How Obvi­ous Child set a new stan­dard for por­tray­ing abor­tion on screen

When Gillian Robespierre’s Obvi­ous Child was released in 2014, it set a new stan­dard for the por­tray­al of abor­tion in media. Many pre­vi­ous films that dealt with the sub­ject often focused on the dif­fi­cul­ty of get­ting an abor­tion or the painful choice that it can be. In many cas­es, char­ac­ters even­tu­al­ly rule it out as an option.

Obvi­ous Child was refresh­ing­ly real­is­tic – when Don­na (Jen­ny Slate) dis­cov­ers her unplanned preg­nan­cy, abor­tion is the obvi­ous choice for her, and since she’s in New York in 2014, it is incred­i­bly easy for her to arrange one. Her moth­er sup­ports her, her friends sup­port her, and the guy who got her preg­nant sup­ports her. In her stand-up com­e­dy set the night before her abor­tion, she even makes jokes about it and reflects on what gave her con­fi­dence in the decision.

Abor­tion isn’t the only thing Don­na is deal­ing with. Her life at the time is a series of unfor­tu­nate events, and an unplanned preg­nan­cy is just anoth­er one of them. She’s going through a breakup, her com­e­dy mate­r­i­al is tank­ing, the book­store she’s worked at for the past five years is clos­ing… just to name a few. 

In an inter­view with Salon, Jen­ny Slate said about her char­ac­ter hav­ing an abor­tion that ​“it’s like we treat it like some­thing that is nor­mal. And in nor­mal life, peo­ple have friends that have abor­tions. Peo­ple have abor­tions them­selves. And it’s not a giant plot point. It’s dif­fer­ent for every­body. And I think because there is that respect there, peo­ple see the love and get that more than any­thing else”.

Don­na ends up know­ing two peo­ple per­son­al­ly who have also had an abor­tion: her friend Nel­lie and her mom. Both women are open about their expe­ri­ences with the pro­ce­dure – Nel­lie had hers not too long ago and is able to con­sole Don­na that it will hap­pen quick­ly and eas­i­ly. Donna’s mom got her abor­tion back in col­lege, before Roe vs Wade, and had a more dif­fi­cult time with it but still express­es that she is grate­ful she did it. Rarely in films these days are we able to see mul­ti­ple women talk about their dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences and acknowl­edge that it’s not uncommon.

Planned Parenthood’s Senior Direc­tor of Art & Enter­tain­ment Caren Spurch has spent years help­ing shape the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of abor­tion in art to a place that push­es bound­aries and makes peo­ple think. ​“We’re nev­er going to change these poli­cies unless we change the cul­ture, and the way we change the cul­ture is through art,” Spurch argues in an inter­view for Indiewire.

Dis­cussing the impor­tance of Obvi­ous Child to film and cul­ture, Spurch has said that the ​“film changed the way peo­ple in my orga­ni­za­tion think about the arts, and it real­ly gave oth­er con­tent cre­ators the courage to include these sto­ry­lines”. The writer and direc­tor of Obvi­ous Child, Gillian Robe­spierre, worked with Planned Par­ent­hood in the pro­duc­tion of the film and even shot a few scenes at a local clin­ic. This allowed them to accu­rate­ly por­tray what the expe­ri­ence of get­ting a legal abor­tion is like, some­thing that has often been mis­con­strued for dra­mat­ic effect in oth­er media.

It’s been some time since the release of Obvi­ous Child. Accord­ing to Planned Par­ent­hood, many abor­tion cen­tres in the Unit­ed States have been defund­ed and closed in the years since, over 300 laws restrict­ing abor­tion have been enact­ed in numer­ous states (includ­ing a record-break­ing 100+ in 2021), and the pan­dem­ic has been used as a method of mak­ing the med­ical pro­ce­dure inaccessible. 

Not to men­tion the major rever­sal of Roe vs Wade by the Supreme Court this past week­end, which has already allowed states with trig­ger laws to ban abor­tion entire­ly. Look­ing back on Obvi­ous Child now, it’s less about the real­i­ty of abor­tion in the present day and more about what it should be, where the most dif­fi­cult part of arrang­ing an abor­tion is hav­ing to choose whether to have it on your mother’s birth­day or on Valentine’s Day. 

Oth­er ​“abor­tion films” that have come out in recent years reflect this down­ward spi­ral. These films are hon­est and impor­tant – they share the past and cur­rent real­i­ty of what preg­nant peo­ple must go through to get an abor­tion. Pop­u­lar indie films like Unpreg­nant and Nev­er Rarely Some­times Always, both released in 2020, do a great job of show­ing the obsta­cles peo­ple have to go through nowa­days to receive abor­tion care: tak­ing a road trip, hid­ing it from loved ones, and vis­it­ing ​“doc­tors” that are unreliable. 

Some films take us back to the days pre-Roe and to oth­er coun­tries: Hap­pen­ing fol­lows a young woman fac­ing an unwant­ed preg­nan­cy in France in the 1960s when abor­tion was ille­gal. Call Jane recalls the real-life Jane Col­lec­tive, an under­ground group of women who orga­nized ille­gal abor­tions in Chica­go. As pre­vi­ous rights to abor­tion are reversed, it’s scary to watch these films and know that they’ll no longer be issues of the past. 

What’s still miss­ing from the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of abor­tion in film? Right now, most of the char­ac­ters in film and TV who have abor­tions are white, cis­gen­der, and unmar­ried women. In real­i­ty, a major­i­ty of peo­ple who have abor­tions are already moth­ers, and a dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­ber of Black and His­pan­ic peo­ple get abor­tions. There are an infi­nite num­ber of sto­ries and sit­u­a­tions when it comes to the real­i­ty of abor­tion, and very few have been told in an hon­est and sym­pa­thet­ic way. Most impor­tant­ly, we need more films like Obvi­ous Child, which show abor­tion as it real­ly is: normal.

If you live in the US and are look­ing for an abor­tion provider, check out abor​tion​find​er​.org or pro​choice​.org for a brick-and-mor­tar clin­ic, and plancpills​.org/​guide for infor­ma­tion on abor­tion pills. 

For coun­selling on preg­nan­cy options, all​-options​.org is a great resource. For fund­ing and prac­ti­cal sup­port, go to abor​tion​funds​.org and api​arycol​lec​tive​.org/​p​s​o​-list