Abstract
Objectives
To examine the portrayal of complications and long-term health consequences associated
with abortion on television, recognizing the impact that fictional stories can have
on public beliefs about abortion's safety.
Study design
Using a systematic online search, we identified all instances of abortion on US television
from 2005 to 2016. We qualitatively coded these plotlines to identify any occurrences
of complications, interventions or long-term health consequences associated with abortion
care, with 95% intercoder reliability. We calculated the frequencies and rates of
these occurrences in Microsoft Excel.
Results
Our search identified 80 abortion plot lines. A percentage of 37.5 of characters who
obtained an abortion experienced complications, interventions and/or negative health
consequences. This rate contrasts with the 2.1% of real patients who experience complications
or require intervention as a result of their abortions. Most onscreen complications
were major events (e.g., hemorrhage), as opposed to real women, whose complications
are mostly minor. Major medical interventions (e.g., hysterectomy) were similarly
overportrayed, while the most commonly used interventions for real patients (e.g.,
medication) were not depicted at all. Finally, 22.5% of characters faced a long-term
adverse health consequence, including mental illness, infertility or death. The onscreen
abortion mortality rate was 5%, about 7000 times the actual mortality rate.
Conclusions
Overall, television dramatically exaggerates the risk associated with abortion procedures,
overportraying medical complications — particularly major and life-threatening complications
— and long-term adverse health consequences. This pattern of misrepresentation may
be partially attributable to the occurrence of stories about illegal abortions or
abortions taking place outside of modern medical contexts.
Implications
Onscreen abortion portrayals may contribute to inaccurate beliefs about abortion's
risk that are common among the public, broadly, and abortion patients, specifically.
Abortion advocates and providers will be more equipped to respond misinformation if
they understand how and to what extent our popular culture portrays abortion as unsafe.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 29, 2017
Accepted:
March 23,
2017
Received in revised form:
March 21,
2017
Received:
January 24,
2017
Footnotes
☆Disclosures/Conflict of Interest: None.
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
