Steph Herold

@stephherold.bsky.social

6457 Followers 1195 Following

Researcher studying abortion on TV & film. Studying Jewish texts, autism, motherhood whenever I can. Indiscriminate dog lover. She/ her. All views are mine.

A dark staticy image with a purple TV from the 90s, pink graffiti-style text says: ABORTION ON TV SO FAR IN 2026.

An infographic with a blue background and several white boxes that look crinkly, as if they’re crumpled paper. The graphic reads: abortion on tv: before and after Dobbs and has two boxes with five before and after stats

Dark movie theater with a big screen that reads HOLLYWOOD DOES ABORTIONS IN WHITE LETTERS

A poster for a documentary called Hollywood Does Abortion with six film/tv stills from various media: Dirty Dancing, BoJack Horseman, Juno, Scandal, Knocked Up etc

Artificial intelligence pathways to abortion care: a regional analysis of ChatGPT referrals to Women on Web

A square image with faded stills from TV shows with the text: ‘It made me feel compassion for her as if I was rewatching myself’: an exploratory study of how people who have had abortions respond to three contemporary television abortion plotlines

Screen shot from anti abortion website that reads: Apple TV’s “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” admits abortion is terminating a life

A still of two women on a couch: an older white mom and a young white woman laying her head in her lap with the text SPOILER ALERT: ABORTION ON MARGO’S GOT MONEY TROUBLES overlayed in white

Light brown background with text about how medical dramas portray abortion providers, with three iPads that have images from three shows

A photo of an orange hardback book with black and white writing on it. The book is Calling In: how to start making change with those you’d rather cancel by Loretta Ross

Screenshot of an email from an anonymous email address. Text reads: “Centering your white rich lady feelings when millions of people are being forcibly starved is disgusting. You should go cry about it in your million dollar house with your kids you hate and emotionally abuse, Steph.”

A screenshot of an email about a section of Talmud in Masechet Avodah Zara that has some gay adjacent shenanigans between Emperor Antoninus and Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi

Screen shot of the front of an academic article with the title, authors, and abstract. The title is: “It Was So Easy in a Situation That’s So Hard”: Structural Stigma and Telehealth Abortion

Abstract: For decades, sociological research has examined the role of stigma in contributing to health disparities, yet such research seldom grapples with the interplay between individuals and structures. There is a particular paucity of research on abortion that concurrently examines individual experiences with stigma and structural barriers. In this article, we use telehealth abortion as a case, which now accounts for one in five abortions in the United States. We conducted 30 interviews and approach the data using a structural stigma framework in tandem with conceptualizations of felt, internalized, and enacted stigma. Findings advance a sociological theory of structural abortion stigma: a combination of structural barriers, internalized beliefs, and interpersonal shame. Telehealth reduces structural barriers to abortion and mitigates internal and interpersonal experiences of stigma. The latter is achieved by the ability to avoid the traditional abortion clinic, which many interviewees view as the site where stigma is produced and experienced.

Illustrated page of a children’s book: black background d with a red subway line depicting the 1 NYC subway train. Three white stick figures yawn while looking at the train, saying “Boring!” The “o” in “boring” is the 1 red subway circle.

Text from the Talmud, Sanhedrin 75a:
§ Apropos the discussion of the obligation to allow oneself to be killed rather than engage in forbidden sexual intercourse, the Gemara notes that Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: There was an incident involving a certain man who set his eyes upon a certain woman and passion rose in his heart, to the point that he became deathly ill. And they came and asked doctors what was to be done with him. And the doctors said: He will have no cure until she engages in sexual intercourse with him. The Sages said: Let him die, and she may not engage in sexual intercourse with him. The doctors said: She should at least stand naked before him. The Sages said: Let him die, and she may not stand naked before him. The doctors suggested: The woman should at least converse with him behind a fence in a secluded area, so that he should derive a small amount of pleasure from the encounter. The Sages insisted: Let him die, and she may not converse with him behind a fence.