Juno at 10 – how have repro­duc­tive rights changed on screen?

“Hi, I’m call­ing to pro­cure a hasty abor­tion.” These words struck a chord with teenage audi­ences in 2007, con­fronting pop­corn-filled sleep­overs with a scar­i­ly adult prospect. The sub­ject of child­birth itself did not come as a sur­prise, giv­en that the DVD cov­er depict­ed a heav­i­ly preg­nant Ellen Page – yet the sub­ject of abor­tion def­i­nite­ly was, and this is what made Juno feel so fresh and unique. Not only was this a film that explored repro­duc­tive free­dom with a by turns whim­si­cal and har­row­ing tone, it also exposed the chal­lenges faced by women at a time when the sub­ject was still con­sid­ered taboo.

Juno MacGuff was just like any oth­er off­beat teenag­er; tena­cious­ly sar­cas­tic, com­i­cal­ly can­did and com­plete­ly unpre­pared for moth­er­hood. Dur­ing a scene at the abor­tion clin­ic she dis­cov­ers that the foe­tus inside her already has fin­ger­nails, some­thing that con­tributes to her deci­sion to car­ry the baby to full term and give the child up for adop­tion. Yet despite this seem­ing­ly smooth solu­tion to an oth­er­wise prob­lem­at­ic sit­u­a­tion, the film refus­es to shy away from the com­plex­i­ties of famil­ial rela­tion­ships and the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties of youth, afford­ing its pre­co­cious pro­tag­o­nist the right to exer­cise agency over her own body, exor­cise the trau­ma that occurs as a result of giv­ing up a child when you’re a child your­self, and ulti­mate­ly bring­ing about her own heal­ing. Juno gave mil­len­ni­al women the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hope, strength and humil­i­ty amid adver­si­ty, some­thing that has since led to more hon­est por­tray­als of unex­pect­ed preg­nan­cy in film and television.

Fast for­ward to today and US laws on repro­duc­tive rights have tak­en a misog­y­nis­tic turn, a result of Don­ald Trump’s elec­tion to the high­est office in the land, includ­ing blocks on fund­ing for Planned Par­ent­hood and a bill that gives employ­ers the right to fire female employ­ees if they use birth con­trol. These attacks on women’s bod­ies have also coin­cid­ed with NHS bud­get cuts in the UK, which have the poten­tial to threat­en women’s health­care. At a time when female bod­ies are being policed more than ever, we can find val­ue in the arguably more humane realms of film and fic­tion, in which repro­duc­tive sto­ries are treat­ed with sen­si­tiv­i­ty and a frank­ness that is refresh­ing, despite being large­ly absent in cur­rent politics.

Turn­ing to one of the more recent exam­ples, Netflix’s fem­i­nist wrestling sen­sa­tion GLOW, we are brought to a dif­fer­ent real­i­sa­tion than that in Juno, but one that is no less reflec­tive of real­i­ty. Instead of a ner­vous teenag­er, we are plunged head first into a thir­tysome­thing strug­gling actress’ gut wrench­ing predica­ment that she is preg­nant as a result of an affair with her best friend’s hus­band. The fol­low­ing events unfold with min­i­mal dra­ma but utmost sin­cer­i­ty. Dur­ing the car ride to the clin­ic, Ruth’s (Ali­son Brie) boss Sam (Marc Maron) asks her if she’s okay with what she’s doing and she replies, ​“It’s not the right time, not the right baby.” There is no tip­toe­ing around the sub­ject of abor­tion in this series, despite being set in the ​’80s, and this makes for a raw and hon­est depic­tion of repro­duc­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty as an inte­gral com­po­nent of being a woman.

Since Juno’s release we’ve also seen oth­er on screen char­ac­ters tack­le the same dilem­ma in a healthy fem­i­nist spir­it, includ­ing hit dra­ma Jane The Vir­gin, in which Jane’s moth­er Xiomara, after repeat­ed­ly stat­ing that she didn’t want any more chil­dren, acci­den­tal­ly falls preg­nant and has an abor­tion. The show deals with this in a sim­i­lar vein – empa­thet­ic but casu­al. This by no means makes light of her deci­sion, but instead invites us to recon­sid­er the social and cul­tur­al stig­ma sur­round­ing the ter­mi­na­tion of a preg­nan­cy and the cru­cial right women have to con­trol their own bodies.

The treat­ment of abor­tion in Scan­dal was also a res­onat­ing nar­ra­tive for mod­ern audi­ences, in which we see Olivia Pope (Ker­ry Wash­ing­ton) under­go­ing the pro­ce­dure and expe­ri­enc­ing the after­math, with Shon­da Rhimes con­se­quent­ly being praised by Planned Par­ent­hood for tak­ing a stance on repro­duc­tive rights and shed­ding light on women’s stories.

Lena Dunham’s Girls, though flawed when it comes to inter­sec­tion­al fem­i­nism, is renowned for its staunch­ly pro-female nar­ra­tives, pro­vid­ing a lens through which we can expe­ri­ence both the ugly and endear­ing sides of female youth. As a mod­ern par­al­lel to Juno, it also came as a sur­prise to fans when main char­ac­ter Han­nah falls preg­nant but choos­es to keep her baby, empha­sis­ing the state­ment that when it comes to repro­duc­tive choice, it is just that: a choice. In a raw, some­times uncom­fort­able light, this sto­ry allows audi­ences to glimpse oth­er stig­mat­ic issues faced by women that don’t revolve around abor­tion or giv­ing up a child, includ­ing post-natal depres­sion and the con­cept of mater­nal instinct.

Over the past decade, these female-dri­ven nar­ra­tives have not only nor­malised the real­i­ties of repro­duc­tive choice but also chal­lenged the notion that the life of an unborn foe­tus is more impor­tant than that of a liv­ing, breath­ing woman. Expos­ing con­tem­po­rary sto­ries like these in the favourite films and TV shows of a new gen­er­a­tion of pop­corn filled teenagers will endow, instead of fear or con­fu­sion, a sense of secu­ri­ty that their sto­ries are being told. This is the last­ing effect of rep­re­sen­ta­tion of repro­duc­tive rights in film, trans­lat­ing empow­er­ment from char­ac­ter to self, and from screen to reality.