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From ‘Alien’ to Abortion Rights: The Enduring Horror of Bodily Autonomy
Art & Culture6 September 2026
AuthorElsa Gil
PhotosThe Walt Disney Company
Nearly five decades after Ridley Scott’s Alien turned forced pregnancy into body horror, its anxieties around bodily autonomy feel disturbingly current once again.
A
t Tubi’s FrightFest last week in London, I had the pleasure of watching one of horror’s classics, ‘Alien’. Directed by Ridley Scott on a budget of around $11 million, Alien is a 1979 science-fiction horror film following the crew of the Nostromo as they encounter a deadly extraterrestrial lifeform. The film received critical acclaim for its inventive blend of horror and science-fiction elements, as well as for its strong female protagonist, Ellen Ripley. Ripley subverts the expectations traditionally placed on women in cinema, making Alien not only a landmark science-fiction horror film but also a compelling text for exploring feminism and gender.
Alien was shaped by the second wave of feminism that emerged in the previous decade. As birth control became widely available to women in 1972 and abortion rights became law in 1973, this second wave of feminism mobilised women to emphasise the importance of their personhood, not defined solely by their ability to bear children. Access to personal family planning revolutionised women’s ability to plan their families on their own terms.
Therefore, the film's reception during a period of shifting gender norms allowed Ellen Ripley to be widely celebrated for her groundbreaking representation of women in the science-fiction horror genre. Ripley’s firm leadership aboard a male-dominated ship, her intelligence and resourcefulness, and her heroic actions all contribute to her role as the iconic "final girl".
Film scholar Barbara Creed examines Alien through her concept of the “monstrous-feminine,” and scenes such as the facehugger and chestburster explicitly mimic anxieties about pregnancy and birth. Scott perfects a suspense technique so many directors still chase today through eerily quiet scenes and drawn-out struggles with the creature, building to the facehugger finally ravaging it's victims; the viscerally violent scenes become even more etched into our memories.
By making Kane the victim of the film’s forced impregnation, the film ushers men into the sobering reality of forced pregnancy, a reality women have faced for centuries. This violent act, in which a foreign, unwanted entity takes full control of one's body, is a potent metaphor for unwanted pregnancy. Yet, when arguing with men who will never experience such problems, these metaphors need to be forceful to make the point.
Despite Alien turning 47 this year, its message still rings true in our modern political climate; Alien cleverly magnifies the abject horror of no bodily autonomy.
Yet, with the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, much of the deeper analysis surrounding Alien’s message about bodily integrity has become a reality for many women. Since then, conversations around abortion have resurfaced, especially in the UK. One of the UK’s fastest-growing parties, the Reform Party, with several of its politicians and supporters calling for changes to Britain’s abortion laws.
Since Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, the platform has allowed right-wing political parties to flourish, as Musk himself has aligned with these views and relaxed content moderation.
Data collected by The Fuller Project and OpenDemocracy found that between April 2022 and April 2024, the Reform-adjacent accounts posted the word abortion 758 times, rising to 1,063 times between April 2024 and April 2026 – a surge of more than 40%. Posts by Reform politicians drove this surge, referring to it as "Labour's abortion carnage" and calling the decriminalisation of abortion a "degradation of society."
Nigel Farage has described himself as pro-choice, but has also called the UK's 24-week abortion limit “totally out of date” and argued that it should be reconsidered.
With Reform UK continuing to poll competitively nationally, it is essential to examine the party's political stance on abortion. When 1 in 3 British women has an abortion in her lifetime, a government that doesn’t recognise a woman’s choice could overturn laws that fundamentally support women nationwide.
Media like Alien and its message force us to reflect on how deeply we value these causes. Can the UK learn from how the overturning of abortion rights in the USA has radically harmed millions of American women? The true horrors of no bodily autonomy have become actualised once again.
Will we allow British women to be dragged back to a time when bodily agency was absent?
