Actress and talk show host Busy Philipps has launched the #YouKnowMe campaign to urge women to celebrate their abortions in the face of a raft of restrictive new abortion laws popping up in several states.
“1 in 4 women have had an abortion,” the E! talk show host said on Tuesday in an effort to get women to admit to their abortions. “Many people think they don’t know someone who has, but #youknowme. So, let’s do this: if you are also the 1 in 4, let’s share it and start to end the shame. Use #youknowme and share your truth.”
Busy Philipps’ attempt relegate abortion to a mere routine social media convention drew many responses from women. Some talked of how having a baby could have damaged their career. Others spoke of how their relationships were not conducive to having a child. More spoke of their lack of financial standing, while others talked of the birth defects their fetus suffered.
One commenter, for instance, admitted that she was drunk when she got pregnant and did not want to have the baby. The woman insisted, “it’s time I didn’t feel so ashamed of this.”
Another wrote, “I was 16 and the condom broke. There was never any question about what I was going to do, and I have never regretted it. And I know at least five other women who also had one and went on to have kids later once they were ready and are amazing moms.”
Hollywood director and screenwriter Miranda July insisted that she got an abortion because she was just trying to start her film career.
“I was 27. My then-boyfriend, who was big on ‘pulling out in time.’ I thought we should consider having it and I said something like DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH I AM ON THE VERGE OF DOING?? 2 years later I started shooting my first feature,” July wrote.
Dear White People star Logan Browning, also jumped onboard the campaign tweeting her support for her friends “who made decisions about their own bodies.”
However, critics, such as national radio host Dennis Prager, say that abortion is not about “a woman’s body” but about ending the life of a separate person.
But another respondent to Philipps’ tweet noted that she had an abortion for medical reasons: “I was 18 & had just begun treatment for a bone tumor & I found out I was a few weeks pregnant. I’d already been given radiation treatment despite early pregnancy tests being negative prior to surgery, they were wrong. Had an abortion, continued my tumor treatment.”
Another woman had a similar story about her mother’s abortion: “My mom had one at 18 because she was on medication for a liver problem (something about blood clots). Baby would have been severely deformed if it even lived, and require constant care its entire life.”
Philipps’ campaign comes on the heels of a celebrity-studded freak out over the recent passage of laws in several states putting restrictions on abortion.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
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