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It's Been a Minute

Abortion access is limited. Is Hollywood to blame?

August 4, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

In 1972, a year before Roe v. Wade, the sitcom Maude aired an episode where the title character, a grandmother on the verge of menopause, discovers she is pregnant. She and her husband have a calm conversation and decide together that it is not the right time for another baby. The abortion is portrayed as a normal, if difficult, decision between two adults. Fast forward a few decades to the Oscar-winning film Juno, and the tone has shifted dramatically. The pregnant teenager decides against an abortion because someone tells her the fetus has fingernails. For filmmaker Janet Goldwater and researcher Steph Harold, that moment crystallized a decades-long pattern: Hollywood has systematically distorted what abortion actually looks like, and those distortions have helped shape public perception and policy in the real world.

A history of distortion on screen

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:17) **The Core Question: Hollywood’s Role in Abortion Stigma** - Janet Goldwater states the central thesis: Hollywood has contributed to the stigmatization of abortion and public misperception that it is dangerous or abnormal, even though it is common and safe.
  • 2 (01:40) **First On-Screen Abortion Storylines** - The hosts and guests share their personal first exposures to abortion on screen.
  • 3 (04:00) **When Hollywood Gets It Wrong: From *Maude* to *Juno*** - The guests identify early inaccurate portrayals that set a troubling pattern.
  • 4 (09:24) **Power in Hollywood: Norman Lear vs. Shonda Rhimes** - The discussion shifts to how a creator’s power determines what stories can be told about abortion.
  • 5 (12:43) **The Salacious Double Standard** - Brittany highlights the absurdity of how abortion is treated compared to other content.
  • 6 (15:11) **The First Black Woman to Have an Abortion On Screen** - The guests discuss the landmark *Scandal* episode from 2015.
  • 7 (19:12) **The "Magical Miscarriage" Trope** - A modern example from *And Just Like That* illustrates how even progressive shows avoid the reality.

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Show Notes

Have our favorite shows and movies shaped the way we think about abortion?

Hollywood has a huge impact of how we understand abortion. It can drive a plot, like in Dirty Dancing, or inspire conversations about who gets abortions, like in the television series Maude. It can also be dramatized – turning a common medical procedure into something good, bad, or anything in between, depending on who is telling the story and how. Brittany Luse chats with Janet Goldwater, a director of the documentary Hollywood Does Abortion, and Steph Herold at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) to understand how Hollywood handles, or mishandles the topic of abortion.

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