According to decades of research, abortion is an incredibly common and safe medical procedure.
But if you learned about abortion only from movies and TV, that's not the story you'd see. For the last eight years, we've been studying onscreen depictions of abortion. We've found that Hollywood tends to dramatically exaggerate the medical risks associated with abortion while downplaying real barriers to access.
Aside from a few exceptions, 2020's onscreen content continued to reflect patterns we'd identified in previous years.
Missing from the narratives
Overall, we tracked 31 television storylines and 13 movie plot lines about abortion in 2020. They include titles like the American release of the French film "Portrait of a Lady on Fire"; HBO's "Unpregnant" and "Never Rarely Sometimes Always"; Hulu's "Little Fires Everywhere" and "Mrs. America"; and the independent film "Saint Frances."
Thirty-one of them featured a character having or disclosing an abortion. This is more than we've seen in previous years. In the past, more characters changed their minds, had miscarriages or didn't even consider having an abortion when faced with an unplanned pregnancy.
Other patterns, however, remained remarkably consistent. As in previous years, 74% of this year's abortion plot lines featured white characters. No characters were parenting at the time of their abortion, and the majority of them faced few, if any, legislative, financial or logistical barriers to accessing an abortion.
This is inconsistent with what we know about real-life people who get abortions. For example, in the U.S., abortion patients are most often people of color. After seeing an increase in characters of color obtaining abortion onscreen in 2019, we had hoped that this trend might continue. In fact, the number and proportion decreased.
Similarly, the majority of U.S. abortion patients are parenting at the time of their abortions and cite their need to care for their children as a reason for an abortion. Yet, only one character who got an abortion on television in 2020 was raising a child.
Finally, despite the nearly insurmountable barriers many face to getting an abortion, only five plot lines portrayed characters struggling to access abortion care.
We did not, for example, see characters have to repeatedly reschedule appointments because they could not take days off of work or school or could not find child care. Nor did we see characters grapple with the devastating effects of the Hyde Amendment, a provision that denies the use of federal funds for paying for abortions. It essentially denies coverage of abortion for people who receive health insurance through the government – many of whom are already struggling to make ends meet.
These are just a few of the many onerous obstacles that the majority of U.S. abortion patients face in the United States. Yet they remain virtually absent onscreen.
The outliers
Still, there was some content that made strides.
In "Unpregnant" and "Never Rarely Sometimes Always," barriers to access were central to the plots. Each starred white, teenage girls who road-trip with a friend to abortion clinics in states that don't have laws mandating parental consent. The films go to great lengths to portray the logistical and financial hurdles to accessing care, and the emotional fortitude and social support needed to make it possible.
And although characters of color had their abortion stories told less frequently than in 2019, the few that did were notable: The film "The Surrogate" tells the story of a young Black woman acting as a gestational carrier for a gay couple. An episode of "Vida" portrays Emma, a queer Latina, having a medication abortion and learning that her sister has had one, too. In "I May Destroy You," Arabella, a young Black writer, divulges a past abortion to her therapist, who's trying to help her heal from a sexual assault.
While not revolutionary in and of themselves, taken together, these particular plot lines suggest how abortion and other reproductive experiences can be subtly or overtly affected by race and class, narratives that are rarely explored onscreen.
Entertainment media have the power to shape what people know and how they feel about social and medical issues. While the taboo of telling abortion stories on film and TV has long been broken – the first film featuring an abortion premiered in 1916, and the first television plot line aired in 1962 – we're still waiting for an onscreen world that reflects the realities of abortion in American life.
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FDA approved. 
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A Looney Tunes classic. 
Artist's rendering of a brain overlaid a woman's head.Image via 
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Love, Mom.Photo from Heidi Johnson 
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Why do some folks use social media but don't engage?
Psychologist says people who never comment on social media share these 5 positive traits
For over 20 years, social media has developed into a staple in many people’s day-to-day lives. Whether it’s to keep in communication with friends and family, following the thoughts of celebrities, or watching cat videos while sipping your morning coffee, there seem to be two types of social media users: commenters and lurkers.
The term “lurker” sounds equally mysterious and insidious, with some social media users writing them off as non-participants at best or voyeurs at worst. However, mindfulness expert Lachlan Brown believes these non-commenters have some very psychologically positive and healthy traits. Let’s take a look at how each one of these traits could be beneficial and see how fruitful lurking might be even though it can drive content creators crazy.
1. Cautious about vulnerability
Consciously or not, making a post online or commenting on one puts you and your words out there. It’s a statement that everyone can see, even if it’s as simple as clicking “like.” Doing so opens yourself up to judgment, with all the good, bad, and potential misinterpretation that comes with it. Non-commenters would rather not open themselves up to that.
These silent users are connected to a concept of self-protection by simply not engaging. By just scrolling past posts or just reading/watching them without commentary, they’re preventing themselves from any downsides of sharing an opinion such as rejection, misunderstanding, or embarrassment. They also have more control on how much of themselves they’re willing to reveal to the general public, and tend to be more open face-to-face or during one-on-one/one-on-few private chats or DMs. This can be seen as a healthy boundary and prevents unnecessary exposure.
Considering many comment sections, especially involving political topics, are meant to stir negative emotional responses to increase engagement, being extra mindful about where, when, and what you comment might not be a bad idea. They might not even take the engagement bait at all. Or if they see a friend of theirs post something vulnerable, they feel more motivated to engage with them personally one-on-one rather than use social media to publicly check in on them.
2. Analytical and reflective mindset
How many times have you gone onto Reddit, YouTube, or any other site and just skimmed past comments that are just different versions of “yes, and,” “no, but,” or “yes, but”? Or the ever insightful, formerly popular comment “First!” in a thread? These silent browsers lean against adding to such noise unless they have some valid and thoughtful contribution (if they bother to comment period).
These non-posters are likely wired on reflective thinking rather than their initial intuition. Not to say that all those who comment aren’t thoughtful, but many tend to react quickly and comment based on their initial feelings rather than absorbing the information, thinking it over, researching or testing their belief, and then posting it. For "lurkers," it could by their very nature to just do all of that and not post it at all, or share their thoughts and findings privately with a friend. All in all, it’s a preference of substance over speed.
3. High sense of self-awareness
Carried over from the first two listed traits, these silent social media users incorporate their concern over their vulnerability and their reflective mindset into digital self-awareness. They know what triggers responses out of them and what causes them to engage in impulsive behavior. It could be that they have engaged with a troll in the past and felt foolish. Or that they just felt sad after a post or got into an unnecessary argument that impacted them offline. By knowing themselves and seeing what’s being discussed, they choose to weigh their words carefully or just not participate at all. It’s a form of self-preservation through restraint.
4. Prefer to observe rather than perform
Some folks treat social media as information, entertainment, or a mix of both, and commenting can feel like they’re yelling at the TV, clapping alone in a movie theater when the credits roll, or yelling “That’s not true!” to a news anchor that will never hear them. But contrary to that, social media is a place where those yells, claps, and accusations can be seen and get a response. By its design, social media is considered by experts and the media as performative, regardless of whether it is positive or negative. Taking all of the previously mentioned traits into account, one can see why they would prefer to “observe the play” rather than get up on the stage of Facebook or X.
On top of that, these non-commenters could be using social media differently than those who choose to fully engage with it. Using this type of navigation, there may be nothing for them to comment about. Some commenters are even vying for this for their mental health. There are articles about how to better curate your social media feeds and manipulate algorithms to create a better social media experience to avoid unnecessary conflict or mentally tiring debate.
If you go on a blocking spree on all of your accounts and just follow the posters that boost you, it could turn your social media into a nice part of your routine as you mainly engage with others face-to-face or privately. In terms of commenting, if your curated Instagram is just following cute dogs and all you have to offer for a comment is “cute dog,” you might just enjoy the picture and then move on with your day rather than join in the noise. These non-commenters aren’t in the show and they’re fine with it.
5. Less motivated by social validation
The last trait that Brown showcases is that social media users who browse without posting tend to be independent from external validation, at least online. Social media is built to grow through feedback loops such as awarding likes, shares, and reposts of your content along with notifications letting you know that a new person follows you or wants to connect. This can lead many people to connect their activity on social media with their sense of self worth, especially with adolescents who are still figuring out their place in the world and have still-developing brains.
Engaging in social media via likes, shares, comments, and posts rewards our brains by having them release dopamine, which makes us feel good and can easily become addictive. For whatever reason, non-commenters don’t rely on social media as a means to gauge their social capital or self worth. This doesn’t make them better than those who do. While some non-commenters could have healthier ways to boost their self worth or release dopamine into their systems, many get that validation from equally unhealthy sources offline. That said, many non-commenters’ silence could be a display of independence and self confidence.
Whether you frequently comment online or don’t, it’s good to understand why you do or don’t. Analyzing your habits can help you determine whether your online engagement is healthy, or needs to be tweaked. With that information, you can then create a healthy social media experience that works for you.