No teen drama comes without it: The inevitable teen-pregnancy storyline.

The new 90210 (yes, I’m still watching, so sue me) is no exception. Adriana, the recovering druggie, found out after having an HIV test that, while she was not HIV-positive, she was pregnant. Of course, there was no discussion about why the girl was having unprotected sex (given she didn’t immediately know who the father was, it’s obviously an issue), but voila, we had the requisite “should I have it or have an abortion?” teen-drama plot.

Like every teen drama that goes there, it gave the debate enough airtime to prove it’s edgy enough not to avoid the topic, but, as always, you know the girl will never pick the abortion option. Except, in this case, 90210 didn’t opt for the usual “it’s fine for other women, but when it comes down to the crunch, I just couldn’t do that to my ‘baby’” cop-out. They ducked out on a technicality. Adriana announces she’s too far into the pregnancy to have an abortion. Smooth.

The fact is, if you really want one, you can have an abortion, even in some parts of the U.S., including California, where the series is based, up to 24 weeks into the pregnancy. It’s a little pricier, but that’s not much of an issue amongst this designer-shoe-heeled bunch. However, that would be way too controversial. No, it’s much easier to get the dramatic play out of the “pregnancy plot line” while ultimately avoiding the whole “choice” option entirely.

While the U.S. may have its first African-American president, women’s reproductive choice is still a contradictory notion. If a woman “chooses” to have an abortion, it is never really viewed as a “choice,” as in simply “choosing” among available options. It is seen, at best, as an evil but necessary choice; at worst, a barbaric and murderous choice.

Imagine a teen drama in which a young woman decides to have an abortion and not only goes through with it, but actually feels happy about her decision. It’s not going to happen on TV, but it is a reality.

Imnotsorry.net is full of stories of women who are happy about their decisions to abort. And if it seems wrong to put “happy” and “abort” in the same sentence, that’s precisely why Richmond, Virginia-based Patricia Beninato started the website. “I picture a teenager, scared to frigging death about being pregnant, typing in ‘abortion,’ and getting all these sites telling her how bad she’s going to feel if she has the procedure,” she says in an article about the site from In These Times magazine. “I want her to find us, too, and hear real women describe the actual procedure. I want her to hear that she can feel happy about having an abortion. I want to make sure she knows that she doesn’t have to be intimidated and have babies she doesn’t want. I want her to know there’s another reality out there.”

Imnotsorry.net is a breath of fresh air amongst the rhetoric of the anti-choice movement that would have you believe an abortion automatically turns you into a drugging, boozing, sexually dysfunctional, depressed, guilty, suicidal basket case.

Even the pro-choice movement, while celebratory of a woman’s right to choose, is seldom positive about the experience itself, more often pairing the word “choice” with the word “difficult.”

Which is not to say that choosing to end a pregnancy isn’t a difficult choice. Truth be told, however, for many women I know, it was a no-brainer. And they actually felt joy and relief afterwards. They were ready to kiss the ground of the country they live in, because they didn’t have to sneak into a back alley and have some questionable doctor shove acid tablets into their uterus for a ridiculous sum of money in order to terminate their pregnancy. That’s right, making abortions illegal and unavailable doesn’t stop women from wanting to terminate unwanted pregnancies. It just means they stand a better chance of dying in the process. It boggles my mind that anyone would want to go back to that, when, the procedure can be what Sunny describes on Imnotsorry.net as “an experience that felt like little more than an annual pap smear and was over in less than five minutes.”

Lana has had three abortions and doesn’t regret a single one. “When I was emotionally and financially ready [to become a mother], I became one, and I believe I’m a good mother,” writes Lana on the site. “I regret that I was so foolish in the past, but I don’t regret my abortions for one minute. Having them was the best thing I ever did for myself or for any children I might have had. I was far too unstable then, emotionally, for motherhood. I’m not sorry, and I never will be.”

Now a storyline like that would give the new 90210 some real and sorely needed edge.