No Laughing Matter: The Tragedy Behind the Jokes About Abortion

You may have seen or heard the recent podcast from singer Lily Allen where she talks about the abortions she’s had, and in her words, “she’s had a few.” There has been plenty of coverage in various online media which pick up on how Allen joked about her four or five abortions even breaking into song as she “confessed” that information to her co-host, Miquita Oliver. Just a few weeks since the major (and through the backdoor) legal changes to abortion laws that are still horrifying people across the UK and beyond, the topic is still in the public eye, in the broader sense. Oliver, it turns out has also had five abortions. Just between them we are down by ten unique and pricelsss human beings. 

Rather than come at it directly, I was interested to see how the pro-abortion supporters would look at this and have chosen an article from Chloe Laws writing for Glamour Magazine. The tag line for the article is one I agree with, more in principle than terminology but even so, “You’re either pro-choice, or you’re not. There is no middle ground.” I have used this formulation to state previously that abortion is a binary issue, so it’s somewhat reassuring that Chloe has recognized this too.

Chloe then has a pop at the Spectator, The Telegraph and Tommy Robinson for being predictable in their response and their condemnations of Allen’s “trivialising” of the topic, and how we should be “outraged” by her comments, etc. But then, the next section of the article discusses Chloe’s disappointment with otherwise unnamed online abortion supporters who have also weighed in and called the two women “disgusting” or “brainless.” 

Chloe explains that if you are pro-abortion then you have no reason to be outraged and should not be judging the women involved. You can’t be an abortion supporter if you also believe that the reasons for an abortion, the quantity or timescale matter and need policing. She is completely right here from the viewpoint of being logically consistent. She also says no abortion needs to be justified. Her whole stance is predicated on the position that a woman has a right to her bodily autonomy at the cost of absolutely everything else. Of course, this position has been debunked ad nauseum. A baby is a living human being at all stages from conception and can only survive inside its mother’s womb. Killing the baby absolutely infringes on the baby’s bodily autonomy. The argument can never work. 

The babies themselves are not even mentioned; the conversation is mainly about their mothers and what their babies would have prevented them from enjoying. The work they would miss and the “energy sharing” they would have to do, at least in the case of Marina Abramovic when the Serbian performing artist discussed her 3 abortions in 2016. Chloe is enraged that the issue of abortion will not go away and that there are still a great many of us who will be outraged when we here of these things. She wishes for a world where women can kill their babies easily and without the rest of society deciding not to offer any opinions at all, unless I suspect they were to crown those who had abortions as brave and important influencers for other women. 

Chloe takes a moment to remind us that men are usually involved in conceiving a child and yet those who focus on attacking the women involved do not condemn the men equally, or at all. The logical consistency is falling away now, is Chloe not standing on a “my body my choice” soap box? Why would these men get the same critiques? They are not the ones with the decision, the power or legal protection to save or destroy an unborn child in this way. Sometimes even the knowledge that their child’s life is on the line is denied to them and there are thousands of broken-hearted fathers who wanted the child the mother didn’t, is that fair? If she wants to see men who push for abortions condemned in the same way, perhaps she might be able to explain why a father has no legal say in the life or death of his unborn child, but he also has no say in whether he can walk away from the child he father. Are we being fair? We are not, and the only way to start being fair is to recognise that we are all equally human and equally protected by law. 

Chloe references a “slippery slope” that will occur if those who have had an abortion are living in a culture that opposes and voices abortions for any of the reasons she feels a woman should be able to have one. She talks about the culture in the US and the progress the Pro-Life Movement is making there and, in her fear, shows a glimpse of the pro-abortion side and their mindset. On the one hand, she wants her side to stand up and challenge this apparently misogynistic society we live in, and on the other, produce a society whereby abortion is an everyday normality and if you disagree, keep quiet. Buffer Zones, anyone?

 This was a podcast on the BBC, in and for the public eye, using taxpayers money. Of course it’s up for scrutiny, on that basis alone before we even get to the horrific callousness of the comments Allen and Oliver made. The rest of Chloe’s article is a rallying call to fellow abortion supporters to redouble their efforts and hold the line against the rising tide of Pro-Life lash back. It’s so important that women should be able to kill their babies and in peace, because it’s healthcare. Except that it isn’t, and whilst Chloe is correct about abortion being a binary issue, she is on the wrong side of it. So is any one of us who thinks that a little child-killing can be acceptable, because if we draw lines anywhere but at conception we will always be on the wrong side of the issue.

Daniel

March for Life UK

Content Creator

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