Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow shared an Instagram post championing abortion rights following the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe V. Wade.
On Monday, following an intense weekend of social media activity after the Friday’s Supreme Court ruling overturning the Roe, Burrow waded into political waters by sharing an Instagram post that made a case for special allowances for abortions in certain scenarios.
The post, which was not originally written by Burrow but shared on several accounts, began with the statement, “I’m not pro-murdering babies.”
“I’m pro-Becky who found out at her 20 week anatomy scan that the infant she had been so excited to bring into this world had developed without life sustaining organs,” the post stated.
“I’m pro-Susan who was sexually assaulted on her way home from work, only to come to the horrific realization that her assailant planted his seed in her when she got a positive pregnancy test result a month later.”
The full post, which is full of hypothetical scenarios in which women might seek an abortion, was shared on Twitter by independent NFL reporter Dov Kleiman.
“You can argue and say that I’m pro-choice all you want, but the truth is: I’m pro-life. Their lives. Women’s lives,” the post concluded.
While one can certainly respect where Burrow’s heart is, the various hypothetical scenarios contained in the post account for an extremely small percentage of abortions. In 2019, rape and incest combined accounted for less than 1.5 percent of all reasons given for having an abortion. Abortions performed for medical reasons, especially to protect the mother’s life, are so rare they’re nearly statistically absent.