Scandal was not the only network show to address abortion in the past season. On CBS, The Good Wife—which has tackled abortion a few times in its run—featured a story arc ripped from the headlines: feminist lawyer Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) must go against her beliefs to represent a client seeking to keep online a damning video of a doctor discussing harvesting fetal tissue from abortions. (Another newsworthy layer in Scandal's winter finale: As Olivia lies on the operating table, Mellie Grant, former First Lady turned freshman senator, conducts a 16-hour filibuster to save Planned Parenthood.)Abortions are rarely featured on prime time, and they usually don't involve a main character actually going through with it.
If Americans can't handle pregnancy…
A national dilemma
"And then there's Maude"
We're free, and we finally have the right to decide what we can do with our bodies.
A retreat from realism
Cagney & Lacey
Revival
It's the most affecting moment in the episode, revealing the shame women bear long after their procedure.In the new millennium, network television, perhaps taking its cue from cable, began handling abortion in a more realistic way again. In a 2003 episode of Everwood, for example, a teenage girl (Kate Mara) decides to terminate her pregnancy and actually goes through with it. However, as critic Ken Tucker astutely points out, the show "hedges its bets": Mara plays only a minor character and the episode concludes with the doctor who performed the procedure going to confession and asking for forgiveness. Still, a 2010 episode of Friday Night Lights didn't hold back at all: the drama showed a teenage character's realistic decision to end a pregnancy after discussing her options with a guidance counselor (the magnetic Connie Britton as Tami Taylor).Carrie: I lied to you. I did have an abortion. The condom broke. Ok, that's another lie. There was no condom.
Aiden: What's with all the lying?
Carrie: I'm afraid you're gonna judge me. For being 18 and sleeping with a guy without a condom and getting pregnant and never telling him. There, that's the whole truth. Except that I was 22. I should've known better.
Beyond prime-time TV
Recently, researchers with the group Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health conducted a "census" of abortion in popular culture from 1916 to 2014. The results were published in the journal Contraception, and they reveal that abortion is more commonly portrayed than one might assume: It was featured in nearly 400 storylines in television and film (most following Roe) and 87 on prime-time television.In 2015 alone, a plethora of television shows—Jane the Virgin (The CW), Jessica Jones (Netflix), The Knick (Cinemax), Call the Midwife (PBS), etc.— discussed abortion or incorporated the issue into an important part of an episode.While the issue has been explored in popular culture more than many viewers realize, abortion on television today is not completely realistic. The study also found that characters that had abortions were younger, whiter, and wealthier than most women in real life. Moreover, the reasons for fictional characters seeking abortions centered on immaturity and lack of desire to parent, which contrasts with the more common reasons women get abortions: financial hardship or mistimed pregnancy.While we've come a long way since I Love Lucy, history is still unfolding.Abortion on television today is not completely realistic: [TV] characters who have abortions are younger, whiter, and wealthier than most women in real life.