Go to Content Go to Navigation Go to Navigation Go to Site Search Homepage

Abortion is a medical procedure that one third of American women will experience in her lifetime, yet is rarely discussed in the media unless under a political lens. Abortion stigma, or the shared cultural understanding that abortion is morally wrong and/or socially unacceptable, often silences the most important voices in the political conversation: people who have actually had abortions. 

In the past, the popular media has mostly contributed to the stigma around abortion. Today, these women help normalize abortion by showing accurate representations of the procedure without shame and/or sharing their own stories:

  • Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) in Scandal: Olivia Pope goes to Planned Parenthood for reproductive health care! In the season 5 finale Pope claims agency over her own body by getting an abortion without conferring with her President boyfriend. The procedure is not a main plot line nor does it derail Pope’s life in any significant way.
  • Jenny Slate in Obvious Child: The film documents a comic’s experience with abortion and how she inspires the other women in her life to share their abortion stories as well.
  • Chelsea Handler, comedian and talk show host, shared her abortion story. She expresses that it was the right decision for her at the time and she has never looked back.
  • Cecile Richards, wrote an eloquent op-ed in Elle in 2014 to share her abortion story and stress the role that personal stories play in destigmatizing abortion.

Planned Parenthood is proud to provide the full range of reproductive health care, including abortion. Planned Parenthood applauds those who work to destigmatize abortion. By empowering people to share their abortion stories, society can start seeing abortion as an experience, not an issue.

Tags: minnesota

Join our virtual volunteering events!

Become a voice of progress for reproductive health.  Sign up and be a change maker.

Upcoming Events

Join Our Mailing List

Get the latest legislative updates, sexual and reproductive health news, and action alerts by subscribing to our email list.

Sign Up

We and our third partners use cookies and other tools to collect, store, monitor, and analyze information about your interaction with our site to improve performance, analyze your use of our sites and assist in our marketing efforts. You may opt out of the use of these cookies and other tools at any time by visiting Cookie Settings. By clicking “Allow All Cookies” you consent to our collection and use of such data, and our Terms of Use. For more information, see our Privacy Notice.

Cookie Settings

We, and our third-party partners, use cookies, pixels, and other tracking technologies to collect, store, monitor, and process certain information about you when you access and use our services, read our emails, or otherwise engage with us. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences, or your device. We use that information to make the site work, analyze performance and traffic on our website, to provide a more personalized web experience, and assist in our marketing efforts. We also share information with our social media, advertising, and analytics partners. You can change your default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our Necessary Cookies as they are deployed to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information, please see our Privacy Notice.

Marketing

On

We use online advertising to promote our mission and help constituents find our services. Marketing pixels help us measure the success of our campaigns.

User Feedback and Session Replay

On

We use qualitative data from LogRocket, UserZoom, Hotjar and AB Tasty to learn about your user experience and improve our products and services. LogRocket allows us to view session replays.