What Can We Learn From Abortion Movies?
Abbie Johnson on the set of “Unplanned.”
(ANALYSIS) Abortion is a more divisive topic than ever. Thankfully, movies about abortion might uniquely help us cut through the spin and understand what drives the people most passionate about this issue on both sides.
In recent years, more filmmakers have been tackling the issue of abortion, both from pro-abortion rights and anti-abortion perspectives. Unlike the goal of direct activism, these movies are not primarily made to persuade people outside the tribe because that’s not who will buy most of the tickets and therefore recoup the investors’ investment. This means these movies are a great look into what the cultures actually believe and are passionate about, since they’re made by them and for them — and not to persuade the other side.
These three insights from a large collection of these movies offer understanding of anti-abortion and pro-abortion rights communities in America.
Divided by religion
Pro-abortion rights movies are overwhelmingly made by secular filmmakers in Hollywood, while anti-abortion movies are overwhelmingly made by Christians in the faith-based film industry. There is some truth to the claim that religion plays a role in the divide between the most committed activists in the abortion debate on either side.
Religion barely exists in pro-abortion rights films. In pro-abortion rights movies, none of the heroes are religious, and pretty much nobody in their immediate circle is religious either.
“Obvious Child” is a romantic comedy about a stand-up comic who gets an abortion and fears that will get in the way of her new romantic relationship. “Swallow” is an indie drama about a newly married woman slowly going crazy. Neither features any religious characters.
“Saint Frances” is a drama about a woman named Bridget who gets an abortion while nannying a young girl and navigating life in the city. This movie engages most with religion, dealing with Bridget's estrangement from Christianity and the mother of the girl she’s nannying being a devout Catholic whose faith seems more like an unhelpful crutch than anything.
“Never Rarely Sometimes Always” is a drama about a young woman who secretly goes with her best friend across state lines to get an abortion since it’s illegal in her state. It features an ultrasound technician who we assume is religious and encourages the woman to keep the baby with a cringy anti-abortion video.
In “Unpregnant,” a buddy road-trip dramedy about a young woman sneaking across state lines to get an abortion with her best friend, a seemingly kind couple invites the girls into their home before it turns out they’re trying to kidnap her to force her to give birth to her baby.
Where religious people do exist in pro-abortion rights movies, they tend to reflect a picture of religious crazies controlling or oppressing women.
Anti-abortion movies, by contrast, almost always center on religion or religious people.
“Unplanned” is a drama about the life story of Abbie Johnson, a Planned Parenthood employee who became anti-abortion. “October Baby” is an inspirational road-trip dramedy about an abortion survivor looking for her birth mom. “Roe v. Wade” is an ensemble dramatization of the landmark court case. “Gosnell” is a “Law & Order”-esque crime drama about the real-life prosecution of an abortion doctor who killed babies born alive. “Bella” is a drama about a waitress who is fired the day she finds out she’s pregnant. In all of these movies, most of the heroes are religious.
Despite this, they also frequently find space to represent positive nonreligious characters in their stories who are anti-abortion. In “Gosnell,” many of the characters who fight against the doctor illegally killing babies after they’re born — and the blogger who breaks the story — are pro-abortion rights.
The reality of the abortion debate is obviously more complicated than religious versus secular.
But what a range of abortion movies suggests is that religion divides the most enthusiastic and powerful on each side. Pro-abortion rights people are passionate enough about their beliefs and powerful enough to make movies for a primarily secular audience.
Anti-abortion people are passionate enough and powerful enough to make movies about abortion with an anti-abortion message.
Religious pro-abortion rights people exist, but they are not terribly enthusiastic about making or watching pro-abortion rights movies — probably because they don’t see abortion as a good but a necessary evil — and secular anti-abortion people are not a large enough group within the anti-abortion community to drive the films that get made. This also should give anti-abortion people pause, as the numbers of the nonreligious are rising, which could be why the pro-abortion rights crowd has the highest numbers it’s had in decades.
Why women get abortions
These movies also paint very different pictures about the reasons women get abortions. Women who get abortions in pro-abortion rights movies are well-off women who get abortions for convenience rather than necessity. Women who get abortions in in anti-abortion movies are typically victims of bad circumstances who get the abortions to get out of a bad spot.
The protagonists of pro-abortion rights movies are almost exclusively shown to be highly privileged, with all the financial and social resources necessary to care for an unexpected child. Donna Stern in “Obvious Child” and Bridget in “Saint Frances” are both comfortable working young women in the city with strong support groups and loving, well-off families. Hunter in “Swallow” is married to a very rich man. Veronica Clark in “Unpregnant” is a high school girl with a stable, middle-class family who is explicitly shown to be supportive of taking care of a daughter with an unwanted pregnancy.
“Premature,” an indie coming-of-age romance drama, is the notable exception, featuring the only hero who clearly struggles financially. She’s also the only non-White protagonist. Even here, the reasons for getting an abortion are not due to her finances but her breakup with her boyfriend.
Moreover, these characters never are shown to struggle with the decision to get an abortion. Ayanna in “Premature” takes the pill the very scene after she and her boyfriend break up. Donna from “Obvious Child” never questions her decision, only her boyfriend’s potential reaction to it.
In the case of “Unpregnant,” the fact that the hero doesn’t struggle with the choice is one of the things the director explicitly said she liked and related to about the story: “I really related to and was happy to represent Veronica’s perspective of knowing that she wanted an abortion, feeling confident about that, and the turmoil coming from figuring that out, not in the decision or the aftermath.”
Likewise, the star and writer behind “Saint Frances” said the same thing about her protagonist, Bridget: “She struggles with this idea of ‘I shouldn’t have to feel anything about having an abortion,’ which I totally agree with.”
“Saint Frances” and “Unpregnant” both feature monologues from their heroines raging at a world that guilts them about their choice.
At least half of abortions are had by women with low incomes and most are had by women of color. So why don’t the movies reflect this?
The obvious answer is that rich people are simply more likely to support abortion. According to Gallup, by nearly every measure, rich people are more likely to support abortion by large margins. This is why rich women abort a larger percentage of their unplanned pregnancies, according to a Brookings study. The highest earning women abort unplanning pregnancies at a rate of 32%, while that number is 9% for women with low incomes. The reason lower income women have at least half of abortions is because they have the most unplanned pregnancies overall.
Pro-abortion rights movies accurately reflect the life-experiences, motivations and priorities of the majority of pro-abortion rights supporters. Anti-abortion movies, by contrast, tend to show the women getting abortions in more disadvantaged circumstances. Abbie Johnson in “Unplanned” is shown in a toxic relationship and struggling financially when she gets her abortions. “Gosnell” shows the women who go to the abortion clinic as poor, marginalized and often immigrants.
“Bella” shows a struggling waitress who gets fired from her job before she considers abortion. Even when the women are privileged, they are typically portrayed as needing understanding as to why they made their choice.
What the women seeking abortions in anti-abortion movies have in common is that they are all, largely speaking, victims — whether victims of poverty or male cruelty or simply victims of pro-abortion propaganda. But they are almost never portrayed as villains. Instead, the villains are abortion doctors or directors of the abortion clinics. This pretty accurately reflects the dominant anti-abortion narrative that sees the woman who gets an abortion as more victim than villain. This is why former President Donald Trump got such strong pushback from the anti-abortion community for suggesting women should be punished for getting abortions. Depending on how you see it, this is either a kind or demeaning view of women who have abortions. It does reflect the culture.
Who gets empathy?
Iconic film critic Roger Ebert referred to film as “a machine that creates empathy” because of its ability to help us understand and identify with another person’s experiences on screen simply by portraying them. Likewise, both pro-abortion rights and anti-abortion activists largely build their rhetoric around causing people to understand and identify with the suffering of a particular victim in their preferred nightmare scenario — whether that’s a woman with an unwanted pregnancy or a baby being aborted.
It makes sense that pro-abortion rights and anti-abortion films would focus their stories on building empathy with their victims. And they do. But even there, there’s a counterintuitive twist.
Pro-abortion rights movies focus on making the audience understand and identify with the woman with an unplanned pregnancy. They do this very well. We share her experiences every step of the way — sufferings, injustices and joys.
We share Skyler’s experiences of being harassed by her classmates and supervisor, her fear having to navigate a strange city alone with her friend to get an abortion and her pain answering personal questions for the doctor. We share Veronica’s betrayal at being impregnated by her irresponsible boyfriend, her abandonment by her dad and her rage at the world for making getting an abortion so hard. We share Hunter’s feelings of being trapped and demeaned by her husband and in-laws.
But these movies are equally determined to make sure our empathy is limited to this young woman’s experience. These movies introduce us to a plethora of other characters — their families, friends and lovers — but we are never given details about these characters’ motivations or points of view beyond best friends who agree with the main characters. We don't see things from their perspective so we can identify or sympathize with them — or at the very least understand where they’re coming from.
Veronica’s mom is a rare anti-abortion character who is portrayed positively, but she’s never given a chance to explain her point of view. The rare times the movie does allow characters who disagree with the protagonist to voice their perspective — such as with Veronica’s boyfriend and stepdad — it is never to build sympathy or understanding for the other character and their viewpoints but to build contempt for them.
This narrowness of empathy in pro-abortion rights movies is most obvious when it comes to their treatment of the unborn. There are several places where the feelings we’re supposed to share with the hero require us to have complete indifference or contempt for the humanity of the unborn child. In “Unpregnant,” one of Veronica’s highest moments of personal liberation comes when she finally allows herself to scream with joy and laugh with her friend that she is getting an abortion. In “Saint Frances,” Bridget holds her aborted fetus in her hand and laughs with her boyfriend that the fetus looks like “a rat turd” as a bonding moment.
Anti-abortion movies, by contrast, build understanding and identification with wide groups of people and between people who disagree with each other.
Firstly, there is empathy with the woman getting or considering the abortion. A large number of these movies intimately put the audience in the shoes of women who are seeking abortions so that we intimately understand and sympathize with their reasons and even — in the case of “Unplanned” — feel the hurt that comes from Christians treating them cruelly. Movies like “October Baby” don’t explain the reasons why the hero’s mom tried to abort her but show the audience that she deserves understanding anyway.
Secondly, there is empathy for men involved. Whether these men are against abortion like Abbie Johnson’s husband in “Unplanned,” for abortion like the abortion doctor and advocate in “Roe v. Wade” or generally apolitical and simply want to protect women from harm like the Catholic cop from “Gosnell,” anti-abortion movies treat men’s stories, perspectives and stakes in the lives of women and the issue of abortion as if they have value.
There’s even empathy with people who are pro-abortion rights. “Roe v. Wade” and “Unplanned” center on pro-abortion rights protagonists — at least initially — and explain in detail why those people are pro-abortion rights. “Roe v. Wade” opens with Dr. Bernard Nathanson’s love of his life dying because she has to get a back-alley abortion, which explains his lifelong pro-abortion rights advocacy. “Gosnell” shows pro-abortion rights characters as heroes who stand against the illegal abortion doctor Gosnell despite pro-abortion rights pushback.
Finally, of course, there is empathy with the unborn baby. Unborn children are more difficult to empathize with than other kinds of people since they least resemble us. All anti-abortion films constantly remind us through dialogue and plot of the value of the human child at play. But some movies find more creative ways to directly build our empathy with the child. “Unplanned” actually shows us an unborn baby on an ultrasound fighting for their life as an abortion procedure kills them. By contrast, “October Baby” builds empathy for the unborn child by following the story of a young woman who discovers she’s the product of a failed abortion.
In fact, what’s most surprising and compelling about anti-abortion movies is how learning to expand your empathy is a main feature of most of their stories. Whether it’s Abbie Johnson in “Unplanned” learning to care for the unborn, Manny toward Nina in “Bella,” or Hannah toward her adopted parents and the mother who tried to abort her.
This heart for expansive empathy may ring false to those who believe it is the anti-abortion side whose empathy is narrowly reserved for the unborn. But pro-abortion rights advocates would be better prepared to engage with their anti-abortion counterparts if they accepted that the love shown for others in anti-abortion movies is sincere and focused on persuading anti-abortion activists their solutions are wrong. Likewise, the anti-abortion advocates need to recognize that the strongest supporters of abortion are not victims but women who believe they need abortion to have gender equality. And until the anti-abortion movement engages with those women and those beliefs with compassion, abortion will remain common no matter what laws or social programs exist.
Joseph Holmes is an award-nominated filmmaker and culture critic living in New York City. He is co-host of the podcast “The Overthinkers” and its companion website theoverthinkersjournal.com, where he discusses art, culture and faith with his fellow overthinkers.