ABSTRACT

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has led many states to ban or severely limit abortion access, leaving women seeking reproductive healthcare more vulnerable than they have been in decades, especially marginalized women. Legal restrictions, alongside socioeconomic barriers and cultural stigmas around abortion, are reinforced by media representations that depict abortion as dramatic and solemn, and women who obtain abortions in negative terms. Since 2015, depictions of abortion on television have increased significantly, including on comedic television, which had rarely addressed the topic in years prior. The following article explores how 11 recent comedy television programs have chosen to tell stories about a major character obtaining an abortion and considers what these stories may have to offer in applying comedy to a social issue that has typically been treated with solemnity by the media.

摘要

最高法院推翻罗诉韦德案的决定导致许多州禁止或严格限制堕胎，使寻求生殖保健的妇女比几十年来更容易受到伤害，尤其是边缘化妇女。法律限制，以及围绕堕胎的社会经济障碍和文化耻辱，被媒体描述为戏剧性和庄严的堕胎，以及以负面方式获得堕胎的妇女所强化。自 2015 年以来，电视上对堕胎的描述显着增加，包括在喜剧电视上，这在几年前很少涉及这个话题。