[QUOTE=ready29003]
Clearly the Aliens movies were a metaphorical warning that any life growing inside of your body should be treated with fear and respect- and seriously considered for abortion.
This point was driven home in the third movie with the appearance of Winona Ryder who cannot be seen on film without at least the subliminal thought that some people really should never have been born.
[/QUOTE]
You are actually referring to Alien 4, (Alien Resurrection)
However, many people do think that Alien 3 and 4 should never have been born…
If you were specifically seeking out movies that tended to illustrate
pregnancy, of the unwanted or unplanned or subsequently inconvenient variety
consideration of abortion issues pro and con
protagonist of movie opts for abortion and has one
outcome is not left to viewers’ imagination or at least is strongly implied by plot trajectory, and can be categorized as “good choice”, “bad choice” or “kinda mixed”
… which ones, and which outcomes?
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The previously-mentioned If These Walls Would Talk is likely your best bet, since it’s specifically about abortion (make sure you get it and not the sequel– that’s about lesbianism).
Bitch had a great piece a few years back about all the horrible things that happened to TV characters who considered or went through with abortions, but I can’t seem to find it online.
[QUOTE=AHunter3]
Well in one case the movie ends without the choice having been made (or at least as far as we know at any rate): Citizen Ruth.
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The choice is made, sort of:
Ruth miscarries but doesn’t tell anyone (she tries, but nobody will listen), and then she goes through the motions of going to the abortion clinic and escapes through a window. Some have called that a cop-out, but I think it’s the only way the movie would work since the point was to skewer both sides of the abortion debate. Letting either side “win” would have taken away from the point.
[QUOTE=Little Plastic Ninja]
Circle of Friends does it, I believe – a tricky prospect in mid-twentieth-century Ireland, too.
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Nope, Simon tries to convince Nan to have an abortion in England, but she sleeps with her friend’s BF and pins the pregnancy on him, and ultimately has a miscarriage.
[QUOTE=Jayn_Newell]
It’s not a movie, but the old Degrassi High series had two students get pregnant during its run. One had the kid, and the other had an abortion.
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There was an abortion in “Degrassi: The Next Generation”(*) too, but I think they only aired that episode in Canada. Apparently in the U.S. it was considered “too controversial”. Date rape and drug use, those are fine topics, but god forbid anyone get an abortion. :rolleyes:
(*) which really sounds like it ought to be about teenagers in space, doesn’t it?
Since the question was asked (if only in a musing-out-loud way) I’d like to state that I don’t have an agenda, i.e., this is not to provide ammunition for any type of argument, informal or otherwise, that I’m involved in, just that the discussion mentioned in the OP got me wondering.
Seems to me (informally, I mean, haven’t made a table or anything) like the most common trajectory in a movie where abortion and choice pop up as issues runs like this:
• pregnancy occurs; abortion is an early consideration, perhaps the initial “of course” default or perhaps brought up as one option.
•some RTLish disgust or horror at abortion is expressed by someone, somehow, usually not portrayed in a very appealing manner.
• pregnant person for one reason or another, but NOT for anti-aborton sentiments, chooses to have the baby.
• plotline continues to develop support for pregnant person’s right & authority to have made the decision; so movie could be loosely categorized as “pro-choice” but with a fairly strong “choose life” sub-component.
Thanks, everyone, for the list. Many (most in fact) I have not seen or have not seen in a long time. I’ll give some thought to how the message in these movies differs.
I’d agree that seems the most common trajectory. Its the easy one that leaves both sides vaguely satisfied. Often there is a miscarriage, so that you never need to get to the reality that raising a child as a single mother is hard and the adoption route is heartrending (I appreciate that they were honest with that in Juno).
Cider House Rules I think only got mentioned once upthread. I think that book and the movie (the book is better) is probably one of the better fictionalizations on the abortion debate. Mostly, I think I like it because the book, at least, makes one of my favorite points about class and abortion.
[QUOTE=Dangerosa]
I’d agree that seems the most common trajectory. Its the easy one that leaves both sides vaguely satisfied. Often there is a miscarriage, so that you never need to get to the reality that raising a child as a single mother is hard and the adoption route is heartrending (I appreciate that they were honest with that in Juno).
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Sex and the City recognized that raising the kid is also a hard choice–they don’t really portray it as all sunshine and lollipops for Miranda, who does have the support of the father Steve (whom she eventually marries) but is doing quite a bit on her own.
To Find a Man is about a girl (who I never realized was Pamela Sue Martin until I looked at the imdb entry) who gets knocked up by her mother’s boyfriend and who has an abortion, helped by the boy who likes her. It was interesting in that it was filmed after abortion became legal in New York and before Roe v Wade. I saw it just after it came out, a long time ago, but I’m pretty sure she went through with it.
Love with the Proper Stranger a 1963 movie with Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen kind of fits your criteria - and is notable for me for it’s early(ish) depiction of the subject.
Good Catholic girl has a one night stand with a musician, gets pregnant, tracks him down (he doesn’t remember her), and tells him he has to arrange for the abortion.
He does, they go, he’s appalled by the conditions the abortion will be performed under and gets her out of there. Romance ensues.