Lena Dunham apologizes abortion “joke”

I happen to not be a big fan of Lena Dunham. There. I said it. I don’t care for her show ‘Girls’, though I suspect I was just born 15 years too earlier for that.  And I think she’s a bully who ultimately seeks to destroy the opposition, rather than change it.  With that said… the girl knows her way around an apology.

Recently Dunham made a “joke” about abortion on her podcast, Women of the Hour.  It unfolded thusly…

Dunham, speaking about being asked about her abortion experience at a Planned Parenthood said, “‘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,” Dunham said on the podcast. “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.  Now I can say that I still haven’t had an abortion, but I wish I had.”

But I don’t know why telling someone you’ve never had an abortion, when asked to speak about having one, in anyway means you’ve acted at all unfeministically or inappropriate.  That’s where I get offended. Not that she wished she had one. That is, to me, just a reaction to the real problem. How about just explaining that you’ve never had one, but you’d love to speak on how important it is to you that you could have one, should you need to.  Shit.  You make it seem like having an abortion is the only way to truly be a woman. I’ve never had one, but I’ve accompanied several friends to get theirs.

Anyway, as always, her apology was eloquent and thoughtful.

“My latest podcast episode was meant to tell a multifaceted story about reproductive choice in America, to explain the many reasons women do or don’t choose to have children and what bodily autonomy really means,” she wrote on Instagram Tuesday. “I’m so proud of the medley of voices in the episode. I truly hope a distasteful joke on my part won’t diminish the amazing work of all the women who participated.”