We Need to See More Parents Having Abortions in Film and Television

Article originally appeared in Marie Claire on July 16th, 2021.

Kay Winston was just two months postpartum when she found out she was pregnant again. After discussing the unexpected pregnancy and her options with her fiancé, Winston decided to have an abortion. “It was the very first abortion that I had, and I had a perspective that was very blind,” the 27-year-old from Texas tells Marie Claire. “I was just going off what I knew, what people told me, [and] what I did and didn’t see on television. And I was scared.”
Countless studies have highlighted the importance of representation in the media, be it race, gender, relationships, body size and shape, mental health, or disability status. The same is true of abortion—a safe medical procedure one in four women (as well as trans men and non-binary people) will have by the time they’re 45. But accurate depictions of the most common abortion patients, parents, is still severely lacking—to the detriment of mothers like Winston and the abortion providers who care for them.