To fully understand this, one must look at the personalities and actions of the women that don’t survive. Barb (Margot Kidder) delights in being outlandish, with the goal of either obtaining a laugh or making someone else feel uncomfortable. Between her willingness to engage the prank caller to her hostile defense of said reaction, Barb is fueled by alcohol to be the most memorable person in the room, and not always in the best way. Clare (Lynne Griffin) – the main target of Barb’s ire – has a possessive father who expresses that he didn’t send his daughter to college to party and have sex; in fact, Clare has not told her dad that she’s dating Chris, which comes as a surprise to him once she’s gone missing. Mrs. MacHenry (Marian Waldman), like Barb, is constantly drunk, to the point of being unable to perform a task as simple as brushing her teeth without alcohol. Phyllis (Andrea Martin), while kind, is not a strong character: she chides Barb for being drunk rather than rude at one point, and does not demonstrate decisive action. Each of these women possesses a character flaw that renders her actions ineffective, whether it’s addiction or meekness. We don’t get a leader out of them.

Jess is the only one of the sorority sisters that is both logical and active in her decisions. She informs her boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea) of her pregnancy, then of her decision to abort. Peter wants to keep the baby, but does not present a case for his opinion other than the fact that the child exists and that he is the father of the child. He even discounts her ability to make the decision on her own: “You can’t make a decision like that. You haven’t even asked me.” Peter views the issue in terms of possession – the child is his and therefore all decisions must be vetted through him – but fails to take into account the wants and needs of the woman carrying the child. Jess, on the other hand, has a clear mental picture of what life would be like with Peter and a child: a complete loss of her dreams. “You can’t ask me to drop everything I’ve been working for… because your plans have changed,” she tells Peter. While we don’t get to hear what Jess is earning her degree in (for all we know, she could be working on solving the problems of the economy in 1970s Canada), we do get a sense that she has viewed the entire picture and is making the decision that is best for her future. She’s not willing to marry a man she doesn’t want to for the sake of social expectation, and Jess is entitled to live a life that doesn’t involve motherhood at that instant. Now that she has a choice, she doesn’t have to learn how to juggle her life’s ambitions based on a role that she did not necessarily want. Let’s be blazingly honest: there are a lot of people out there that shouldn’t be parents, but do it because of social expectation. It takes a lot of guts sometimes to realize that you aren’t cut out for something, and in owning that choice, Jess is sparing her child misplaced anger and an eventual divorce from its father (let’s not forget that at any time, Peter can always cut and run when life gets tough). Her decision to abort isn’t based on being uncaring, for she demonstrates that she is capable of acting on her concern for Clare. Upon hearing that Clare is missing, Jess immediately goes looking to Clare’s boyfriend Chris, which leads to a serious complaint filed at the police station and an active search for Clare. Jess gets established as a person of action, who functions outside of the patriarchal expectations of forced maternity while demonstrating care for a friend.

The way in which the other women are murdered and Jess perseveres serves to bring home that point. Barb’s last coherent speech is a confession of guilt that she has driven Clare away with her verbal badgering. She is later stabbed to death in a drunken stupor, unable to fight back – a victim of her own demons. Mrs. MacHenry is drunk and looking for a cat when she is murdered; like Barb, her drive to drink and inability to think critically about the situation is her downfall. Phyllis, one of the weakest ones of the bunch, doesn’t even get an on-screen death, with a cutaway instead when she goes to check on Barb; this reflects the weakness of her character, as she goes with the flow and does nothing to move the plot forward. Clare – the possession of her father, the one that must maintain the façade of virginity – is suffocated and pulled into the attic, squirrelled away in death as she was claimed in life. In fact, this social ideal that Clare represents – the good girl that doesn’t drink or engage in sexual activity – renders her a completely ineffective woman that cannot function on her own; therefore, she becomes a mere possession. Jess is the one that fights back in all senses of the word: against social expectation, forced maternity and the man trying to take her life. Ultimately, she’s the one that survives until the end of the film. This makes her ability to act not only empowering, but life-saving.

Through her ability to think for herself and act on her own, Jess is able to survive the film. In the grand scheme of the social issues, it is the woman that takes charge of her reproductive choices that is able to remain alive in the end. Her desire for an abortion doesn’t make her a bad person; it renders her an effective decision maker rooted in realism. Now, given, in the end, she’s sedated and left in the house with the killer, but that… that’s a problem for another day.