On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court issued its landmark 7–2 decision in Roe v. Wade, protecting a woman’s constitutional right to choose. Nearly a half-century later, on June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. In the year that has followed that decision, a flurry of new legislation on abortion has been introduced, with many women now finding themselves in states where abortion is unavailable or severely restricted. Without federal protections, state legislatures are now determining abortion access, with some states increasing restrictions or even banning access while others are improving and protecting it.
From the silent days to the present, films have tried to reflect changing attitudes toward abortion. But no matter how many stories are told, people complain that the issue has not been covered well enough and that representation still falls short of reality.
One memorable turning point in pop culture was not in film but on TV just prior to the landmark 1973 ruling. In the CBS sitcom Maude, the title character played by Bea Arthur is a 47-year-old grandmother who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant. Her adult daughter encourages her to get an abortion since it is legal in New York and not as dangerous as it was decades prior. It was a groundbreaking TV moment seen by millions all at the same time and apparently prompted by a $10,000 reward offered by the group Zero Population Growth to any television comedy that addressed ways of controlling population growth.
Movies have not had a comparable single landmark moment. But looking at films over the decades does reveal a potent commentary about abortion, women’s rights, and changing societal views.
Here’s a list of 12 key films about abortion. The list is in chronological order and is by no means all-inclusive since there are over 200 films dealing with the issue either directly or peripherally, with the number still growing. But this is a good starter list and provides a solid cinematic context for where we are today with onscreen representation of abortion.
1. Where Are My Children? (1916)
This silent film is considered the first U.S. film to portray abortion onscreen. The story centers on Richard Walton, a district attorney, and his wife, Edith. While Richard tries to prosecute an abortionist, Edith secretly obtains abortions from the doctor so that children do not complicate her life. She also encourages her maid’s daughter to seek an abortion, which ends tragically in death for the young woman.
The film takes a clear anti-abortion stand but does address the socio-economic issues that can lead a woman to abortion, and it does suggest birth control as a means of avoiding abortion.
2. Detective Story (1951)
Taking a big jump in time to this next film in part because abortion is mostly absent from film during the decades of the Hays Code — the Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship that was in place from 1934 to 1968 for films coming from major U.S. studios.
Abortion was illegal when Detective Story came out. But audiences knew abortions happened, and most probably considered it a shameful crime committed by shady doctors and considered the women who sought abortions as somehow tainted.
Detective Story shares plot similarities with Where Are My Children? Jim (played by Kirk Douglas) wants to lock up Karl Schneider, a local abortionist. Jim is fueled by righteous fire and condemns the man as “a butcher and a murderer.” No one ever uses the words “abortion” or “abortionist” in the film, but it is clear what the film is referring to. Then Jim discovers that his “immaculate wife” Mary had been pregnant and unwed before she married him and had gone to Schneider.
Mary pleads, “Don’t judge me… Please try and understand.” But Jim has neither mercy nor compassion. He calls her a “tramp” and adds, “You went to that butcher, Schneider. Everything I hate! What’s left to understand?!”
But the film does not share Jim’s intolerance. The film refuses to judge Mary and does try to understand her story. The film offers criticism of a society that leaves an unwed mother with few options and then condemns or stigmatizes her for whatever option she takes. Detective Story raised the issue of abortion when few other films were willing to, and it tried to do so in a manner that gave context to why a woman would seek an abortion.
3. The Shame of Patty Smith (1962)
The Shame of Patty Smith opens with a young woman gang raped by three punks. Then an officious man behind a desk directly addresses the audience and explains: “The subject matter is illegal abortion. According to estimates by the best legal authorities, from 600,000 to two million such operations are performed in the United States every year, close to three thousand a day, many of these illegal surgeries result in the death of the victim and caused the murder of about eight thousand women every year. One every hour… the names and places have been changed. Yes. The names and places change. The despair, degradation, and misery do not.”
That’s a pretty somber start to this low-budget exploitation film. Some things in the film have dated very badly (especially regarding how the rape is viewed), but others are rather progressive. When Patty asks her doctor about an abortion, he is sympathetic to her situation but feels his hands are legally tied. After she leaves, he laments, “Here I am the doctor she comes to desperately trusting for help. What does the doctor do? He practically chases her to some quack [and] then hides behind the law to justify his actions.”
The doctor expresses concern for all the girls who come in suffering injuries from botched abortions by “butchers,” and he wishes legal abortions were an option. At one point, a Swedish doctor explains that abortions are legal in his country and Japan. The idea amazes Patty’s friend (and perhaps the audience at the time), but the other doctor quickly points out with some moral smugness that the abortion rate exceeds the birth rate in Japan.
Patty’s priest, however, offers no compassion, only condemnation for her decision and calling it murder. A cop investigating the abortionists tells Patty’s friend, “I’ll never understand why those girls don’t come to us when something like this happens.” The friend curtly replies, “Lieutenant, if you were a woman you’d understand.”
Although Patty must “pay” for her sins, the film clearly sympathizes with her and advocates for safer alternatives. The film, because it was little seen both at the time of its release and now, does not offer any kind of landmark turning point but it does signal that attitudes, even within the medical profession, are moving toward understanding the need for safe and legal abortions.
4. Love with a Proper Stranger (1963)
Unlike The Shame of Patty Smith, Love With A Proper Stranger was neither low-budget nor under the radar. It was a studio film starring Natalie Wood and Steve McQueen.
Wood plays Angie, a salesgirl who gets pregnant after a one-night stand with Rocky (McQueen), a musician. Rocky doesn’t even remember Angie when she tells him she’s pregnant, but he helps her get enough money for the abortion. When they meet the abortion provider, they and the audience are shocked by the woman’s attitude, shabby apartment, and unclean tools.
Fearing for Angie’s safety, Rocky grabs her and escorts the near-hysterical Angie out. Angie then decides to keep the child and initially insists she can do it on her own. But since this is a studio film, Rocky eventually wins her over so they can form a more traditional family.
While the outcome is a pat Hollywood ending, the film is notable for suggesting the gritty reality of illegal abortions to a mainstream audience.
5. Alfie (1966)
The British film Alfie centers on the womanizing title character played by Michael Caine. When one of his girlfriends gets pregnant, he resists having any involvement in her decision-making and tells her, “What you asking me for? It’s yours, isn’t it? Nobody in this world has any right to stop you doing what you want to.” But it’s not because he respects her right to choose but rather that he just doesn’t want to be bothered.
But when he gets a married woman pregnant and she remorsefully insists on an abortion, he offers his flat for the procedure. The abortionist reminds them, “I hope you both appreciate the seriousness of this case. To terminate a pregnancy after 28 days is a criminal offense punishable in a court of law with seven years’ jail. Not only that, but it’s a crime against the unborn child. It’s a course never to be embarked upon lightly. You must consider the circumstances thoroughly before you go through with your decision.”
The woman sees no other alternative, so she goes through with the abortion. The film offers a decidedly graphic depiction of abortion when Alfie sees the aborted fetus in the trash can.
Alfie then confesses: “I could have dropped on the spot with the shock. All I was expecting to see was… Come to think of it, I don’t rightly know what I was expecting to see. Certainly not this perfectly formed being. I half expected it to cry out. It didn’t, of course. It couldn’t have done. It could never have had any life in it. Not a proper life of its own… as it lay there so quiet and so still… it quite touched me. And I started praying or something. Saying things like, God help me! and things like that. And then I starts to cry. Straight up. The tears were running down my face. All salty. Like I was a kid myself… not for him. He was past it. For my bleeding self!
You know, it don’t half bring it home to you what you are when you see a helpless little thing like that lying in your own hands. He’d have been quite perfect. And I thought to myself, you know what, Alfie? You know what you done? You murdered him.”
That is a vivid and impactful scene. The film does not take a stand on the abortion as morally right or wrong. But it makes it visceral and suggests it is a decision not to be made lightly. It also reveals the impact an abortion can have not just on the woman but also on the man.
The film displayed a willingness to deal with the reality of an abortion in a quietly groundbreaking way.
6. Story of Women (1988)
French director Claude Chabrol tells the story of Marie LaTout (Isabelle Huppert in a stunning performance), who is reportedly based on the real person, Marie Louise Giraud, who was guillotined in occupied France as an abortionist who profited from the earnings of prostitutes. Chabrol and Huppert are not interested in trying to make Marie sympathetic or palatable. But they are interested in suggesting that Marie is made a scapegoat and severely punished with execution even though her accusers are made to appear culpable of more heinous crimes than hers.
Chabrol makes us feel that society is as guilty as her.
The story is set in Occupied France during World War II, and Marie, a housewife, becomes an abortionist while her husband is interned in a German POW camp as a means of making ends meet. She is depicted as a flawed character and as someone whose actions do lead to the death of some of her customers. But again, she would not need to provide these services, and women would not be seeking her out, if there were other options available.
7. Roe vs. Wade (1989, but not Roe V. Wade 2020)
Please do not watch the wrong film. The 1989 TV movie starring Amy Madigan as Sarah Weddington and Holly Hunter as “Jane Roe” tells the real-life story behind the landmark legal decision. The 2020 film feigns telling the true story of the case but instead uses it as a jumping-off point for a didactic anti-abortion tirade featuring conservative actors Jon Voight and Stacey Dash. But the 1989 film is solid and sincere.
Hunter and Madigan are great, and the film provides some insight and context to the famous case.
8. Citizen Ruth (1996)
Citizen Ruth, Alexander Payne’s first feature, serves up plenty of flawed characters as well as a flawed society. Ruth (Laura Dern) is, as the poster suggests, “one bad mother.” She is pregnant and in trouble with the law again, and simply wants an abortion. But she gets turned into a poster child that people on both sides of the abortion issue want to claim for their cause.
The great thing about the film is that Payne skewers those on both sides of the abortion issue as well as the media for fanning the flames of the debate. Ruth isn’t spared either. She is shown as willing to change her morals for whichever side she thinks will pay the higher price.
The film is not about the real issue of abortion but rather about how people have used the issue to serve their own purpose. Payne reveals a keen wit and a sly ability to poke fun at all his characters without turning them into complete caricatures. The film also offers commentary on how the debate can be and has been manipulated. Plus, it is savagely funny.
9. Vera Drake (2004)
Vera Drake (played Imelda Staunton) is a working-class mother in 1950s England who also performs home abortions for the desperate women who come to her. In contrast to Huppert’s Marie, Staunton’s Vera is designed to win our sympathies.
Director Mike Leigh uses abortion as a symbol of the differences between classes. Rich women can skirt the law and get safer abortions than lower-class women. The film has been criticized for trying to make us sympathize with an illegal abortionist who knew nothing about the medical procedure and endangered women’s lives.
Leigh stated in an interview: “I deliberately and without any affectation made Vera Drake to pose a moral dilemma that has no slick or easy answers. We live in an overpopulated world. There is no question that to bring an unwanted and unloved child into this chaos is deeply irresponsible. There is no question that you destroy life when you terminate a pregnancy. But there is also no question that choice ought to exist. Those are my personal views. The film can only work if the audience takes the moral and emotional debate away with them.”
Right-wing critics accused Vera Drake and many of the films depicting abortion as unfairly framing the issue in the past when abortions were decidedly more dangerous rather than addressing the issue in contemporary times when women do have more choices. But I would argue that we need to remember the past and the battles that have been fought, otherwise people forget that having legal access to abortion is not a guaranteed right. It was something that women fought hard to obtain, and the recent overturning of Roe V. Wade shocked some women who thought we could not go backwards.
Abortion needs to be explored in a larger context so that we understand where we have come from. Vera Drake ends up performing abortions because she feels compassion for the women who can’t afford another child or can’t deal with the scandal of being unwed and having a child. She is a person reacting to circumstances beyond her control and doing what she thinks can help. But she ends up having to face the consequences of her actions.
10. Lake of Fire (2006)
There are a lot of documentaries out there about abortion, but the reason I wanted to include this one is because it is less about taking sides and more about presenting the abortion debate in a manner that is intended to make you think. Because of that, it has been criticized by the left for not being pro-choice enough and from the right for not being fair to the pro-life side.
Abortion is a highly divisive issue, and both sides want to exclusively claim the moral high ground. But filmmaker Tony Kaye wants to let voices on both sides speak out and then let us sort through the information. And some interesting things happen.
He begins by letting the Christian right speak out first and actually monopolize a lot of the screen time. He doesn’t really challenge what they are saying, but as we listen, we slowly realize that all the voices are white men and it’s annoying. And that’s Kaye’s sly point. He doesn’t want to tell us that men are trying to control the debate about women’s bodies, he wants to show us and that is more impactful.
The film even foreshadows the downfall of Roe V. Wade in the comments of Roger Hunt, a South Dakota representative who sponsored a sweeping (but failed) state ban on abortion. His goal had been to get the legislation in front of the Supreme Court as a challenge to Roe v. Wade. He didn’t succeed, but someone else did in what was the culmination of decades of organized opposition to a woman’s right to choose.
“They’re prepared to organize for the long haul,” one interviewee explains in the film, and Kaye tries to connect the dots through decades of anti-abortion activism, and that’s the chilling point the film makes.
Lake of Fire is a two-and-a-half-hour documentary shot over a 16-year period, with Kaye risking his own money to finish it. From today’s perspective, the film plays like a potent warning, as if Kaye was trying to alert us to the dangers that lay ahead. He also wants to take a clear-eyed look at what abortion is to remind us that even if we are pro-choice, an abortion is never a decision one should make lightly.
Lake of Fire is a sprawling and complex documentary that is worth seeing if you want to better understand how we arrived at the point we are currently at and are facing a legal landscape without Roe V. Wade.
11. Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)
Never Rarely Sometimes Always begins with a high school talent show where one young girl sings an obviously very personal song about a relationship in which she feels controlled by the boy she loves. The film then follows her as she deals with difficulties at home and the discovery that she’s pregnant. Autumn (Sydney Flanigan) and her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) decide to take off from their rural Pennsylvania town and head for New York City so Autumn can get an abortion.
Writer-director Eliza Hittman maintains a remarkably restrained and non-judgmental tone in tackling a potentially hot-button issue. She gives us a pro-life health worker who gently tries to convince Autumn to consider having the child and putting the child up for adoption.
Then in New York, Autumn must go through an interview process by a compassionate woman at the clinic before receiving the abortion. This is where we discover the meaning of the title, it is the multiple-choice options to the questions she is asked. Questions like has your partner ever hit you… never, rarely, sometimes, always. As she answers questions about abuse, rape, and her sexual history we discover a bigger and more painful picture of her life.
Hittman always keeps the film intimate and about Autumn as a particular example of what a young woman growing up today can face. Take this also as an example of a new wave of films about abortion that allow the women to have more options, more control about their lives, and to not be stigmatized by the decisions they make.
In lighter comedies such as Juno and Knocked Up, the women choose not to have an abortion. In Juno, the baby is given up for adoption and in Knocked Up the mother keeps her child. All three films, in different ways and with different levels of realism, suggest that we are making progress. But with the overturning of Roe V. Wade, we now also realize there is still a long way to go.
12. The Janes (2022)
The tagline for this documentary is: “They didn’t have a choice.” That takes on new meaning today as women find themselves facing a renewed battle for abortion rights a year after Roe V. Wade was overturned.
This recent documentary highlights the women who defied the anti-abortion laws, the Catholic Church, and the Chicago Mob. The women were known as the Janes, and they risked their personal and professional lives to support women with unwanted pregnancies before Roe V. Wade. This was a time when not only was abortion a crime, but it was also a felony to just circulate information about abortion in Illinois. But despite that, the Janes took it upon themselves to provide low-cost and even free abortions to an estimated 11,000 women between the late 1960s and 1973.
There is also a narrative film, Ask For Jane, that covers the same material, but I prefer the documentary and hearing from the real Janes, many of whom are speaking out about this for the first time. It’s a fascinating story of activism, compassion, and personal risk.
Now that Roe V. Wade has been overturned, maybe this film and these women can inspire a new generation of activists to find clever ways to make change happen and move us forward.
