First, Kay shouts with vehemence: "And it was a boy, Michael!" Kay was in her first trimester (when Michael asked Tom, after he got back from Havana, if it was a boy, Tom replied, "Michael, after three months?"). Amneocentisis was unknown in the US in 1959. Kay couldn't have known for sure if it was a boy. She spit that out at Michael to hurt him.
Yeah, there's no way Kay could have known that. It was either directorial license or Kay just saying it to hurt Michael as much as possible.
Originally Posted by Turnbull
Second, how did Kay get the abortion? Although abortion was illegal in the US before Roe v. Wade (1973), any woman or girl with a few hundred bucks could have gotten one from a real doctor, in a medical office or clinic. But, Kay was a virtual prisoner at the Tahoe estate while Michael was away. Kay might have told Tom that "something wasn't right" with the pregnancy. He would either have arranged for her Dr. to see her at Tahoe, or had her taken under guard to a hospital. Either way, the Dr.'s identity would be known, and he would have had to certify that she had a "miscarriage." Think Michael would have let him get away with that? For that matter, do you think that any Dr. in his right mind, knowing who Kay's husband was, would have stuck his neck out?
There's a draft version of the GFII script floating around the internet in which Kay escapes to her parents' house in New Hampshire while Michael is in Cuba. I assume that is when she got the abortion. It probably wouldn't have been too hard to find a doctor there who either didn't know who Kay's husband was or would have been close enough to Kay's old-money family that he would take the risk.
Whether Michael would let the doctor get away with it is an interesting question. One the one hand, it certainly would be in character for him to hunt down the doctor. On the other, the abortion was so painful and humiliating for Michael that I can see him just wanting to sweep the whole thing under the rug rather than getting other people involved with making inquiries, pushing a button on the doctor, etc.
"A man in my position cannot afford to be made to look ridiculous!"
