Abortions: The Last Television Taboo

Brought up in class was the topic of abortions, and I was not that surprised to note that abortions are a topic quite under represented on television. This is quite a contrast to media representation on television, one shown to have much of an over representation seen in the earlier discussion on Media and Violence. In class, the statistic given was that there were 9 abortions in 40 years on television, whereas abortions are generally a phenomenon that occurs at least once a day. 

I actually went and looked up stats for age groups of abortions, because I have generally believed that abortions were mostly done by teenagers who were unable to support and raise a child. I suppose my reasons for believing this come from only seeing representations of abortions with teenagers in media, and from the fact that the only people I personally know who have had abortions were teenagers. I was actually quite surprised to realize that the numbers of abortions done by older women are greater than the amount of abortions by teenagers. [I know statistics are not completely accurate, but it gives us an estimate idea of the amounts of abortions per age group.]

http://www.abortionfacts.com/statistics/age.asp

 

http://www.abortiontv.com/Misc/AbortionStatistics.htm

 

During class, abortions were shown to reinforce many racial and sexual stereotypes. During the Friday Nights Live episode, one can see how being white in a particular social class will play a huge role in the determination of having an abortion. The reading from Press and Cole also suggest that although additional factors, such as emotions and circumstances, play a huge role in the struggle women who are considering abortion take, one of the greatest factors will include the social class of the women. The reading showed that women of higher social class generally were less likely to consider the option of having an abortion, compared to the women of lower social class. This is similarly portrayed in the episode of Friday Nights Live, where we can see Becky’s social status and her decision to abort her child compared to  Tami’s birth of her child and Tami’s higher social status.