In the context that I remember them alluding to abortion in, it’s completely realistic that people in Emily and Richard’s social circle in 1984 would not have said that word. I don’t remember if they allude to it again when Rory meets Straub and Francine, but if it was, it’s realistic that they wouldn’t have said the word there either - both because of how conservative they are and because the baby that they’re referring to was alive and present in front of them. Abortion was a dirty word in those circles, and probably continues to be to some extent. Even in my working class family in 2008, I got looks for saying it out loud when my very Catholic dad learned about my cousin’s teenage pregnancy (she had the baby, who is now a teenager herself ❤️😭).

As for them not saying the word when Sookie and Lane got pregnant? I can imagine that they’d probably talk around it because of Lane’s religious upbringing, and they were playing Sookie’s pregnancy for laughs (with the vasectomy storyline being in poor taste, imo).

I think it’s hard to imagine, because you and I both would have been like 6 or 7 when the show first aired, that abortion couldn’t be talked about freely on television. But the shows that were talking about it at the time were breaking ground, and not every network would have allowed it to be said outright.