If you’re like me and you’re a huge fan of binge watching Degrassi: The Next Generation, then you couldn’t wait until January 2017 when season 3 was finally released on Netflix. I was just dying to find out (no pun intended) who was going to die in the bus crash and see how the characters’ lives would be altered by the event. While I won’t spoil the entire season for anybody who is interested, I will say this season has been one of the most emotionally-charged seasons ever. One of my favorite topics that they delve into, aside from immigration and LGBT matters, is abortion.
Abortion has always been and remains to be a huge topic of controversy. There are those who call themselves “pro-life” meaning that they are totally against abortion and tend to feel very strongly about women of all ages keeping their fetuses. Those who don’t necessarily encourage abortion, but rather place importance on women having the choice of being able to abort an unwanted or dangerous pregnancy are called “pro-choice”. As a huge advocate for women’s health in every way, shape or form, I am 100% pro-choice. With that being said, no matter which side of the fence you stand on, episode 8 of season 3, titled “#IRegretNothing” was incredibly interesting.
The episode starts off with a very familiar scenario, a teenage girl, blue-haired and perky, by the name of Lola is staring down a pregnancy test while her best friend’s wait outside of the bathroom stall. As anxious and nervous as any girl could be in that situation, Lola tries to distract herself by willing away the pregnancy and asking her friends about their school work. Unfortunately, being the realists that they are, her friends start whispering about “What would be people thing?” After a quick countdown, Lola snatches the test and looks at the results before stepping out of the bathroom and informing her friends that she is not pregnant. While her friends breathe heavy sighs of relief, as any good friends would, before leaving Lola to gather her thoughts, the camera pans to a shot of the pregnancy test along with Lola’s faced indicating that she lied and she is in fact pregnant.
Skipping ahead through the rest of the episode, we see Lola try to confront her the boy who got her pregnant, who also happens to be her best friend’s brother, but unfortunately he can’t even spare a moment to heart her out or allow her to explain why she needs a ride downtown during their lunch period. Just as she’s starting to feel a little bad about her decision, one of her classmates, Yael, comes to confront her about not fulfilling her part of their group project and when she suggests that Lola works on it during her lunch period Lola bursts into tears exclaiming “I’m having an abortion!” Yael, being as much a feminist as any girl on the show offers to accompany Lola to her procedure and ends up being a pretty good friend to her.
Prior to the procedure, Lola starts asking the doctor questions so that she can be reassured that she’s making the right decision. One of the most shocking questions that she asks is “Am I the first 16 year old you’ve ever done this for?” to which the doctor responds “You’re not the first 16 year old I’ve done this for today.” After the procedure is over Lola returns to school and tries to resume her life as normally as possible until she accidentally ends up projecting her cell phone’s open internet tabs for her entire class to see that she was searching “where to get an abortion”. As embarrassed as she was for revealing that to her class, it doesn’t stop her from making a video that she posts online for everyone at school to see where she informs everyone that she had an abortion that day and that she doesn’t feel any remorse towards her decision because that was what was best for her life.
The reason this episode was so important to me has a lot to do with the stigma that been placed on women who choose to get abortions. Society tells us that women who get abortions are careless, selfish and irresponsible baby murderers, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Most women don’t go out seeking abortions because it’s trendy or because it’s their preferred method of birth control. While choosing to have an abortion isn’t necessarily a difficult decision for the women who choose to do so, it tends to be the best decision. For women who are in college, trying to make something of their lives, finding themselves dealing with an unwanted pregnancy is not the ideal situation. They’re struggling to make ends meet and to take care of themselves, let alone taking care of another small, needy human being. For many of these women, they have dreams of becoming mothers and having careers, but those dreams don’t include being pregnant at 18 years old. These women should not be shamed for choosing what they feel is the best option for themselves, but rather we should celebrate that they are taking care of themselves and their health.
What Lola did was incredibly brave, especially creating her video and making sure that the world knows that she’s not ashamed of what she did and she’s not sorry. No woman should ever feel sorry for taking her life into her own hands. Knowing that you can’t support or love a baby the way that it needs to be loved and making the decision to terminate the pregnancy before it’s too late, is one of the most responsible decisions that a woman can make for herself. Honestly, what goes on in a person’s body has no impact on the life of anyone else, so what that person chooses to do with their body is their choice. Women who choose to have abortions are choosing life; they're choosing their own. My body, my choice.
