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Oh they don’t know what they want! They are too selfish! Or: They are sure to regret it for the rest of their lives! These or similar statements are how women, who had abortions, are often described. Where do these one-dimensional narratives come from and why are they so persistent?

The cultural studies expert Franzis Kabisch has, for many years, been working on the re/presentation of abortion in films and on TV. The author Charlotte Gneuß has just released a literary anthology Glückwunsch – 15 Erzählungen über Schwangerschaftsabbrüche with Hanser Berlin Verlag. Together, they offer thoughts about these re-/presentations in film and fiction to intitate a national conversation. For the guilt-shame-and-repentance narratives have assumed a reality of their own, leaving their marks on our bodies and souls, at the expense of those who are able of becoming pregnant.

Charlotte Gneuß is a social worker and author, freelancing in various journals, anthologies and magazines. Her documentary theatre text on abortion won her a place as finalist of the Young Dramatists Prize. With co-editor Laura Weber, she has published the anthology Glückwunsch – 15 Erzählungen über Abtreibungen (Hanser Berlin).

Franzis Kabisch is a cultural scholar, artist and pro-choice activist based in Berlin and Vienna. Work on abortion in films and TV series started with a documentary film project in 2019 and is continued in a doctoral thesis at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She shares her findings on the Insta channel @abortion.tv, in university courses and in feminist magazines like Missy Magazine.

Linda Rohrer, born in Frankfurt am Main in 1999, grew up in Berlin and wrote theatre reviews for the Tagesspiegel as a youth reporter before taking to the stage herself at Grips Theater in 2016. Since 2017 she has been in front of the camera for film and television productions, and since 2021 she has been studying acting at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. Most recently, she appeared on stage at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in the production Metamorphosen by Tobias Klett.