On November 14, 1972, Maud Findlay, a 47-year-old woman living with her fourth husband in a New York suburb, discovered she was unexpectedly pregnant. It was a year before Roe v. Wade was passed, and like many women in America, Maude had no interest in having another child and found herself considering abortion. This dilemma played out in two episodes of the hit CBS comedy “Maude,” produced by Norman Lear. Leah was used to tackling hot-button issues in the “all in the family” media empire she built. But even Lear had a hard time getting this story on the air.
“We shot the first part of the two abortion episodes, and then we were told we wouldn’t be filming the second half until it premiered. If the numbers weren’t good, we wouldn’t be filming the rest,” recalls Adrienne Barbeau, who played Maud’s daughter Carol on the show. “There was a lot of pressure.”
When this episode aired, several stations in the South refused to air it. However, the numbers were strong enough to convince CBS to let Lear end the story. Maud ultimately chose to undergo surgery, and the show portrayed abortion as a safe medical option for women who do not want to have children. Leah could have caused Maud to miscarry, but ultimately decided that doing so would be “removal from the police”.
The show reflected changing social mores. But a new documentary, “Hollywood Gets Abortion,” which premiered at the Tribeca Festival, argues that the entertainment industry’s portrayal of abortion often shapes the public’s view of the procedure, fostering a culture that views abortion as shameful or dangerous. Shows like “Roseanne” and “Party of Five” and movies like “Juno” have often featured characters struggling with whether or not to have a child, leading to false positives and miscarriages so they don’t have to choose, or instead choosing to have a baby instead. Other films and series, such as “Dirty Dancing” and “The Sopranos,” depicted women who nearly died from abortions or were unable to bear children due to long-term medical effects. Hollywood is often seen as a bastion of liberal politics, so the negative portrayal of abortion in these contributing films and series is counterintuitive.
“The vast majority of people who make movies and TV are pro-choice and pro-science,” says Rachel Bloom, creator of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” and producer of the documentary.
Bloom believes that in most cases, the writers were simply trying to use abortion as a “dramatic device.” “But there is a responsibility to be accurate,” she says.
And, as the documentary points out, the complicated situation portrayed in many movies and TV shows does not match the facts. According to a study in Advancing New Standards in Reproduction Health at the University of California, San Francisco, less than 0.25% of abortions in the United States have serious complications, and less than 1% have complications that are treated in the emergency room. Additionally, abortion is more common than some programs make clear, with Planned Parenthood reporting that one in four women has had an abortion by age 45.
Hollywood Takes Abortion points out that changes in the way abortion is portrayed in movies coincided with the 1980 presidential election of Ronald Reagan and the rise of the religious right. The trend accelerated as abortion supporters shifted their messaging on abortion, with people like Hillary Clinton insisting that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.”
“We think of Hollywood as being very progressive, but we went through a pretty big time where abortion was heavily stigmatized,” says Barbara Atty, one of the documentary’s co-directors. “It was meant to be shameful. There would be a plotline where someone would consider an abortion, and they would ask their friends what they should do, and they would agonize over it, and then they would have a miscarriage. The kinds of messages that TV and movies were giving us were eye-opening.”
Even characters who have had abortions describe it as a harrowing experience. “Hollywood Does Abortion” includes footage from an episode of “Sex and the City” in which Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) becomes pregnant by her ex-boyfriend. She eventually leaves the baby, but only after consulting Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker). Carrie says she’s still haunted by her decision to have an abortion years ago.
“The idea continues to be that there will be long-term regrets,” says Janet Goldwater, one of the documentary’s co-directors. “There’s research showing that people who are turned away and don’t get an abortion actually experience regret and long-term negative economic and emotional consequences. And it turns out that people who get an abortion don’t experience much regret. They experience a lot of relief.”
In 2022, the politics of abortion shifted once again as the U.S. Supreme Court formally overturned Roe v. Wade in its landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, leaving it up to each state to decide whether to legalize abortion. This once again changed the way abortion is dramatized in pop culture.
“More abortions were depicted last year than ever before, and that’s a positive thing,” Goldwater said. “But there still aren’t that many barriers to abortion. It’s mostly people making appointments at the family planning system a block away.”
This does not reflect the reality for people in the 13 states where abortion is almost universally banned, and in many other states where new restrictions are in place. The producers of “Hollywood Does Abortion” seem to feel that even these recent depictions fall short of “Maude’s” groundbreaking two-part structure.
“It still feels revolutionary,” said Mike Uti, the film’s co-director. “How often do we see women taking control and agency over their own decisions?”
For Barbeau, it’s frustrating considering the setbacks the pro-choice movement has suffered in the more than 50 years since the abortion episode of “Maude” aired.
“We went backwards,” she says. “This is as important and timely as it was then, if not more so. There are three or four generations of young women who lived under Roe v. Wade. They had no idea what it would be like to have this law overturned until 2022. I did that.”
