From Dirty Dancing to GLOW: How abortion on screen has changed

Everwood (2003). Still image via Warner Bros.

Everwood (2003)

In Everwood‘s two-part “Episode 20,” the father of a teenage girl approaches Dr. Brown and asks him to abort his daughter’s unwanted pregnancy. Although Brown is ostensibly pro-choice, he is reluctant to perform the procedure due to the recent death of his wife and his feelings about a fetus’ right to life. He asks Kate — the pregnant teenager — to wait and see a counselor before making a decision. She is resigned to going along with her father’s plan, but Brown says the choice should be hers, no matter what choice she makes.

Infuriated, Kate’s father confronts Brown, insisting they move forward with the procedure. Dr. Abbott suggests Brown refer Kate and her father to a clinic four hours away. All of these consultations stall the procedure unnecessarily, which Brown’s nurse — Abbott’s mother — calls him out on.

A follow-up conversation between Drs. Brown and Abbott reveals that Abbott has been secretly performing abortions for years. He does this not because he believes in abortion — he ends the episode in confession after agreeing to perform Kate’s procedure — but because he promised his father he would never let a woman suffer for her right to choose. Prior to Abbott joining his father’s practice, his father would secretly, safely perform these procedures to avoid a situation like Penny’s in Dirty Dancing.

Everwood ultimately centers several men’s feelings over the young woman in question, which is uncomfortable. However, seeing abortion from the perspective of the person who would potentially be performing it, in this case, also centers on the stigma surrounding abortion. It dismantles the idea that a doctor’s personal or religious beliefs should have any bearing on a patient’s wishes and argues for the right to choose.