This Is How TV Shows Took On A Post-Roe America This Year

Several shows reverted to a trope that was much more common on TV in the 1990s and early 2000s, according to a new report.

2023 was the first full year of living in a post-Roe United States, when many people across the country directly experienced the enormous ramifications of last year’s Supreme Court decision dismantling Roe v. Wade and federal abortion protections.

Pop culture can give audiences a window into these kinds of seismic moments, telling stories that help audiences understand and empathize. However, with some noteworthy exceptions, many TV shows in 2023 failed to meet the moment, according to the newest “Abortion Onscreen” report, shared exclusively with HuffPost ahead of its release Tuesday.

Compiled annually by abortion researcher Steph Herold and her colleagues at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco, the project tracks abortion-related storylines in scripted and reality TV shows, whether they involve a character getting an abortion, disclosing a past abortion or considering an abortion.

Overall, a lot of TV shows in 2023 still failed to capture the wide spectrum of abortion stories in real life, and some backslid into regressive approaches, Herold found.

For instance, several shows this year reverted to a trope that was much more common on TV in the 1990s and early 2000s than now: the “averted abortion.” It’s when a character has an unplanned pregnancy and considers an abortion — but then either has a miscarriage or changes her mind about getting the procedure, allowing the show to sidestep further discussion of abortion.