Is Hollywood aborting Roe v. Wade?
Carrie Rickey Says: While I fervently believe that no one in Hollywood has the brass to make a movie in which the heroine has an abortion, whether incidentally or as a major plot point, I also believe this: 1) Despite the excellent “Vera Drake,” about a ’50s-era abortionist in the UK, abortion is box-office poison. I can imagine a feature about abortion working dramatically only if the heroine was the subject of incest or rape or if she and the father had to weigh the emotional and psychological choices of terminating a pregnancy where the fetus was genetically compromised. While I can imagine scenarios where the heroine elects abortion for justifiable personal reasons (career, not wanting children, not wanting to be a single parent, inability to afford another child), the choice to terminate a pregnancy for these equally excellent reasons immediately stamps the heroine as selfish and therefore unsympathetic. Dramatically speaking, I don’t see a way of getting beyond the double-bind he