Have you been watching a series or movie and the macabre one comes out “ABORTION SCENE”? Some kind of absurd manipulation that makes abortion look like the worst possible decision.
These scenes usually follow one of four patterns: 1) they show us a fetus in 3D “Talking to the mommy” when she wants to have an abortion, 2) they show us the agitated argument with your husband or family What makes her look like a selfish for making the decision alone 3) they show us how “regrets” at the time of surgery and they show The doctors who perform abortions like evil aliens, sometimes literally, and 4) they show us the decision as a moment morals, not as a life decision. It's never rational, it's never practical, it's never for anything other than “the fight of good against evil”.
These archetypes are detrimental to the conversation about abortion, because series and movies inevitably shape how society perceives procedures. Let's talk about these manipulations one by one and see why they are problematic.
- The talking fetus:
The film Blonde had a lot of problems: it was dedicated to infantilizing Marilyn Monroe, hypersexualizing her and inventing false narratives about her life; but perhaps one of the biggest problems she had was her fetus in 3D.
At some point in the film she becomes pregnant: she hears the fetus talking to her, and the fetus psychologically manipulates her, making her feel bad about her previous abortion. Although this pregnancy is not even three months old, they intentionally show the fetus almost fully developed. That's part of the manipulation: the anthropomorphized image, the broken voice and the depressing words are part of the manipulation to tell you”this is a person, you are a murderer.”
Like all anti-rights propaganda, it is based on lies and sentimentality: making the public believe that a fetus has the capacity to react to an abortion -when it doesn 't-, and that it looks practically like a newborn baby -when it doesn 't-.
- The “permission” to abort.
Abortion in movie series, unlike in real life, is often portrayed as a decision involving more than one person. It's not like that, in countries where abortion is legal, you don't have to consult anyone. The problem is that, knowing that it is not necessary to consult anyone legally, society has created a moral requirement to do so: “How could you do this without consulting your husband? IT'S YOUR BABY TOO.”
Let's make one thing clear: the decision to have an abortion is made by the person who is carrying it, not someone else's. Unfortunately, movies perpetuate this social requirement and use “not counting” as a test of selfishness and as a moral flaw. In the film Revolutionary Road, for example, Leonardo DiCaprio's character screams angrily when he realizes that his wife wants an abortion, pressuring her to explain herself. The worst: she does it! She tells her that she made the decision for both of them, that she wants to become a mother later. However, the plot portrays us having made his decision alone as a mistake, an act of unforgivable selfishness.
- The doctors who perform abortions are butchers with an agenda behind them.
It is a common feeling among anti-rights that women who have abortions do so out of their own alleged immorality and under the pressure or manipulation of a caricaturized “Evil Doctor of Darkness”.
Let's think about the film from the infamous Christian studio Pureflix, Unplanned. In the film they show doctors as monsters, who hold women by force to have abortions -which is false-, who perform abortions the same day as the request -also false-, who have a quota of abortions -also false- and who are butchers -super false-.
The film tells the story of Abby Johnson, an anti-rights activist who used to work at Planned Parenthood. The most famous scene in the film shows the moment when Abby supposedly went “pro-life”: she had to witness a woman having a 13-week abortion, with a fetus fighting for her life, while doctors controlled the blood that was flowing everywhere and refused to transfer her to a hospital because of “bad publicity”.
This story has been denied countless times, as Abby worked in a clinic where only medical abortions were performed. However, the narrative of the evil doctors permeates. Let's be clear: neither the clinics that perform abortions perform them left and right, nor are the doctors who offer the service butchers, they are health professionals.
- A moral decision.
Colombians, an Act of Faith is a 2004 Colombian film about a woman who becomes pregnant and who, seeing the country immersed in conflict, decides not to have one.
Although the film makes use of ALL the tricks we saw before: the fetus talks to her, she consults him with her family and describes the procedure in a sordid way -although in all fairness, abortion was illegal at the time-, it focuses on the moral question of having children. Unfortunately, it fails in its premise, since it dedicates itself, instead of asking the question of whether motherhood can be desired in such a difficult context, to moralizing the abortion of the protagonist.
In fact, at several points in the film, the fetus tells him that he is insensitive, and qualifies his decision as a product of his insensitivity. The constant presentation in series and movies of this “internal conflict” is harmful to women who decide to terminate their pregnancy. It forces them to have a conversation with themselves full of moral judgments that should not exist.
Bottom line: creative licenses are no excuse for misinforming.
Abortion is the only medical procedure with which series and movies take so many creative liberties. It's absurd. Imagine that for dramatic effect they showed a vasectomy like this: the man having an internal debate about his irresponsible decision, the sperm telling him “epale my tail” and “Daddy don't kill us”, the dark and alien doctors ready to castrate him, dramatic scenes being confronted by his wife, mother, daughters.
Sounds impossible, doesn't it?
Unfortunately, much of the misinformation that exists about the procedure and many of the social protocols that people take seriously with it come from television. The least that series owe us is some accuracy. Even if it's fiction, playing with it SO MUCH is dangerous.
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