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Convenient Miscarriage: Difference between revisions
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== Comic Books ==
* The ''[[Batman]]'' comic ''Batman: Son of the Demon'' uses the variation. Batman joins up with his [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] enemy Ra's al Ghul, marries his daughter, Talia, and gets her pregnant. Talia decides that to defend her and the baby would hold Batman back from his mission, and fakes the miscarriage; the last we see is their son, in an orphanage, holding the necklace Bruce gave to Talia. This story was [[Retcon|retroactively declared]] an [[Elseworld]] and then [[Retcon|retconned]] right back to being canon years later, when Talia presented Bruce with his son [[Meaningful Name|Damian]], now 10 years old.
* In a recent arc of ''[[Captain America (comics)]]'', the title character's sometimes-girlfriend Agent Sharon Carter of SHIELD discovered that she was pregnant. She was then taken captive by [[Big Bad|Red Skull]] and, after a fight, was found stabbed in the abdomen. The next issue revealed that she had done it to herself to keep her baby away from the Skull. No one blames her. (It's hinted that [[Complete Monster|Red Skull]] was going to use her baby as his new body.)
* Nocturne from ''[[Exiles]]'' who not only lost her child between issues but did any grieving there as well. One issue the father is put into a coma while punching out Galacticus and has to be left behind when the Exiles move on. The next issue someone asks her about why she's not showing yet and she informs them that she 'lost it 5 worlds ago and She's glad because what sort of crappy situation is this to bring a child into?'. The baby isn't mentioned again until the father comes out of his coma and the second thing Nocturne says to him is 'I lost the baby' (the first is "You're Alive!" In between, it was strongly implied that she had actually either gotten an abortion, or used her powers to perform the abortion herself.
* One of the oddest occurred in ''[[Robotech]]: Prelude to the Shadow Chronicles''. Mainly used to bridge plot points between the end of the TV series and the upcoming movie, several characters had rather sudden changes worked upon them, were killed off, etc. Perhaps the most [[Anvilicious]] was Admiral Lisa Hunter from the original ''[[Macross]]'' segment of ''Robotech''. Due to a space battle in which she is commanding one of the ships involved (while pregnant!), she loses her baby and later steps down from military command. This is rather confusing because Admiral Rick Hunter, her husband, only shows up in one brief shot, and Lisa herself not at all. Even more confusing, there had been no canonical evidence that she was pregnant before that sequence.
** That said, the ''PTTSC'' miniseries did tend to incorporate elements of the now dubiously canon Robotech novels (as a nod to older fans), which had Rick and Lisa have a son later on. Max and Miria's psychic [[Messianic Archetype]] daughter Aurora was [[Retcon|retconned]] into their hotshot ace pilot daughter Maia, so the details are not always important...
*** It picks up where the comic book version of Sentinels left off (with Kyle being killed and Minmay kidnapped)) and the main reason for the miscarriage seems to have been to shock Rick into having white hair, to distance his design from that of Hikaru's which due to the current status of the court ruling on the Macross IP, Harmony Gold can not use in derivative animation.
* Mary Jane in the ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'' comics, as part of [[Marvel Universe|Marvel]]'s constant [[Executive Meddling|effort to keep Spidey young]]. It was revealed that the baby had actually been born healthy and spirited away, but we never saw any more of this plot, except in the ''MC2'' [[Alternate Continuity]], where said baby eventually became ''[[Spider-Girl]]''.
** And then, of course, One More Day upped the ante when Mephisto revealed to the couple the wonderful daughter they WOULD have had if they hadn't made their deal with him. Boy, it's like Spider-Man and everyone close to him aren't ''allowed'' to catch a break.
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* ''Citizen Ruth'' is about a drug addict who gets pregnant and is fought over by Pro-Life and Pro-Choice groups who both want to use her as a pawn to further their respective causes. Thanks to this trope, neither wins.
* Happens, textbook, in ''[[Singles]]''.
* Subverted in ''[[The Last Emperor]]''. The Emperor is told by Japanese officials that the child his wife gave birth to (which she conceived with their driver in an attempt to give the Emperor an heir) was stillborn. Of course, the truth (which the Emperor probably suspected) is that the child was born healthy and was quickly murdered in an attempt to cover up the affair.
* Britney Spears's pregnant friend falls down some stairs and loses her baby in ''Crossroads''. Slightly unusual in that she had (some semblance of) a plan to raise it and was 6 or 7 months pregnant, making it technically a stillbirth (the line is at about five and a half months).
* In the backstory of ''Sweet Home Alabama'', Melanie and Jake got married right out of high school after [[Shotgun Wedding|Melanie got pregnant]]. It's implied that she had a miscarriage at some point after that ("I guess Mother Nature had other plans"), which allowed her to leave for New York and pursue her career as a fashion designer.
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** Fanny is strongly suspected to be an [[Unreliable Narrator]]. She's just been dumped by her lover (whose father has sent him on a world tour to detach him from her), she's pregnant, and she owes an astronomical sum to her landlady. Her only possible source of income is prostitution, but that would have been impossible in 1748 while pregnant. Moreover, her landlady is a "wise woman" - that is, an abortionist.
* Pam has one in one of Phyllis Reynold's Naylor's ''Alice'' books.
* In [[Robin McKinley]]'s ''[[Deerskin]]'', the female protagonist is [[Rape as Drama|raped]] {{spoiler|by her FATHER}} and then subsequently miscarries. In the middle of the wilderness. In a hut half-buried in the snow. This book doesn't just [[Break the Cutie]], it tries to tear her psyche apart.
** ''Convenient'' Miscarriage, however, is averted--while the third or fourth month is akin to a heavy period (and is ridiculously easy to trigger, hence the trope), miscarriage in the later terms of pregnancy is '''painful'''.
* Cat in [[The War of the Flowers]] miscarries near the beginning, which {{spoiler|leads to her breaking up with Theo and demolishing the remainder of his life to leave him no real ties to hold him in our world when Applecore shows up to take him to Faerie. The miscarriage was anything but accidental, however.}}
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* Happens off-stage to Diana Villiers in [[Master and Commander|Patrick O'Brian's]] ''The Surgeon's Mate''.
* In Margaret Mitchell's [[Gone with the Wind|''Gone With the Wind'']], both Scarlett O'Hara and Melanie Wilkes suffer miscarriages, Scarlett after falling down a flight of stairs, and Melanie after a difficult second pregnancy, {{spoiler|resulting in her death.}}
* Played in-universe in [[The Hunger Games]]. In "Catching Fire", Katniss pretends to be pregnant in order to gain sympathy in the Quarter Quell. However, when she has to become the face of the rebellion in "Mockingjay", pregnancy would be inconvenient (and it would become obvious after a while that she was not really pregnant), so Katniss and the other rebels [[Hand Wave]] this as a [[Convenient Miscarriage]].
* Lysa Arynn in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' has several versions of this happen to her. First, she gets pregnant as a teenager by [[Unlucky Childhood Friend|someone below her station]] and is forced to drink [[Fantastic Drug|Moon Tea]] which causes a [[Convenient Miscarriage]]. Her family marries her off to an older man and she ends up having several more miscarriages. Whether this is due to his infertility problems or her previous complications with the tea are left unresolved. She does end up having a son, but because of her traumas with pregnancies she [[Momma's Boy|utterly dotes on the boy]] and even breast-feeds him until he's seven.
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* Sarah Hendrickson in ''[[Big Love]]''.
* {{spoiler|Caprica-Six and Saul Tigh}} in ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'' {{spoiler|with their son (Wil)Liam, possibly due to Tigh switching affections from Six back to his real wife Ellen. Apparently, Cylons need love to breed).}}
* ''[[NYPD Blue]]'': Diane miscarries her child with Bobby. (He later meets him in the afterlife.) Another time, Danny has a crisis when he gets his girlfriend pregnant, but she has a miscarriage at the end of the episode. (''Entertainment Weekly'' complained at the time that it was a cop-off way to end that storyline.)
* Subverted on [[Third Watch]] with Faith. While she claims that she had a miscarriage to her husband, she really had an abortion because she felt that they couldn't afford another kid.
* Kirsty did this on ''[[Home and Away]]'': first she lied she was pregnant, then to weasel out of it she lied she miscarried, and then she found she was having a baby for real, and then she miscarried for real. (Doubly convenient since she needed a kidney transplant but couldn't bring herself to have an abortion.) Several years later (having had a full term pregnancy in the meantime), it happened to her ''again'': She pretended to try for a baby but kept taking the pill, admitted she didn't want a baby, got pregnant anyway, considered an abortion but realised she wanted the baby, then had a miscarriage.
** An awkward case with Sam Holden: Having just undergone a [[Face Heel Turn]] and killed a criminal who was blackmailing her, she conveniently discovered she was pregnant just as husband Jack was about to report her to the police, then suffered a convenient miscarriage during an argument. Not long after [[Death of the Hypotenuse|she committed suicide]] in a failed attempt to frame [[Die for Our Ship|Jack and Martha]].
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** ''[[CSI: Miami]]'' has a subversion of this. A man's second wife gets pregnant and he does not want to go through the process of raising a kid. He sabotages her car and hires some goons to have her carjacked with the intent that this causes a [[Convenient Miscarriage]] and his life goes back to 'normal'. The carjackers end up beating the wife almost to death which gets massive attention from the police. {{spoiler|The mother and baby live.}}
*** The things some people will do to shirk responsibility. '''''YEAAAAAHHHHH!!!'''''
* ''[[Dirty Sexy Money]]'' had this with Karen since the show had been cancelled and it gave Karen and Nick a happy ending.
* On ''General Hospital'', Holly was pregnant by Luke, whom she mistakenly thought was dead. His best friend, Robert, married her to keep her from being deported. She miscarried when picking up an antique (and heavy) wooden cradle for the baby. Irony noted.
* Somewhat subverted on ''[[The Secret Life of the American Teenager]]'', since {{spoiler|Adrian and Ben}} wanted their daughter and were devastated when she was a stillborn. But it was still pretty convenient for the writers.
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