Storylines about abortion and conversations about it showed up on television 65 times this year, on prestigious dramas like The Pitt and Call the Midwife, on reality shows such as W.A.G.s to Riches and Love is Blind and on lowbrow animated comedies like Family Guy and South Park. That’s about the same as last year. In 2024, TV shows featured 66 such plotlines.
But in the past few years, there’s been a significant drop in the number of characters who actually went through with an abortion. 37% obtained an abortion in 2025, a 14% decline since 2023.
That’s according to the annual Abortion Onscreen report. It comes from Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, a research program on abortion and reproductive health based at the University of California San Francisco.
I don’t know of too many shows that have featured an abortion in the storyline. Shameless comes to mind, but the circumstances surrounding the event were pretty trashy — par for the course for that show. The American Shameless, not the UK one.
It may have been representation, but it wasn’t good representation for reproductive rights/health.
I think Bojack did a good job representing the different kinds of discourse on the subject, while also showing how impactful representation can be. However it was a relatively short arc that did not get much of any revisit
