Fresh pro-abortion talking points for a new year! Who said feminism was out of ideas? This time around, feminist writer and moral pygmy Amanda Marcotte is asserting that pregnancy is a disease, with abortion as the cure.
In a recent piece for RH Reality Check entitled, “Nicki Minaj and the Inevitable Politicization of Celebrity Abortions,” Marcotte argued that women regret pregnancy – not abortion. Referencing singer Nicki Minaj, she urged that pregnancy is like “when you break your leg” and abortion is the “cast.”
When the media reported on Minaj’s abortion as a teenager, they “perpetuate[d] abortion stigma,” Marcotte wrote. The media, Marcotte continued, “suggest[ed] that she did something shameful and terrible.” Like, OMG! What about the fun of abortion? Snuffing out innocent lives is cause for a party!
The fault, according to Marcotte lay in the “politicization of abortion.” Women, she admitted, “feel pangs of regret” when recalling their abortions – but “not because … they think they should have had the baby.” Instead, what women regret is “a situation that required an abortion.”
To prove her point, Marcotte compared pregnancy to breaking a bone:
It’s like when you break your leg and you ruefully look at the cast later. You’re regretting that you made the mistake that led to a broken leg, but you’re not mad that medical science was on hand to fix the problem.
“The anti-choice movement has successfully pushed the idea that women are – or should be – torn up with shame about the abortion itself,” she lamented, and, as with Minaj’s case, “the mainstream media all too often plays along.”
Yes, those puritanical, women haters in the media. Why, the 2014 Climate March received 4.5 times more network TV coverage than the 2014 March for Life. And it’s such a shame nobody gives Marcotte’s allies forums in which to push abortion as a “moral” choice or champion women who don’t regret abortion – and censor those who do.
But Marcotte thought she knew better. “If you did nothing but read the headlines, you’d get the impression that Minaj is saying she wishes she’d chosen to blow off her wildly successful career as a pop and hip-hop star for the less exciting pleasures of life as a teen mother,” she mind-read. She called out four headlines in her piece:
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“Nicki Minaj ‘haunted’ by early abortion,” USA Today
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“Nicki Minaj opens up about her teen pregnancy and abortion. It ‘haunted me all my life,’” Washintgon Post
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“Nicki Minaj details decision to have abortion in Rolling Stone Interview,” Daily Mail
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“Nicki Minaj Opens Up About Her Abortion: ‘I Thought I was Going to Die,’” Billboard
Her problem was with the last: “[a]s for the ‘thought I was going to die’ comment, that isn’t because the abortion was some terrible physical ordeal,” Marcotte said of Minaj, but, “the comment is in reference to how she felt when she got pregnant.”
For Marcotte, that proved how “the anti-choice movement’s relentless propaganda about ‘abortion regret’ has done some real damage when it comes to women being able to tell their abortion stories in the public sphere.” (To be more precise, try replacing “the anti-choice movement” with “the anti-life movement.”)
Marcotte made other laughable comments including, “If you express any mixed feelings about the situation, prepare to have the conservative media – or, as with Minaj, more mainstream outlets, too – flatten your experiences to fit a narrative about how women always regret their abortions.”
Because, in today’s world, “talking about reproductive decisions in a nuanced, personal fashion seems impossible to do without feeding the machine that suggests that any feelings of regret whatsoever means that abortion is bad for women.” Because regret means… nothing.
Let’s try a thought experiment. How would Marcotte headline Minaj’s story?
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“Nicki Minaj reminisces about her abortion. It ‘empowered me all my life.’”
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“Nicki Minaj enthuses about decision to have abortion in Rolling Stone Interview.”
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“Nicki Minaj Opens Up About Her Abortion: ‘Pregnancy was Such an Inconvenience, I Thought I was going to Die.’”
Marcotte commits the same offense that she accuses the media of doing: misrepresenting women who have had abortions. As with Marcotte, the media routinely overlook women who regret abortion. They don’t exist – just as those in the womb don’t exist.
In regards to pregnancy and abortion, Marcotte is right about legs getting broken – they just aren’t the woman’s.
