miscarriage!”

10

The character with the scratchy voice (ellen?) on thirtysomething had one. I don’t believe it happened during the show, but it was definitely mentioned after the main character had a miscarriage.

11

I did, I was just too lazy to edit.

12

So your edit was… aborted? :smiley:

13

Don’t forget the fall down the stairs. That’s the classic TV miscarriage mechanism.

14

I remember listening to a DVD episode commentary for a teenage pregnancy episode on ‘Party of Five’, and one of the writers mentioning that the writing staff wanted to have Julia actually get the abortion, but that FOX network execs refused and so they landed back on the miscarriage ending.

15

Friday Night Lights, near the end of Season 3. Girl gets objective/supportive advice from coach’s wife/hot hight school principal & does have abortion. Word gets out & principal has to fight for her job.

There was a show in the late 1970s with Jack Klugman I believe as a urban working-class guy whose daughter went to get an abortion, backed out & then with his support, went back & got it. Controversy at the time was an edited bit of dialog. To him “But you’re Catholic, what would the Pope say?”, Him- “The Pope doesn’t have a teenage daughter.” was changed to “Serbian Orthodox” & “the Bishop”.

16

Claire from Six Feet Under had an abortion, but maybe HBO can be more free in what the characters in their shows do.

17

On Third Watch, one of the characters get pregnant. They have financial problems, and she is thinking about an abortion. I can’t remember if she discusses it with her husband. She either doesn’t or he says “oh we’ll make it work somehow.” She is assaulted at work and tells everyone she had a miscarriage. Actually, she had an abortion because she didn’t feel they could support another child.

Season 2, episode 2.

18

Throughout it’s several series, there have been a couple high school age characters on *Degrassi *who have gotten abortions, one of which happened around 1989-1990.

19

On Mad Men, while Joan did not get one in Season 4, it was clear that she had had them before.

20

This is a gut-wrenching episode. Still remember Faith in the stirrups (and the look on her face in close up) from the original broadcast.

As it happens, I have been watching Third Watch again with my wife (who hasn’t seen it) and this is the next one up. I’m a little hesitant to fire it up, because she already complains that Third Watch is too stressful when it shows kids in jeopardy, generally, and she finds this hard to watch when she’s pregnant. “Hey, honey, you’re gonna love this one!”