Until recently, it was difficult to talk about abortion in the public square in the United States. This was observed by Quebec filmmaker Marianne Farley, whose short film Frostwhich depicts an abortion in a dystopian Quebec where the medical act would be prohibited, was part of the pre-selection of films for the Oscars in 2021. In her film, a woman pregnant with a deformed child uses a clandestine abortionist , hidden in a meat truck, unbeknownst to her husband.
“I realized during the Oscar campaign that the subject of abortion made people very uncomfortable. There was a lot of media in the United States that didn’t want to talk about it, so as not to lose part of their audience,” she said in an interview. Although a majority of Americans are in favor of free choice, the subject remains “extremely taboo”, confined to the private sphere and personal choice. “Now that the judgment is passed [la Cour suprême des États-Unis a invalidé l’arrêt Roe v. Wade protégeant le droit à l’avortement, NDLR]I hope that people will mobilize,” she said.
In literature as in cinema, the theme of abortion remains relatively marginal, compared to that of rape for example, which also affects women’s bodies and which has been highlighted by the MeToo movement, notes the essayist, novelist , translator and professor of literary studies at UQAM Lori Saint-Martin.
“With the MeToo movement, in the last few years there’s been a lot of focus on stories of sexual assault, and abortion is less represented,” she says.
That being said, abortion itself is not an “entirely new” topic. Already in the Second-hand happiness by Gabrielle Roy, written in the 1940s, Florentine realizes that she is pregnant by Jean, her impossible love. “The word ‘pregnant’ isn’t even used,” says Lori Saint-Martin. If the idea of abortion touches Florentine at this precise moment, it is quickly dismissed, and Florentine will find a husband to whom she will make believe that the child is his.
The body as a trap
In Second-hand happiness as in The second sex by Simone de Beauvoir, both of which were written before the liberalization of contraception and abortion, “the woman’s body is a trap”, summarizes Professor Saint-Martin, in the sense that pregnancy is decisive for everything the future of women.
Decades later, Nelly Arcan told in Crazy woman her hesitation before aborting the child of a man who left her and whom she loved, continues Lori Saint-Martin. Finally, quite recently, the film The eventby Audrey Diwan, took up the story of the same name by Annie Ernaux, of an abortion that occurred in the 1960s in France, where it was then prohibited.
Lori Saint-Martin also points out that Annie Ernaux first published this story in the form of a novel in empty cupboards, in 1974. When she returned with The eventreleased in 2001, the shame of having an abortion, which haunted its first version, seems to have disappeared…
But films dealing with abortion do not always defend it, far from it. In 2019, the movie Unplanned, inspired by the life of Abby Johnson, a former director of family planning turned anti-abortion activist, had aroused the ire of pro-choice activists when it was presented in Guzzo cinemas, in Montreal.
In an open letter co-signed by various organizations, Véronique Pronovost denounced the staging ofUnplanned, which showed legal abortions taking place in horrible circumstances, as well as the scientifically unfounded bias of showing the fetus as a suffering being struggling for its life.
The weight of women’s voices
In some cases, says the researcher specializing in antifeminism in an interview, “cultural products can convey ideas, myths or erroneous beliefs, according to which abortion can cause cancer or infertility, for example”.
In Frost, Marianne Farley shows a woman who puts herself in danger by aborting a fetus at 14 weeks. She says she was very disturbed by The Scarlet Maidthis dystopia by Margaret Atwood featuring a society where women are completely exploited for their fertility.
“There have been several feminist dystopias in recent years,” says Lori Saint-Martin. These, however, do not depict abortions, simply because they depict societies where this right does not exist.
Still, women’s voices have already had the power to change things. In France, in 1971, the 343 manifesto gave a face to women, including several women of letters, who had chosen abortion. This movement led, four years later, to the Veil law, which decriminalized abortion.