Lena Dunham: I ‘Haven’t Had an Abortion, But I Wish I Had’

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Randy Shropshire/Getty Images for Planned Parenthood Los Angeles
Dr. Susan Berry

Actress Lena Dunham says she has never had an abortion, but wishes she had because it’s a sign of “bravery” and “self-knowledge.”

“I always thought that I myself didn’t stigmatize abortion,” Dunham says in the most recent episode of her podcast, titled “Choice.”I’m a – uh abortion rights activist, it’s a huge part of who I am,” she added, but then said she had distanced herself from the issue of abortion in the past.

She continued:

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. 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.

“So many people I love – my mother, my best friends – have had to have abortions for all kinds of reasons,” Dunham said. “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.”

“Now I can say that I still haven’t had an abortion, but I wish I had,” she said.

As Newsbusters notes, Dunham has now become an avid supporter of abortion. Characters in her HBO show Girls have mentioned having an abortion in a casual way, and she herself has raised the issue of abortion in other situations, such as joking whether Kate Middleton would have an abortion, referring to NBC’s Obvious Child as an “abortion romantic comedy,” and describing the film After Tiller – which attempts to evoke sympathy for abortionists – as a “beautiful, sensitively made film.”

Dunham has also been an ardent promoter of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion chain. The actress celebrated the group’s centennial anniversary this past year, and defended it as videos were released alleging Planned Parenthood’s practice of selling the body parts of babies it aborts in its clinics for a profit.

 

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