“Black Mirror” may be a Sci-Fi drama, but its depiction of the morning after pill is being called “dangerously wrong.”
Though season four has a female lead in all six episodes and has been celebrated for that fact, it apparently didn’t stop the inaccuracies. Particularly some details in episode two, “Arkangel,” is already being called into question.
Directed by Jodie Foster, the episode is centered around Marie (played by Rosemarie DeWitt), who has a sort of tracker, called the titular-Arkangel, inserted into her daughter Sara (played by Brenna Harding). But later in the episode, when Sara isn’t where she’s supposed to be and turns out to be having sex, Marie slips an emergency contraception pill that she ground up into her daughter’s morning smoothie, effectively ending the pregnancy.
But this is not realistic.
The morning after pill, like “Black Mirror” tried to portray, comes in two forms: Ella and the generic version. Ella needs a prescription. The over-the-counter version, as the show seemed to render, is available at most pharmacies. However, the pill Marie gave her daughter wouldn’t work if Sara was already pregnant. And the symptoms represented on screen conflate morning after pills with medical abortion pills (Mifepristone and Misoprostol) which you cannot obtain over-the-counter.
According to the Planned Parenthood video, there are two different methods for an emergency contraception: an IUD or the morning after pill.
“Getting an IUD,” the video says, “is the most effective type of emergency contraception.”
“Pregnancy doesn’t happen right after you have sex,” Elizabeth Clark, Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Director of Health Media, told The Daily Beast. “Sperm can actually live inside somebody’s body for up to six days after sex, waiting for an egg to show up to be fertilized. The morning-after pill works by temporarily stopping ovulation so the ovary doesn’t release an egg.”
And Twitter users also seemed to take issue with this:
I finally watched the @blackmirror episode Arkangel, and I really wish Jodie Foster and @netflix had actually done some research on abortion pills and emergency contraception. It was wildly inaccurate, from how EC works to the symptoms.
— Renee Bracey Sherman (@RBraceySherman) January 3, 2018
I watched @blackmirror and I’m PISSED that they equated Emergency Contraception to an abortion pill. EC prevents pregnancy. It does NOT terminate pregnancy. This is so damn irresponsible.
— Charlene Carruthers (@CharleneCac) December 30, 2017
Emergency contraception does not cause abortion. Plain and simple. The Black Mirror depiction is medically inaccurate and irresponsible. https://t.co/2mWjtfy7IY
— Dr. Daniel Grossman (@DrDGrossman) January 4, 2018
But “Black Mirror” isn’t the first show to get this wrong. “The Walking Dead” had a very similar plot line and failed in an almost identical way, The Daily Beast notes.
“We exercised our artistic creative license to explore a storyline with one of our characters, not to make any pro-life or pro-choice political statement,” said Glenn Mazzara, creator of “The Walking Dead.” This becomes a problem though when access to contraception and rampant misinformation are major issues in the world.
“Film and television have a unique opportunity to portray sexual and reproductive health care in medically accurate and nonjudgmental ways for millions of viewers,” Clark said. “With access to health care and sex education under constant attack, it’s more important than ever for us to see accurate storylines when it comes to contraception, abortion, and other health issues—as well as a whole range of people’s authentic experiences.”
It’s definitely important for everyone to understand how different contraceptives work and it only makes sense to want our media (even the freaky, sci-fi horror) to ground those things in reality.
Header Image: Netflix