TIMELINE
A history of abortion on daytime television

1964: AW's Pat Matthews was impregnated by her playboy boyfriend, who persuaded her to have an illegal abortion, which she feared left her sterile. Upon realizing that he had no intention of marrying her, Pat killed him in a fit of rage, wed the attorney who got her acquitted and later had twins. "As was typical with early soap-opera stories, the man never got away with it," says Julie Poll. "But she was allowed a happy ending."

1973: In the same year as Roe vs. Wade, Erica Kane had daytime's first legal abortion. "Erica's abortion was simply because she didn't want to have a child, and I think if you do that now, you would perhaps hurt your character," says Megan McTavish.

1986: Ashley Abbott aborted Victor Newman's child on Y&R without telling him; he was livid when he found out and she ended up having a mental breakdown. "There are parallels between women who place babies up for adoption and women who have abortions, in terms of the loss that they experience," says Serrin M. Foster.

1992: ATWT career woman Ellie Snyder learned that she was expecting a malformed child. "Ellie knew that she couldn't handle that, and she got the abortion without telling her husband, Kirk. He said he would have wanted the child and would have cared for the child and he immediately wanted to try and have more children. She didn't and that was the end of their marriage," says Poll.

1995: AMC's Julia Santos was raped, which resulted in a pregnancy that she terminated. "I think it would have been much more difficult to do an abortion if it hadn't been a case of rape," admits McTavish, adding that they made sure to include dissenting opinions.

2004: Thinking Rex wouldn't want a child, DAYS's Mimi Lockhart had an abortion without consulting him. "The reaction of the father of the child that a woman is carrying is the No. 1 determinant of if she will go through with the pregnancy," says Foster.