Can anyone recall any storyline in film / TV where a woman decides to have an abortion......

[Greythorne]

without:

A) changing her mind at the clinic doors as "she just can't do that"

B) receiving some (medically unlikely but dramatically "satisfactory") kind of divine retribution like infertility as a consequence?

I can't. And yet thousands of women make the decision to have an abortion every year and it is absolutely the right decision and they do not regret it.

Leanne and Maria in Corrie too - think that makes four over the last fifteen years or so given the others mentioned upthread.

Claire in six feet under had one in a really early episode

Oh I remembered one! The psychiatrist in The Departed after she finds out the truth about her DP and finishes with him. Not discussed, just obvious from later interaction and very matter of fact.

There is quite a lot of academic research on this - from memory the most 'liberal' period was early 1970's US television where characters like Maude in 'All in the Family' were depicted having abortions. Other than that I think daytime soaps were also the most groundbreaking in their depiction of abortion, gay story lines etc.

Pam Grier's character in The L Word (long running American tv show few years back based on a group of mostly lesbian women) has an abortion when she gets pregnant to her much younger bf. she has an adult child she has a difficult relationship with. They make the decision and move on. It was a v sad storyline but I thought it was dealt with quite realistically.

Kit Porter was her name

Pretty sure Amelie didn't have an abortion think she was trying to wind her dad up. (i think)

Cold Feet had the abortion/infertility plot

I just caught up with Mrs Biggs. Not fiction I know but she has an illegal abortion and moves on

Cold Feet was one of the vey worst examples as she had an abortion, then was told her infertility was a direct consequence of that and then, because the actress got pregnant IRL, they then made her have a miracle pregnancy as well. Crap.

There's also Vera Drake, not quite the same but it did highlight that abortions are ok if you're richy rich (and have a mad aunt )

Can I mention a book? The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble has a character who is upset by her abortion for a while but who gets on with life after a bit.

The Delinquents, a dodgy Kylie Minogue film of around 1990. She gets a back street abortion after getting knocked up as an off the rails teenager, IIRC. Actually it was the first time I'd really encountered the idea of abortion so it was a useful formative experience.

My Darling My Hamburger, by paul Zibndel. Crappy backstreet abortion, but it works out in the end IIRC.

Sorry - Paul ZINDEL

It was a while ago so I can't remember the details but I'm sure Liza Minelli in Cabaret had an abortion and I remember thinking at the time that it was handled really well- emotive but not deemed as an unacceptable response to her situation.

Again I might be mis-remembering

No, you're right Guybrush. She did, and it was because she thought Joel Grey might be the father. Creepy. I remember my modern history teacher pointing that out to all of us; we hadn't noticed her decision-making reverie where there's a scene where Grey puts his arms around her.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the graphic novels that Joss Whedon wrote after the series finished. It got a lot of negative publicity in the US.

Didn't the receptionist in Doctors have a chemical one last year after she got pregnant after her dh's vasectomy healed? There was a lot of upset, but I think that was down to her dh accusing her of having an affair.

Good thread. I can't think of exceptions, but there are bloody loads of films/TV programmes where the character changes her mind at the last second, and this is seen as a "happy ending" .

I agree with drjohnson that it is perfectly possible, indeed common, to have an abortion and not regret it, and this message should be more widely expressed to counteract the prevailing "wisdom" that any woman who has one will be wracked with guilt afterwards.

Ides Of March.

Young intern gets pregnant by presidential candidate (it is implied that it is rape, or at least not entirely consensual). Her partner lends her money for an abortion. Then when he loses his job (works for the presidential candidate) he threatens to use that knowledge against him.

The girl commits suicide because she's terrified it will come out in the media. But it is never shown that she regrets the abortion.

I agree she didn't regret the abortion but I hated the treatment of women in The Ides of March - and the suicide outcome did feel like a judgement on her character.

All I can think of is the journalist in Borgen. After what happened to the baby's father, I kept expecting she would dramatically change her mind, but she doesn't.

But I think it is a bit like labour - dramatic waters breaking, rush to hospital. It doesn't reflect women's real life experience, just one stereotype which writers like to think is dramatic.

Oh and didn't Christina on Greys Anatomy have an ectopic pregnancy rupture? (after she had planned the abortion) So fits neatly into B) in the OP .

There's a horrible "Hooray, she's changed her mind because the abortion receptionist is such a callous bitch!" scene in a Fay Wheldon novel. I think it's The Hearts and Lives of Men?

Agree that Lizzie in The Archers was realistic.

I really remember Michelle in Eastenders. She really didn't want the baby. I remember the procedure was shown in detail - she was given a choice to have a general or to be conscious - and it was all sensitively done iirc. I don't think she regretted it - but Lofty was upset and I think he left her.

Why in the name of arse can I remember that so clearly?