Ross Douthat<\/p><\/div>By Ross Douthat | New York Times<\/p>\n

The American entertainment industry has never been comfortable with the act of abortion. Film or television characters might consider the procedure, but even on the most libertine programs (a \u201cMad Men,\u201d a \u201cSex and the City\u201d), they\u2019re more likely to have a change of heart than actually go through with it. Reality TV thrives on shocking scenes and subjects \u2014 extreme pregnancies and surgeries, suburban polygamists and the gay housewives of New York \u2014 but abortion remains a little too controversial, and a little bit too real.<\/p>\n

This omission is often cited as a victory for the pro-life movement, and in some cases that\u2019s plainly true. (Recent unplanned-pregnancy movies like \u201cJuno\u201d and \u201cKnocked Up\u201d made abortion seem not only unnecessary but repellent.) But it can also be a form of cultural denial: a way of reassuring the public that abortion in America is \u2014 in Bill Clinton\u2019s famous phrase \u2014 safe and legal, but also rare.<\/p>\n

Rare it isn\u2019t: not when one in five pregnancies ends at the abortion clinic. So it was a victory for realism, at least, when MTV decided to supplement its hit reality shows \u201c16 and Pregnant\u201d and \u201cTeen Mom\u201d with last week\u2019s special, \u201cNo Easy Decision,\u201d which followed Markai Durham, a teen mother who got pregnant a second time and chose abortion.<\/p>\n