I’m not what you would call a “fan” of Chelsea Handler. I can’t recall her making me laugh even once— and I can say that and not feel all that bad about it because I know she couldn’t care less. I do, however, care about her. I care that she was so alone and desperate for love at the age of 16 that she was in a bad relationship with a boyfriend she admits she shouldn’t have been with.
I care that she had parents who didn’t do anything about the fact that she was sleeping with a boy she shouldn’t have been with. It’s upsetting to me that she had to go through two abortions at the age of 16 because she was told those were the only choices she had. It seems that abortion is something she has convinced herself of, rather than something she believes in.
In an essay for Playboy, Handler discusses her two abortions and how great they were for her. I’m, however, not buying it. I’m not buying that any other 16-year-old out there right now in a bad relationship, pregnant and alone, is happy about having an abortion.
Handler starts off with the following statement:
“When I got pregnant at the age of 16, getting an abortion wasn’t the first idea that popped into my unripened brain. […] Why not? I can have a baby. […]
Of course, the idea that I would have a child and raise it by myself at that age, when I couldn’t even find my way home at night, was ridiculous. My parents recognized that, so they acted like parents for one of the very first times in my life and took me to Planned Parenthood.”
I can’t imagine that anyone thinks immediately upon learning of their pregnancy that abortion is what they should do. There has to be that moment when you picture yourself with your baby— and that single moment must have, at least, some flicker of happiness in it, some bit of wonder at what it would be like. However, then the doubts set in.
While Handler says she believes God does not want “everybody to go through with their pregnancies,” the fact is He was right there creating that baby. Maybe that child would have been just what Handler needed to get out of her situation and out of that bad relationship. Perhaps that baby would have given her and her mother something to bond over; and maybe God gave her that second child so she could have a second chance at opportunities she lost with her first. But Handler turned her back on that child, too – or was made to think she had to.
Contrary to Handler’s beliefs that Roe v. Wade has “protected” women, facts show that abortion has only protected rapists, child abusers, human traffickers, and misogynists who use abortion as a way to control women.
Not only do women face serious medical risks during and after an abortion, they face psychological risks, as well.
A 1986 study showed that a post-abortive teenage girl is 10 times more likely to attempt suicide than a girl who did not have an abortion. A study conducted a year later on women suffering from post-abortion trauma discovered that 60 percent of these women considered suicide, while 28 percent attempted it and 18 percent attempted it more than once.
What abortion has “protected” Handler from, however, is the chance to love her children. It has kept her from having to make sacrifices for her children. It has “protected” her from getting out of a bad relationship sooner, and from having someone to live for and love. That first abortion didn’t save Handler from a bad relationship, and it certainly didn’t make the situation better with her parents.
For that, I’m truly sorry. I’m sorry Handler was a scared teenager with no one to really love and support her. I’m sorry she thought that the only option she believed she had – the only “choice” she had – was to take the lives of her children, because she truly was not given any choice at all.
