My name is Steph Harold. I have a master's degree in public health. And I'm a researcher at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, which is a research program at the University of California, San Francisco. And I work on the abortion on screen team. So we study how abortion is depicted in popular culture, especially TV and film, and what that tells us about larger social and political conversations we have about abortion in the United States.

So how did you get into this work? I'm very curious how you ended up there. Yeah, sure. So my first full time job after college was at an abortion clinic as a counselor. So I talked to people before their abortions and sometimes after see how they were feeling and answer questions that they had.

And often people would would come to me with their questions about abortion and misinformation about abortion, that it was unsafe, [00:01:00] when really we know it's one of the safest outpatient procedures there is, or that it might cause them to be infertile when, you know, we know there's no relationship between abortion and fertility.

And I kind of talked to them about those. and where they came from and address, you know, some of their underlying concerns. But what really stood out to me that, you know, a lot of other abortion providers. Have also talked about is that. No, even with these kind of big overarching concerns, people still showed up to their appointments.

So this, you know, this idea that someone when someone wants an abortion, they'll do whatever it takes to get one, even if they think it might harm them in some way in the process. So I became kind of obsessed with this idea that abortion stigma, where it came from, what we could do about it, all the different ways that it shows up, which led me down many different career rabbit holes and ultimately to public health and research, try to understand how You know, cultural products like [00:02:00] TV and film can contribute to some of these ideas and myths that patients have that they show up to the clinic with, try to figure out, you know, what, what it is that we can do about them once we know that they're there and where they come from. It's fascinating to me that You, you say that you were interested in how this plays out in media, because I know when I emailed you, I mentioned the reference of mod in the 70s and that that was like one of the first references people have for a character having an abortion on.

on screen. And for students from listening, we're like, who's mod? Mod was the television show in the seventies. And it was played, she was played by Bea Arthur who became Dorothy on the Golden Girls. But that rocked the boat in so many people's minds that how dare this, this married woman make this decision.

And I think in her context, it was her age that she was late forties, early, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it's interesting to me [00:03:00] how it's played out over the years, how it seems like, and you would obviously know this more than I would, but it seems like there is a either a kind of hush hush, like we're not going to say the word happening, or there's overt abortion storylines.

I was thinking of this as I was watching the latest season of Marvelous Mrs. Maisel where one of the characters has an abortion, but they never actually say it. It's just a lot of silence and oh, and oh, okay, now we're just going to hint at it. Right. Like taking care of it or that's usually the language that they use, right?

Yeah. Something like that. Just not pregnant anymore. Suddenly. Right. Right. Magically. Magically. Yeah. Yeah. So. I know people have a lot of strong opinions on abortion. I'm not necessarily interested in in the in the opinion side of all of it. I am interested in how your read on where we're at with the connection between US politics and [00:04:00] discussions about abortion playing out in media.

And I when I read your paper, you talked about the cultural shift in media and how that hasn't necessarily been reflected in our politics. And I'm wondering if you could explain. Kind of what you meant by that, or how you see that relationship playing out. Yeah, I think it's a really complicated question, and one that I'm kind of constantly turning over in my mind and trying to untangle because I think there's this real desire to have it be very, a very simple, Process that we see things on TV or in a movie, and then all of a sudden our minds are fully changed and our attitudes are transformed forever.

And that as a result, we will vote differently and policies will be different. And I really wish that we lived in that, I mean, sometimes it wouldn't be great for, you know, depending on what we're watching. I Wish it was that easy, but it's not, right? Like you see something on TV for, well, first of all, [00:05:00] like there's so much TV now, it's very different than the world.

In which people were watching mod, right? Where they're like a certain number of channels. Everybody's watching those channels. You have to turn on your TV at a certain time to watch something. Now you can watch TV while you're

riding the subway at home, while you're at work on your computer, on your phone, on your actual TV.

And there are like literally millions of things to watch at all times. So I think there's this. You know, first of all, there's a lot of content. Second, like people watch a lot more TV and film than they engage in politics or than they vote. Yeah, I think there's this like. There's a sense like, oh, does TV and film actually matter?

Like, I think it's one piece of how people, of shaping how people think about things, especially issues like abortion that they may not experience in their life all the time. So I think it can help give people context, but they're also getting messages about [00:06:00] abortion from all different places. Like when they drive down the highway, if they see a billboard, if they go to church and they're Pastor talks about it.

If they happen to tune into a, you know, a debate among politicians, and they talk about it, they read about it in a newspaper online. So I think the, the relationship between what we watch and what we think is just very complicated. Yeah. And as far as I can tell what the research tells us is that.

What you watch and influence what, you know, like your knowledge. So the, the research that we're starting to do about the impact of abortion depictions on people's knowledge, attitudes and behavior seems to. Kind of comport with a lot of the, the other research on entertainment education. Like, you know, when people watch something about breast cancer or about HPV or HIV in that like their knowledge about those issues goes up, but their attitudes remain the same.

Like [00:07:00] attitudes are really hard to change. Right. And what I'm kind of interested in more than attitudes now is action. So like, okay, if people's attitudes don't change, do they take any action as a result of what they watch? And that's what I'm kind of curious about in our future research. Like, maybe it doesn't matter if someone personally doesn't feel so great about abortion, but After watching, you know, a TV characters who support each other through an abortion or help some help a friend pay for their abortion would they, you know, perhaps do that for a friend to or is it totally not related at all.

Yeah, so just, I already lost your question I'm like now thinking about all the no, no, no, no, it's got me thinking too because it's the question of how much of the representation is going to matter in terms of. Because you're right. There's a difference between okay, so I saw this character have an abortion.

I'm still not great with abortion, [00:08:00] but maybe I understand their journey a little bit. However, it's not going to change the way I vote or, you know, or will it change the way someone votes? Like what's the relationship between the two? I think that's a really interesting question. To think about. Yes, I think also the content and quality of the depictions that people see on screen really matters right like right I think part of why people are still so drawn to mod is because like a was really good TV.

It's really funny, the characters were really relatable and really good writing and mod was a main character right there were like two whole episodes about her abortion. Decision I think called mods dilemma and you can still watch it on youtube and like it holds up pretty much It's like a little bit racist.

So there's that piece but But it holds up. Yeah and I think a lot of abortion pollens today It's either it's kind of like on mrs Nasal where it's like a secondary character and it's a few lines maybe and that's it and my guess is you know, many people who [00:09:00] watch that probably wouldn't even Get what happened.

Wouldn't think about it twice. It probably wouldn't even stick with them a day after the episode. Like you and I would notice it because we're trained to notice those things and we're interested. But I think for many people that wouldn't even like hit their radar as something really interesting about that episode.

Right. So it's like the. It's not just having more and more abortion depictions, but having, you know, main characters, having the storyline be more than one or two lines, you know, having it be represented in a way that's medically accurate, socially supportive and stigma free, right, having it be part of a bigger plot line.

So there are lots of different variables to think about. And I think the dilemma that goes along with it too, right, like those aren't decisions that are made easily or quickly or simply. There's for maybe for some people there are but for some people that it's it's quite a an internal thing that they have to go through to get to that point.

And sometimes I think media represents it and in a very linear way doesn't necessarily [00:10:00] show you that everyone's abortion experience is totally different that there's not one. One person is going to have the perfect abortion outcome reaction like there. It's it's a very complex situation and I and I think that when you, oh, sorry, go ahead.

Oh, no, no, go ahead. And I think that when you say things like, like, Mrs Maisel, where it's very pushed under the rug. I don't know that that helps. You know, I don't know that that helps with the conversation. I also think like there are so many abortions that are very easy decisions for people, right? And what's a lot of people when they're, you know, when they find out they're pregnant, they know right away, like I want to have an abortion or I want to carry the term.

I mean, of course some people don't, but the research finds that most patients are very sure about their decision, you know, once they make it. And the trouble happens in how you access the abortion, right? How you get to the clinic, how you raise the money, does your insurance cover it or not. Who are you going to tell?

How are you going to take off work? What are you going to say? Who's [00:11:00] going to watch your kids? And I think all of that, we also rarely see on screen, you know all of those details about, you know, the care work about the workplace issues, about the insurance issues, the money, like the very real life pieces that come into play.

We rarely see. So I think the TV in particular does re inscribe a lot of these, like, Myths about abortion as like a really challenging decision or like the hardest part is making the decision or when really often the hardest part is like getting the abortion, accessing it. Have you seen was it Tuesday's Child?

Sunday, Tuesday's Child? It was a film where she made the decision very quickly and then she had to wait for, I forget what the reason was, and she ended up having the abortion on Valentine's Day. day. And the the depiction was, I want this, I want, I'm ready to have this done now. And it was the, the structure of whatever was happening that made her wait, you know, so many weeks.

And that in and of itself was riveting to me just to watch a [00:12:00] person who was like, I'm, I'm, I'm good. Like, I want to make this decision, but these barriers have been put in place that are keeping me from doing it. As soon as I want to, I think that's an important story to tell too, because we've got so many hoops that folks have to jump through once they make that choice to do this.

Yes, exactly. And you're right. Yeah, you're right. You know, what do you say to work? How do you, you know, get past all of that? sO the, one of the things I liked about your article, well, I liked the whole article, just so you know, I was riveted the whole time. But one of the things that I, I liked, and this is a bit of a

left turn, is you talked about motherhood and how motherhood is presented on television and how we don't get that full story of what the complexities of motherhood.

There's a lot of tropes that I, I put in my question to you. Like there's a lot of things that are acceptable ways to parent on television. And then there's some that we just have decided are, you know, this woman is a terrible mother and yeah, who, who's to judge. So I'm, I'm, it's a [00:13:00] little unnerving to me that in 2023, we're still talking about stereotypes of parenting and motherhood on television.

And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you all found motherhood presented through media, through television, and what kind of parents, parenting you saw. Yeah. So I am just, I'm like an early scholar in motherhood and television. Like that's not my area of expertise. It's just kind of an obsession of mine as a, as a mom and as an academic to kind of fuse those things.

Like I, I keep buying books about depictions of motherhood on on tv and in film and it's just fascinating to me to see there's really like decades of scholarship on this and I think what's One piece that keeps coming up for me again and again is just how few representations there are of moms who have abortions, like there's always a, there's so many moms on TV shows right from like the early [00:14:00] days of TV till now, it's not something that's rare, right there's so many sitcoms about family life, so many dramas.

But we know that the majority of people who have abortions are raising kids at the time of their abortion, but we rarely see that represented. Right. And when we do, it's a mom choosing her career over parenting. Right. As if the reality for most of us is that we have to struggle to do both. So why can't.

You know, why can't a mom have an abortion because she just doesn't want to be pregnant? Like, why does it have to be, you know, because she wants to pursue being a lawyer or because she's just done having kids? whY can't that be a good enough reason for a mom? Like she has to make some kind of sacrifice.

She has to be this like perfect mom. But I think. My guess is a lot of networks are afraid of making mom characters unlikable, or they just believe in this binary that, you know, you're either a mom or you're someone who has an abortion, when in reality, [00:15:00] like, Often it's the same person, right? People have multiple kinds of reproductive experiences their whole life.

So that's, that's one piece that I've been interested in trying to figure out like, when there are mom characters who have abortions, like what's going on there? And how are they going to be received to? I think that's a really interesting question. So specifically with little fires everywhere. Honestly, I watched the series when it came out.

So what, like three years ago, it's been a while. Yeah. And so I rewatched the episode where she has her abortion before we talked, cause I wanted to be familiar with it. And I swear it went. It with everything else happening in that show. I, I can understand why you all would have honed in on it, but there is so much going on.

There are so many isms happening in that show. But the point you made about the character character Lexi that I really appreciated was you said here you have a young woman. I think she was. She must have been 18 or so when in the in [00:16:00] the show somewhere along those lines and it happened in the 90s so that to put it in context, she's a teenager in the 90s and you have this extremely unlikable character like she is.

She's very much a product of her household I think if you watch the course of the show, but she is set up to be the, the. Very privileged, very white, very wealthy child of very privileged, very white, wealthy parents. And then she has this abortion, and she uses the name of her friend who's African American or biracial as the As her name so that it looks like her friend is having the abortion and I'm the you talk to a group of women, and I appreciated that you broke it down by race because the show is broken down by race right there's a lot of discussions about a lot of different racial groups in the field of women you talk to you said that it was intentionally diverse and I'm curious if you could talk about why you all made that choice to separate groups of women up based on race, and [00:17:00] then how they viewed it.

What Lexi did. Yeah, what their reaction to her was. Yeah. So we recruited three focus groups like you mentioned. So one of black women, one of Chinese American women and one of white women. And we were really intentional about that, as you said, because the show follows. The stories of women with those identities, right?

Mia's a black woman, Bibi is Chinese, she's an immigrant, and Elena is white and we wanted to be able to talk about race and motherhood since, like you said, those are such intertwined elements of the shows. And research shows that people are more comfortable talking about race with people of their same race.

So we wanted to enable those conversations as much as possible. So we also had focus group moderators who are the same race as the people in the focus group to try to, you know, encourage people to be honest and direct as much as you can do that in a research environment. Right. And we found that.

You know, of the different groups, though, the [00:18:00] white women seemed most sympathetic to Lexi, which is really interesting to us. It's not like everybody was. Universally critical of her, but for other characters, they were really able to hold kind of this tenderness towards them and some kind of critique of them at the same time.

Like, like Elena, for example, the white mom, Lexi's mom is really portrayed as this kind of like perfectionist who goes to all kinds of lengths to, you know, try to ruin Mia's life. But across the focus groups, people were really sympathetic to her, you know, plight as a working mom of four kids with who had a fourth kid and maybe didn't really want to, who really had to struggle to balance or fail to balance, you know, as we all do work in parenting.

With Mia, they were also very sympathetic to her. Maybe she was the most likable character. But they all also had some, you know, critiques of her approach to her surrogacy arrangement, right? She originally signed up as a surrogate for a couple and [00:19:00] then lied to them and decided to parent the baby herself and turned into Pearl, her daughter.

And people were, you know, had some words for her about that. Even if they were sympathetic, you know, that They might do the same thing. So, but with Lexi, I think because she was written, like you said, as such, kind of a one dimensional, unlikable kind of snotty brat of a character I think almost across the board, people were critical of her, not for the abortion, but for everything that kind of went along with it, right?

Like using Pearl's name, then going to Me and Pearl's apartment and kind of emotionally unloading. There was a lot of name calling of Lexi, like selfish. I think someone even called her an asshole. I think the, the white women's group were a little bit more sympathetic towards her because they recognized themselves in that character.

Some, I think one or two of them talked about their own abortions and how they felt alone and wish they'd had a friend like Lexi had Pearl. But I. But it was, [00:20:00] you know, very interesting to see what people made of that character especially because they, you know, seemed so fond of the others. Yeah, I like

that you said that she was written as kind of a one dimensional character because it did seem like some of the other ones had more complexity to them.

So in general. Well, actually, let me ask you this first. This was something I thought about before we got on the call. And I wasn't sure if you were, if you'd seen, have you seen any of the the reunion shows of the real worlds from seasons past where they put them back in a house and it's like a new updated.

Have you heard of any of this? I've heard of it, but I haven't. Okay. In a long time. In the nineties, there was the real world Los Angeles and one of the characters had an abortion, Tammy. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yep. So I watched their reunion show. This is a total side note just to kind of gauge your reaction, but they want, I watched their reunion show and they talked about her having that abortion in the nineties.

I think they taped it in like 2021 or 2022. And they talked about it as a group and [00:21:00] all of a sudden, all the women in the room started saying, I had an abortion too. I just didn't want to say it on camera. And there was five women in that room and every single one of them said, yep, me too. I just didn't want to admit it.

And I didn't want it to be out there. And one woman said I've had two. So that I'm hoping that means that maybe things have changed a little bit that from 93, when just one person was able to come forward to 2021 or 22. That they were able to come forward and say, you know, it was me too. I mean, and not to to slice it either way.

Tammy was pretty pissed when she found out that all the women had had one and she was the only one that was, you know, being focused on for it or that was able to come forward. I'm curious if you think that there is, if, if, if you think there's some progress happening or what you would like to see change with depictions of abortion on, on screens.

Hmm. I think there's definitely. There definitely is [00:22:00] progress happening. Let me see how to phrase this. But I think what, it's because of a couple of things. Like, I think that because of the, there are more women and people who have had abortions in general, who are showrunners, who are writers, who are directors, who are interested in telling these stories.

Then there were in the past. So I think that that's a piece of it. Although whether networks will give them the money and resources to to create those stories is

another issue. Yeah, I don't know. I hope so. But I think there's a lot of fear about You know, backlash related to abortion stories.

I think that fear is totally unfounded, but I think because abortion is so stigmatized and politicized, a lot of networks are are afraid to let you know creative folks Tell the stories they want to tell. And that's not mentioning like the writer strike and all the issues with you know, the labor [00:23:00] issues that are very real that are keeping people from telling the stories they want to tell.

But all that aside, like I, in the last five years or so we've seen, like, not just an increase in abortion depictions but increases in characters of color on screen who are sharing their abortion stories. We've seen especially in the last year, like more depictions of barriers to abortion access than we've ever seen before.

Whether that's like long drives getting the money to have the abortion, having to cross state lines to get the, get the abortion clinics being closed, gestational bans, like characters are starting, this is starting to show up in story. Yeah. More so than it ever has before. So I'm very curious.

You know, if that will continue how the stories will evolve as the abortion access landscape evolves and worsens honestly like it's getting worse. What I'm curious to see is if. What I hope to see is [00:24:00] more storylines about, you know, self managed abortion and safe self managed abortion, where people can buy their own abortion pills online and do their own abortions themselves at home safely.

And how that also involves legal risk, right? That a lot of states are trying to prosecute people who do that and the, the legal risks that come along with that, even though it's very medically safe. Actually the, the Apple TV show, the morning show just had a storyline about that. Where one of their journalist characters tried to report on the story about that.

But I would love to see, like, something more than a B storyline about it. Like, I want to see much more in depth storytelling about it. So my hope is that we get more focus on that. Yeah, and you know, most of the major studios are run by men. Right. Right. That's one of those things that have come out in the writer strike is just how in the, in the actor strike is how, you know, there's five men that pretty much run all of [00:25:00] it.

And that limits what stories can be told, obviously. Right. I almost made a joke about how many Fast and Furious movies are, but I know that's contagious. And

that's fine. I think that one of the things too, that I keep hearing from you and I hope that it's driving home is that when we're talking about abortion, there's, yes, the decision and, and.

You know, whether or not to do it, but then once you've made that choice and whatever amount of time it takes, there's so many barriers that are placed in your way to get there and it would be nice if media focused on that a little bit of, you know, here and you're right. The morning show did this a little bit, but it would be nice to see media say.

Okay. Someone has made that choice. Then what happens? Like, what's going on that gets them to the point of being able to have the procedure done? That to me would be interesting to see play out more than the should I, shouldn't I? Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yes. Yes. And I think some shows are starting to take that up, but focusing on some of [00:26:00] the, you know, it's easily dramatized, very dramatic type of things like driving across state lines which obviously, you know, many, many people have to do now, but there are a lot of little.

Like everyday battles that really add up to make abortion access really challenging for people like, you know, that we've talked about, like having to find childcare, that person then has to take off work, one who's providing your childcare having a, you know, book a plane ticket, having to get gas, having to get a hotel room, all, all of these little having to figure out how you're going to pay for it.

Does your insurance cover it or not? But seem more mundane, but I think are just part of it. So many people's reality, not just accessing abortion care, but healthcare in the US, right? It's such a mess. And finding ways to bring that to life on screen, I think would be really meaningful, like meaningfully reflective of what's going on.

Well, I hope you're prepared for every time I see abortion on screen in the future to get an email, something to please, please, please, please. There's no way I can [00:27:00] watch it all or know it all. So I'd love, you know, the more people send me stuff, the better. I've been studying pop culture and gender for, like, two decades now. And it's, I, I interviewed a woman last week where we were talking about, she was an economist and we were talking about the trend of Taylor Swift, Beyonce, and Barbie driving the economy over the summer. Oh my god, yeah.

And she, and she and I both agreed that the Dobbs decision and overturning Roe versus Wade. Was what spearheaded this economic turn for women to be

driving the economy because people saw their rights being taken away and they need to put that energy somewhere and entertainment is an easy place to take that energy and say, okay, I'm going to go get empowered by Taylor Swift this weekend.

And then I'm going to go out in the world and live my life in a way that. You know, whatever. But I loved that she made that connection, that it, it does stem back to this decision happening. People losing the, the right to have an abortion and the reaction is gonna be an uptick in something pop culture to, to inspire people and [00:28:00] drive them and make them wanna do something.

Yeah. I appreciated that. Anyway, thank you so, so much for talking with me. It's been great. And I'll let you know when everything is posted and up and you can keep it and share it and do whatever you want with it. Sounds great. Thank you so much