Due to the recent popularity of the pro-life movement and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it is essential to discuss how abortion is depicted in pop culture, specifically in contemporary media. A popular perspective of abortion in media is through a conservative pro-life lens, illustrating abortions as an adverse event with no potential benefits. The film Unplanned (2019), directed by Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman, demonstrates this phenomenon by depicting abortions as dangerous, immoral, and psychologically traumatizing.
Based on an autobiography by Abby Johnson, Unplanned is a recount of Abby's personal experience with abortions as well as her time working at Planned Parenthood. The film juxtaposes family scenes with clinic scenes to portray abortions as immoral. For example, in the opening scene, Abby's daughter sneaks into Abby's room to wake her up in the morning. Abby's daughter is met with Abby's loving arms, while the bright natural lighting helps depict parenthood as joyful. In contrast, when Abby goes to the operating room at Planned Parenthood, the room is dimly lit with fluorescent lights. The choice of lighting communicates to the audience that parenthood and children are natural and joyous, while abortion is unnatural and frightening.
Throughout the film, bloody graphic scenes portray abortions as physically harmful. For example, the scene below introduces a young woman who recently had an abortion and is profusely bleeding on the clinic floor. This disturbing image acts to illustrate abortions as gruesome and terrifying. The Social Work and Mental Health journal state that "negative depictions of abortion services in the media can contribute to and exacerbate personal perceptions of abortion," often discouraging people from having abortions themselves or creating guilt for people that have (Ely, 2019). However, research has shown that "denying an abortion to those who wish to obtain one has been associated with decreased self-esteem and reduced life satisfaction in the short-term" (Ely, 2019).
Another graphic scene depicted in this film was when Abby had a medical abortion in her home. She starts uncontrollably bleeding and vomiting and ends up crying on her bathroom floor. This horrific scene communicates to the audience that abortions are a painful and traumatic experience that may have temporary or lasting mental health effects. However, research shows that people who have had an abortion "did not experience negative mental health effects, even five years after the procedure" (Ely, 2019). In addition, the American Psychological Association has released a statement indicating that "one first-trimester abortion (which includes medically induced abortions) is not associated with an increased risk of mental health problems" (Ely, 2019).
Below Abby is seen panicking as she watches one of her patients nearly die from a surgical abortion complication. The setting is graphic; the patient is unconscious, and blood is running down the patient's leg while the doctor fishes out blood clots from the patient's uterus. Although the patient ends up surviving, it is a crucial moment that leads to Abby questioning her role at Planned Parenthood. The scene depicts surgical abortion as being a medically dangerous procedure. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon practice in contemporary media. Jennifer Conti and Erica Cahill, a student and medical doctor from Stanford University School of Medicine, state that the media grossly overrepresents abortion complications (Conti, 2017). In her analysis of 80 abortion plotlines on American television from 2005 to 2016, she found that "37.5% of characters who obtained an abortion experienced a complication, intervention, and/or negative health effect," while the actual figure sits around 2.1% (Conti, 2017). The exaggeration of abortion complications helps to portray a popular pro-life belief that abortions as dangerous and life-threatening when in reality, deadly complications from abortions are sporadic.
Below shows Abby first witness a late-stage surgical abortion. She runs out of the operating room and breaks down crying. The audience can assume that her distress is from witnessing a fetus being "killed" as it is removed from the patient's uterus. Abortion stigma, such as depicting abortion as murder and abortion receivers as murderers, is popularly used by the pro-life movement. According to the academic journal Social Work in Mental Health, "abortion stigma refers to the internalized, anticipated, or experienced attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, or actions that discredit abortion or those associated with abortion" (Ely, 2019). By stigmatizing those who choose to get abortions as murders or depicting abortion as murder, it perpetuates the concept that abortion is morally wrong and that those who partake in abortion are morally incorrect (Hair, 2019).
While working at Planned Parenthood, Abby witnesses a young girl crying as she rushes out of the clinic with abortion pills for a home medical abortion. Here the film depicts abortion as a traumatic decision, while the average patient is young, emotional, and reckless. Similarly, research shows that the American media portrays most abortion patients as "white, young, and not parenting" and end up getting an abortion due to "immaturity or interference with future opportunities" (Conti, 2017). However, today many people who get abortions have children and decide to have an abortion due to "financial hardship or pregnancy mistiming" (Conti, 2017). Notably, "the majority of abortion patients experience relief after the procedure and believe abortion was the right decision for them," instead regretting their decision or viewing their abortion as traumatic.
While Abby worked at Planned Parenthood, pro-life protesters congregated outside the clinic's gate and discouraged incoming patients from getting an abortion. At the film's end, Abby quits her job and joins the pro-life protesters outside Planned Parenthood. The image below shows Abby on the other side of the gate for the first time with the protesters, convincing incoming patients to rethink getting an abortion. The gate symbolizes the separation between right and wrong, where Abby transitioned from being in the wrong to being on the right side of the abortion debate. Abby's redemption is depicted as righteous, while the clinic and its employees remain immoral. Unfortunately, Abby's redemption arc continues the pro-life stigma that abortion is unethical and shameful.
The film Unplanned aims to demonize abortions while simultaneously encouraging pro-life rhetoric. Although Unplanned is only one of many films depicting abortion, the film supports popularly held misconceptions that abortion is morally wrong, traumatic, and potentially dangerous to the patient (Hair, 2019). As a result, films like Unplanned can continue to shame people out of abortions, enforce stigma surrounding abortion, or further government policies that restrict access to abortion.
References
Conti, & Cahill, E. (2017). Abortion in the media. Current Opinion in Obstetrics & Gynecology, 29(6), 427–430. https://doi.org/10.1097/GCO.0000000000000412
Ely, Rouland Polmanteer, R. S., & Kotting, J. (2018). A trauma-informed social work framework for the abortion seeking experience. Social Work in Mental Health, 16(2), 172–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/15332985.2017.1369485
Hair. (2019). "I'd like an abortion please": rethinking unplanned pregnancy narratives in contemporary American cinema. Feminist Media Studies, 19(3), 380–395. https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2018.1465444
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