Juno writer Diablo Cody calls abortion bans a 'hellish alternate reality' and wouldn't write the movie today

In the 2007 film, 16-year-old Juno decides against getting an abortion after getting discouraged by protesters

The writer of the film Juno has referred to abortion bans as a “hellish alternate reality”, adding that she wouldn’t write the same movie nowadays.

Diablo Cody, who wrote the beloved 2007 independent comedy, discussed the recent US abortion bans on the podcast Keep It.

Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia have also approved bans on abortion once fetal cardiac activity can be detected, which can occur in about the sixth week of pregnancy.

New legislation in Alabama seeks to ban abortion outright, and on Friday, Missouri’s Republican-led House has passed legislation designed to survive court challenges, which would ban abortions at eight weeks of pregnancy.

For Cody, this context means that Juno as we know it most likely wouldn't get made today.

“I don’t even know if I would’ve written a movie like Juno, knowing, if I had known that world was going to spiral into this hellish alternate reality that we now seem to be stuck in,” she told the podcast.

“It’s... the Georgia thing is horrifying. Like, it’s honestly something that I’ve been thinking about, kind of, continuously, like, in an endless dark feedback loop. It just, it sucks so f****** bad.”

In the coming-of-age movie, 17-year-old Juno initially goes to an abortion clinic after finding out that she's pregnant, but gets discouraged from getting the procedure by protesters outside. She goes on to carry the baby to term with the project of letting another family adopt it.

Republican-led legislatures around the US are imposing new restrictions, hoping more conservative justices will overturn the US Supreme Court's landmark 1973 Roe v Wade ruling legalising abortion.

Additional reporting by agencies