Hollywood has, for the past 25 years believed that film audiences would be simply outraged at the idea of a film character having an abortion.
In Juno, a pregnant teenager decides against having an abortion after encountering a scaremongering anti-abortion protester outside the clinic. In Knocked Up, anyone who suggests that the 22-year-old protagonist could have an abortion after an awkward one night stand is derided as heartless. In both cases, deciding not to have an abortion is presented as the moral choice.
In 2011’s Bachelorette, a character reveals that she had an abortion as a teenager, and this, the film intimates, is why she’s now a promiscuous mess with a drug problem.However this was not always so.
Teenage girls in Fame (1980) and Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) get abortions and in neither case is this depicted as a big deal or moral issue. The whole plot of Dirty Dancing (1987) is set in motion when a female character needs an abortion and the only person who is criticised is the thoughtless dude who got her pregnant and abandoned her. Even Fatal Attraction, that ultimate example of the backlash against feminism in 80s cinema, was strikingly pro-choice. . Moreover, the abortion rate is at a record low, which makes Hollywood’s scaremongering look even more unhinged.
Apparently the increasingly vocal pro life groups are responsible for the current trend with major studios not willing to risk a backlash
