Watching 70s-era sitcoms when you’re

used to a steady diet of 21st century sitcoms is a disconcerting

experience. Old-fashioned ingredients like the three-camera sound

stage set-up, the laugh track, and the three extra minutes of programming

(instead of commercials) distinguish the experience from watching something

like "30 Rock" or "The Office." But what really shocks

is the humor. A character with a new and

unwanted pregnancy might tell her husband, as he makes a drink, "Make

mine a double. I’m drinking for two now." No matter

how edgy sitcoms are supposed to be in our century, I doubt anyone

would dare put that joke onscreen these days.

Of course, barely anyone would

dare make a joke like that back then, either. After all, the joke

comes from the first season of the Norman Lear-spearheaded sitcom "Maude,"

and Lear prided himself on creating sitcoms that grappled with

the big political issues of the day, starting with "All In The Family."

Envelope-pushing went to another level with "Maude," a sitcom about

a middle-aged feminist on her fourth marriage that starred the marvelously

funny Bea Arthur in the lead role. The occasion of Arthur’s

recent death has instigated some accolades for her many acting achievements,

including the creation of a loud-mouthed, grouchy, opinionated feminist

who, shockingly, was treated like a full human being who gets by just

fine, thank you very much.

In 1972, "Maude" had what

turned out to be a singular event in television history–a major character

deals with an unintended pregnancy by terminating, and it ends up being

okay. (Her character lived in New York State, where abortion was legal

in 1972.) You’d think that something that happens to over a million

women a year would merit more than one portrayal in the 37 years

since Maude terminated her pregnancy, but in TV Land, abortion is rarer than coffee shop employees who can afford enormous Manhattan apartments.

It’s not that abortion is

entirely unknown on TV. Characters that exist for

only one episode and may not have any lines show up to be the dreaded

and foreign Woman Who Aborts. They usually get to be pathetic,

such as the teenage girl who is victimized by holy roller parents and

needs a secret abortion on "Battlestar Galactica." Sometimes

they get to be injured or silenced dramatically, such as the woman in a coma

whose husband tries to abort her pregnancy when he learns that the baby

might be gay.

They get to be undeveloped characters who exist mainly so that male doctors

can wring their hands about the morality of abortion. When it comes to main characters,

if the possibility of abortion comes up, it’s dismissed as a real

option. And we learn

that decent

women would sooner die than share a waiting room with the sort of sluts

who get abortions.

When it comes to imagining how women relate to pregnancy, it’s incredibly

obvious that most TV writers are men who dearly wish to believe that

nothing is more precious to a woman than accepting a man’s seed like

it was the touch of God himself.

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The only exception I’ve ever

seen in the years since "Maude" was an episode of "Sex and the

City" in which a character contemplates having an abortion. The show had

a unique opportunity to set a new standard, between having

a spot on HBO (where envelope-pushing is mandatory) and having four

characters that often laughed in the face of a prudish, misogynist sexual

norms that don’t really make sense for actual women’s lives.

I give a grade C in courage to the episode "Coulda Woulda Shoulda,"

an episode where Miranda gets pregnant accidentally, decides to terminate

without much fuss, and then, in classic TV fashion, decides to have

the baby at the last possible minute. So why not an F, since the

show relied on the usual cop-out? Well, they did put abortions

in the past of two of the other major characters, Carrie and Samantha.

And in both cases, we learn it was absolutely the right decision for

them, and it’s also implied that it’s unfair that men aren’t expected

to handle the fact of abortion realistically. But they still didn’t

have the courage to show a character making the decision in the here

and now.

And then there’s "Maude."

It’s hard to watch the two-part episode called "Maude’s Dilemma"

without a pang of remorse about how no portrayal of abortion on TV since

has been as realistic and sympathetic. (And funny!) It’s not

that Maude doesn’t struggle with her decision to abort, but the reasons

given in the show are refreshingly realistic. Maude isn’t suddenly

struck by waves of guilt for supporting abortion rights or being sexual.

She’s initially uneasy, because growing up in the mid-20th

century, she thinks of abortion in terms of illegal abortion–sleazy,

unsafe, and criminal. That obstacle is overcome when her daughter

points out that legal abortion is comparable to getting a cavity filled

in terms of cost and safety. The rest of the episode is a comedy

of errors, as Maude and her husband Walter dance around each other,

each afraid to tell the other that they really don’t want to have

a baby while in their 40s. The dilemma comes to a resolution when

they speak openly to each other about it, and end up gladly choosing

abortion, and their marriage comes out all the stronger because

they faced up to the need to communicate more openly.

It’s shocking how different

this is than most subsequent portrayals of abortion. Maude isn’t

broken or pathetic. She doesn’t need outrageous extenuating

circumstances to "deserve" her abortion–she’s treated with the

respect accorded an adult who has every right to decide her own fate.

The sanctity of her marriage and her privacy alone justifies her decision.

They even take some time to send up the cult of motherhood and suggest

that not every woman enjoys being surrounded by children at all times.

But nor is it suggested that Maude’s unwillingness to be a mother

at this point in her life means she was a bad mother at the time she

did want it.

In other words, despite the

artifice, the corniness, and the laugh track of a 70s-era sitcom, this

episode of "Maude" was grounded more in a realistic understanding

of people’s actual lives than any show dealing with the abortion choice

has been since. Abortion is presented as a sensible option for

women dealing with unwanted pregnancy, which is exactly how many women

experience it. Too bad TV writers since have been afraid to tell

this basic truth.