‘Sex and the City’ Didn’t Shy Away From an Extremely Important Topic

Sex and the City ran six seasons on HBO from 1998 to 2004. The acclaimed dramedy followed four single women, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), and Charlotte York (Kristin Davis), navigating their personal and professional lives in New York City.

The series got many important topics wrong, but there is one important topic that the show handled with care.

‘Sex and the City’ didn’t always get important topics right

Sex and the City is still a television staple. However, that doesn’t mean the series has always gotten everything right. Race was a sticky issue, especially when Samantha began dating a Black man, subsequently talking in an Blaccent for the duration of the episode.

In one random episode, after Samantha gets in a tiff with the sex workers working in her neighborhood, Carrie playfully mocks their dialogue and mannerisms at the end. Though Sex and the City is not perfect and is very much of its time, there is one important topic that they got right.

‘Sex and the City’ didn’t shy away from abortion

In  Season 4, Episode 11, entitled “Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda,” Miranda, after learning that she’s pregnant with Steve’s baby, must decide what she wants to do next. During brunch with the girls, she announces that she’s decided to have an abortion. Both Samanta and Carrie recount their own abortion stories, helping Miranda feel more at ease. However, Charlotte, who has been struggling with fertility, is horrified.

Miranda is also grappling with telling Steve about the baby, which is made further complicated by Carrie and Aidan’s relationship. Aidan and Steve are good friends. During a conversation, Aidan asks Carrie if she’s ever had an abortion, and she lies to him.

Later, she tells Aidan the truth, saying that she was 22 and it was the best decision for her at the time. It’s one of the times in the series when Carrie stands in her truth and doesn’t apologize for her choices. In the end, Miranda decides to keep her baby, but it’s a decision that she makes on her own without any pressure from anyone else, including Charlotte.

Carrie Bradshaw made some mistakes in the HBO series

While her choice to have an abortion was handled with care in Sex and the City, Carrie Bradshaw certainly had some eye-raising moments over the course of the series. Her on-again-off-again saga with Big (Chris Noth) is exhausting to think about.

Moreover, she is often seen acting childishly when something doesn’t go her way, running away from her issues (i.e., when she doesn’t know how to end her engagement with Aidan), blowing through her money, and even keeping secrets from her closest friends.

However, despite her flaws, Carrie always came around, even when it took her a few missteps to find her path.