The Rise of Teen Abortion Road Trip Films
an exploration of teen abortion road trip films, what it means for films in the future, and what it may look like in a post roe v. wade world.
In recent years, there’s been a slew of films dedicated to the experience of a teenage girl needing to end a pregnancy and taking a road trip with her best friend to the closest (read: not close at all) Planned Parenthood. Due to state laws, the main character cannot seek an abortion without her parent's permission, so she enlists the help of her best friend, grabs some cash, and hits the road. These films range from comedic to dramatic but one thing remains certain no matter the tone: they explore the reality of this common experience while creating a space for young women in film that wasn’t there before.
In 2007, Juno briefly considers an abortion when she learns she is pregnant. While Juno got Hollywood talking about teen pregnancy more, it depicted a reality that is not accessible to millions of people anymore–the ease Juno had in walking to her local clinic, encountering a singular anti-choice protestor whose presence was akin to a buzzing fly, choosing adoption instead, and walking out unbothered. With the rise of anti-choice politics in the mid-2010s, Grandma, a 2015 film starring Lily Tomlin and Julia Garner, was released. It depicted a teen girl coming to her grandma for help when she needs an abortion. The two set off on a quest to raise money so the granddaughter can have the procedure. But what about the girls who don’t have any adults they can trust?
In quick succession, Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020), Unpregnant (2020), and Plan B (2021) were released, thus solidifying the Teen Girl Abortion Road Trip genre. While these three films all have the same premise, each explores the different obstacles and experiences that are unique to their specific characters. They also pry open the door for more films about teen girls centered on sex and coming-of-age that treat their characters and topics with the respect and nuance they deserve.
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020) dir. Eliza Hittman
Never Rarely Sometimes Always is a drama about Autumn (Sidney Flanagan), a teen living in a low-income Pennsylvania town, who discovers she is pregnant and takes a trip to New York City with her cousin Skylar (Talia Ryder) so that she can have an abortion. NRSA does not shy away from the brutal reality of being a poor teenager living in anti-choice backwoods. When Autumn suspects she is pregnant, she first goes to a crisis pregnancy center, where she is forced to watch an anti-abortion video full of misinformation and propaganda and is given a pamphlet on adoption before being sent home. At home, Autumn takes a bunch of pills and repeatedly punches herself in the stomach to induce a miscarriage, but this fails. After confiding in Skylar, the two steal cash from Skylar’s job and get on the bus to NYC, where they encounter problems such as not having enough money for a place to stay and the surprising costs of the procedure. They’re also repeatedly bothered by a boy who shows particular interest in Skylar, who later has to entertain him for the sake of getting money to return home.
What is so great about this film is not only its portrayal of the lengths that young women have to go to in order to receive basic medical care, but how the circumstances of one’s pregnancy and why they’re seeking an abortion are no one’s business. Throughout the film, no attention is given to the person who got Autumn pregnant. Autumn never mentions him and he’s never shown. In the film’s most powerful scene, Autumn answers a questionnaire with a counselor. She is supposed to respond to each question by choosing “never”, “rarely”, “sometimes”, or “always.” Through this questionnaire, it’s revealed that Autumn has had partners in the past who were physically and sexually abusive. We don’t know if abuse played a role in Autumn’s pregnancy, but it is a possibility. This challenges society’s stereotype of teen pregnancy as a result of promiscuity.
Autumn and Skylar move through most of the film in silence; there are no melodramatic breakdowns, monologues, or copy-and-paste pro-choice arguments typical of teen dramas. Yet the empathy and love the girls have for each other is all over the screen, shown through silent glances and hand-holding. NRSA shows the reality that abortions are dealt with in silence. And while we want to move toward a world where silence about one’s abortion is not a necessity, it is equally important that we work towards this silence being a choice.
Unpregnant (2020) dir. Rachel Lee Goldenberg
Unpregnant is a buddy comedy-drama that follows Veronica (Haley Lu Richardson) and her ex-best friend Bailey (Barbie Ferreira) as they travel from Missouri to New Mexico so Veronica can get an abortion. When Veronica learns that she is pregnant, she immediately decides to get the abortion but lacks the funds to do so. Thinking he will help, Veronica tells her boyfriend, Kevin, but he proposes to her instead, so she goes to Bailey for help after pawning Kevin’s ring, and the two drive off. Over the course of the film, the two ex-besties encounter increasingly bizarre and dangerous scenarios, including an instance where a couple agrees to take them in for the night and drive them to the clinic the following morning, only for Veronica and Bailey to find out that the couple are actually pro-lifers who want to stop Veronica from the abortion, so they have to plan an escape.
The script is hit-or-miss but what makes Unpregnant a standout is its portrayal of Veronica’s casualness about her decision. Initially, Veronica doesn’t want anyone to know she’s pregnant. She can’t tell her judgemental best friends or her religious parents, which is what drives her to seek Bailey’s help in the first place. When Veronica’s friends call her with the news that a pregnancy test was found in the school trash, Veronica panics and lies to them. And when Veronica finally does make it to her appointment, Kevin is there to threaten her again, telling her that he will tell everyone at school the truth. Veronica admits that she doesn’t care anymore if people find out. She goes into her appointment calmly, with no tears or speeches. Many abortions shown in media are depicted as traumatic and painful, and while they can be for some, Veronica’s experience is akin to going to sleep for a few minutes. When Veronica returns home, she tells her mother that it was never a hard decision for her to make and she doesn’t regret it.
At its core, the film explores the bonds of long-term female friendships. Even though Bailey and Veronica had a falling out, it was Bailey who Veronica trusted because she knew she wouldn’t judge her. On the road, they talk about their past friendship and confront the reasons why it went sour. In the end, Veronica chooses to be friends with Bailey again because she realizes that their love for each other never ran out and they can be one-hundred percent themselves with each other, with no judgment. Unpregnant also uniquely explores something else about the experience of getting an abortion; finding help from unexpected sources. As many times as Bailey and Veronica ran into suspicious people, they also were shown kindness and empathy by total strangers who learned of Veronica’s situation and offered a lending hand. This contributes to the film’s lighter, more hopeful tone. Abortion doesn’t need to be a traumatic experience or a heavy decision; sometimes it’s as simple as getting an appointment and moving on with your life.
Plan B (2021) dir. Natalie Morales
Plan B is the only film on this list that one, deals with getting the morning-after pill, and two, features two women of color as the leads. Sunny (Kuhoo Verma) is a sheltered, straight-A student who throws a party with her rebellious best friend Lupe (Victoria Moroles) while Sunny’s overbearing mother is out of town on a business trip. In a moment of desperation, Sunny loses her virginity at the party with a classmate. The next morning, Sunny realizes the condom is still inside her. She goes to the local pharmacy with Lupe to get the morning-after pill, but due to South Dakota’s conscience law, the pharmacist refuses to sell the pill to her. Lupe suggests they take Sunny’s mom’s car to the nearest Planned Parenthood in Rapid City and, with no other options and time quickly running out, they set out for the road.
Similar to Unpregnant, this film throws increasingly bizarre and dangerous situations at the two leads as they hit the road. Examples include encountering sexual harassment (and racism) from two men at a gas station and preparing to give oral sex to a teen drug dealer in hopes of securing fake IDs and what could possibly be either a morning-after pill or amphetamines. But their trip isn’t all bad, either. Lupe uses the trip as an opportunity to see her crush play a show at a local bowling alley. Sunny gets a chance to bond with her own crush and has a surprising moment of vulnerability with him. And the two best friends have an honest conversation about their friendship, apologize for their past wrong-doings, and vow to be honest with each other in the future.
What makes Plan B stand out on this list is its theme of perfectionism. Sunny is the daughter of a single immigrant mother. Her mother works hard to provide a good life for her and Sunny is cracking under the pressure she feels to not disappoint her. Rather than fall into the strict immigrant parent stereotype, Plan B uses it to its advantage to turn the stereotype on its head. When Sunny gets to Planned Parenthood, she finds out it’s been closed down. Out of options, she calls her mother. In an explosion of emotion, Sunny admits everything to her mother, including her feelings about trying to please her all the time, and while she’s initially angry, her mom assures her it’s okay to make mistakes and promptly gets Sunny the morning-after pill.
This theme of perfectionism exists in other aspects of the film too. There’s a scene where Sunny’s sex ed class is following a state-mandated abstinence-only curriculum that is not only inaccurate and outdated but queerphobic and misogynistic. The teacher compares having sex before marriage to a used car. The students are shamed into being “perfect” by not having sex rather than given information that would be useful to them when they make the “mistake” of doing so. Plan B posits that creating spaces for asking questions and learning from mistakes without shame or guilt does far more to prevent unwanted outcomes than waiting for everything to fall apart.
So why have these films become so popular?
While the teen genre as a whole started out with racist, sexist, and homophobic tropes, things began to change around the 2010s. Before, only teen males were allowed to be as gross, raunchy, and sex-obsessed as they wanted on screen, while girls would be punished for even daring to have their own sexual agency. Before, teen girl films were full of pastel color palettes, white neighborhoods, and ugly-duckling makeover montages. In films marketed to teen boys, female characters suffered from the male gaze and shallow characterization. Of course, there was the rare exception, the keyword being rare.
But then films like The To-Do List (2013), Lady Bird (2017), The Edge of Seventeen (2016), and Booksmart (2019) came out and featured characters and stories of varying backgrounds (these characters were still white and middle-class, but I digress). They were more realistic about the teen experience, particularly the teen girl experience, and explored the nuances of female friendship. The characters in these films were allowed to be raunchy, messy, complicated, sexual, and three-dimensional. While many of the issues they faced were dealt with by teen girls and boys alike, the issues were given another layer by being filtered through the lens of the teen girl. For example, do you think the mommy issues Christine has in Lady Bird would be portrayed nearly the same if her character was male?
All of these films were also directed by women, which makes a huge difference. In Booksmart, which is hailed as gen z’s progressive version of Superbad (2007), one of the female protagonists has her first sexual experience with a girl at a party. A male director may risk framing the scene with the male gaze but director Olivia Wilde framed the scene objectively, giving the characters respect as they fumble through a very awkward and realistic encounter. Not enough women are behind the camera still but the rise in female directors and writers has paved the way for more stories to be told by people who have firsthand experience with them.
This revitalized and revamped emphasis on the teen girl experience and female friendships, combined with the rise in anti-choice politics, means that it’s only natural for films about two friends taking a road trip for an abortion to be made. Because if you’re a young girl who finds out you’re pregnant, you can’t tell your parents, and your state prevents you from getting the discreet medical care you need, who else would you turn to besides your best friend? Girls who’ve been through an abortion before can finally see themselves represented on-screen and not feel like their experiences are reduced to tales of shame, punishment, and cautionary lessons, but rather insightful portrayals that don’t shy away from reality but also offer love, acceptance, and hope.
What does it mean for the future of filmmaking, especially after the overturning of Roe v. Wade?
While these films are a great start and are much-needed, there are so many stories about abortion that can be told, not just from the teen girl’s perspective. What would it look like if an AFAB trans teen boy needed an abortion? What does access to abortion for teenagers look like across race and class? What if an undocumented teen needed an abortion? There are endless perspectives to explore and while the fight for more diversity in film is still painstakingly slow, progress is being made.
However, now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned and the right to choose has been left up to individual states, the future of abortion in film might look more like the horror genre. From pharmacists being prosecuted for prescribing abortion pills to the arson of Planned Parenthood locations to the right to travel across state lines for abortion being on shaky ground, one’s access to abortion depends on their location, status, and wealth more than ever before. As people who need abortions and even care for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies are being denied thanks to ever-changing bans by Republican lawmakers, stories of wire hangers and back-alley abortions, such as in Dirty Dancing (1987), may re-emerge, and I think those would be the tame ones.
While our right to choose is being torn apart in courtrooms across the country, films like Unpregnant and Plan B almost feel like a distant memory of a “happier” time. But just as stories on abortion moved from dying at the hands of a back-alley doctor to having a crazy, life-changing road trip with your best friend in search of a simple pill, the power of speaking up, whether it’s at a protest or through a film script, offers hope for affecting change in a hopeless time.
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