Every Show on TV Right Now Should Take Note of How Jane the Virgin Handles Abortion

Spoilers for the second episode of Jane the Virgin below.

Jane the Virgin is unquestionably one of the smartest shows on television thanks to its cheeky telenovela style, realistic depiction of motherhood, and collection of female characters that are as layered and complex as they come. It should come as no surprise, then, that the CW comedy-drama has also become one of the best examples of how the small screen should be tackling abortion. In the third season's second episode, "Chapter Forty-Six," the Villanueva family discusses abortion for the third time in the show's run. Instead of demonizing the procedure or making the decision a dragged out "should I or shouldn't I?" situation, Jane the Virgin approaches abortion as if it's a totally normal, everyday occurrence (since for a lot of women in this country, it is).

Throughout the season three premiere, Jane's mother Xiomara decides that she can't go through with her pregnancy, which is the result of a one night stand with her ex-boyfriend's — aka Jane's father Rogelio's — biggest rival, Esteban. Despite the show's frank discussion of abortion in the past, I was still shocked (refreshingly so) by how casually they confirm Xo's decision in episode two, "Chapter Forty-Six." She and Jane walk into the house Xo shares with her mother, Alba, and in between bickering over Alba's choice of new wallpaper, Xo gives Alba the mail. When her mother questions her about a bill from her doctor's office, she chalks it up to an appointment for the stomach flu. The narrator then succinctly fills the audience in on Xo's condition. "To clarify, Xo didn't have a stomach flu a few weeks ago. She had a medication abortion, which causes cramps, which she told her mother was a stomach flu." And just like that, the family is back to arguing over how hideous the bright, cherry-printed wallpaper is.

This to-the-point moment follows in the footsteps of the brilliant film Obvious Child, and more recently, a season-five scene in Scandal, both of which refuse to turn a character's abortion into the melodramatic kind of soul-crushing, be-all-end-all tragedies that "Very Special Episodes" in the '90s and even the 2000s were fond of. Xo's decision isn't vilified or swept under the rug. She doesn't find herself deciding to keep the baby out of a sense of duty to her mother, or succumbing to her Catholic guilt. She simply makes a choice that millions of other women have. That's not to say that the show doesn't treat it seriously, however — Alba is very religious, after all, and Xo spends a lot of the episode figuring out if and how she should tell her mother the truth about what she's done. The difference here, it's worth noting, is that she's already done it.

There is a long, not-so-subtle prolife history of female TV show characters deciding against abortion to please their boyfriends (Melrose Place, Beverly Hills, 90210), their parents (The Secret Life of the American Teenager), and even their sons (Dawson's Creek). Jane the Virgin is woman-centric in nearly every way, so every time they navigate a pregnancy storyline, it's the female character's values that are placed front and center. Xo doesn't consult Esteban for advice on what to do, because she already knows without a doubt that she doesn't want to have the baby. No waffling necessary. Conversely, in season one, when Jane is accidentally artificially inseminated, she briefly considers abortion before deciding that she wants to keep her unborn child. The father, Rafael, certainly contributes to her decision, but in the end, it's her choice, and her choice alone.

The shift in how abortion is spoken about on TV is no doubt the result of the ever-changing political climate that surrounds women's rights, and although the prolife movement is still very much alive (no pun intended), popular, mainstream TV shows are getting more and more opportunities to accurately and realistically present the emotional turmoil (or lack thereof) that women experience when faced with the choice. Girls examines a few different angles of how women handle it, from Jessa's struggle and denial in the first season to Mimi-Rose's nonchalant brush-off of the whole thing. In Parenthood's season four episode "Small Victories," Amy goes through with her abortion without a second thought after getting a full consultation from Planned Parenthood, deciding that it's what's best for her even though the father, Drew, thinks otherwise.

Like in the aforementioned TV shows, the choice to embrace the gray areas of life that real people experience daily, instead of pushing a black and white "this is good, that is bad" narrative, is one of the many things that makes Jane the Virgin so great. By the end of "Chapter Forty-Six," Alba joins in on the episode's "put aside your differences" theme and accepts her daughter's choice. "I don't agree with your decision, but it's your decision," she says, while tearing down the ugly wallpaper she was too stubborn to get rid of earlier. "We're different, the end." Never leave us, Villanuevas.