Once again, Lena Dunham has opened her big fat mouth and has unintentionally hurt something she tried to help.
Ms. Dunham said, “But one day, when I was visiting a Planned Parenthood in Texas a few years ago, a young girl walked up to me and asked me if I’d like to be a part of her project in which women share their stories of abortions,” Dunham said. “I sort of jumped. ‘I haven’t had an abortion,’ I told her. I wanted to make it really clear to her that as much as I was going out and fighting for other women’s options, I myself had never had an abortion... And I realized then that even I was carrying within myself stigma around this issue. Even I, the woman who cares as much as anybody about a woman’s right to choose, felt it was important that people know I was unblemished in this department.”
Dunham went on to say that many women she knows have “had to have abortions for all kinds of reasons.”
“I feel so proud of them for their bravery, for their self-knowledge, and it was a really important moment for me then to realize I had internalized some of what society was throwing at us and I had to put it in the garbage,” she said. “Now I can say that I still haven’t had an abortion, but I wish I had.”
Later, Ms. Dunham apologized on her Instagram, but the lengthy caption was half-hearted and filled with excuses, notably that: “My words were spoken from a sort of ‘delusional girl’ persona I often inhabit, a girl who careens between wisdom and ignorance (that’s what my TV show is too) and it didn’t translate. That’s my fault.”
You'd think that a woman who claims to be pro-choice and has loved ones who had made that choice would be more sensitive about it.
Full disclosure: I am no progressive, but I am proudly pro-choice myself. I think telling fully grown women what to do with their bodies is, well, incredibly stupid and that all human beings should have the liberty to make the choice of what to do with their bodies. Of course, I can't say that I would make that decision myself, but it's really not any of my business what other people do.
However, I wouldn't say that I "wish" I had been put in the position to make that decision. While, of course, choosing to have an abortion is a different experience for everyone, I can't imagine that it's an easy choice.
Ms. Dunham saying that she "wishes she had had an abortion," regardless of her intention, makes light of what is, for many women, a traumatic experience and an incredibly difficult choice.
Her comments would almost—almost–be forgivable if she hadn't said similar things before. Like when she projected her own insecurities onto athlete Odell Beckham, a young black man, who was really just minding his own business... Or when she admitted in her memoir "Not that Kind of Girl" to behaving inappropriately with her younger sister.
And, as is par the course with Ms. Dunham, her apology is half-hearted and vaguely self centered, instead of actually owning up to and admitting that she said something dumb.
An adult woman should really have more of a filter, especially when she's been so vocal in her opposition to the equally filter lacking and vile President Elect Trump.
But, as per usual, the Hollywood left knows better than anyone and is immune to any criticism or hypocrisy.
