Celebs Band Together To Make Sure More People Die During Pandemic, Rally for Abortion
You know what’s apparently very essential right now? Abortion.
I know what you’re saying: We live in a world where colonoscopies and joint replacements have been deemed nonessential. We can’t go into a grocery store unless there’s enough room for all of us to be six feet away from each other wearing masks we cobbled together based on instructions from a YouTube video.
But killing babies is apparently essential, and a few minor Hollywood celebrities are going to try to ensure clinics stay open and that states which have declared abortion to be nonessential are dead to them. You know, like the babies those clinics abort.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Lizz Winstead — co-creator of “The Daily Show” — is leading the effort via her organization Abortion Access Front, formerly known as the Lady Parts Justice League. (No, for real.)
She’s helming Operation Save Abortion, “an urgent fundraiser to help independent abortion providers keep their doors open.”
Organizers say independent clinics perform three out of five abortions, and that “the average independent clinic will need $50,000 per month or else their doors may close permanently.”
More’s the pity. Part of the problem is, of course, that abortions are fundamentally nonessential, use personal protective equipment and could spread coronavirus. That’s why many states have deemed them nonessential and, as such, shut abortion clinics down.
Most of these orders are tied up in court cases right now, but Winstead believes a team of B- and C-list celebrities will help aid the independent clinics during an all-day event Thursday on Instagram.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t exactly a star-studded event, as the celebrities participating include Elizabeth Banks, W. Kamau Bell, Nikki Glaser, Jenny Slate, Sandra Bernhard and Margaret Cho.
Well, I suppose Margaret Cho and Nikki Glaser do at least have audiences. I liked one Elizabeth Banks movie. (“Wet Hot American Summer,” but mostly because of the members of “The State” were in it.)
There you go. This band of Hollywood legends wants to make sure you have the ability to end your pregnancy no matter what kind of risk you’re putting yourself or others at.
“This is important now because anti-abortion politicians are using COVID as a way to halt abortion access,” Winstead told THR.
The “interview” mostly took the form of an anti-adversarial news release — which would normally be obnoxious and beneath THR, but the format actually gave Winstead enough rope to inadvertently hang pretty much everyone participating in the day-long celebration of Moloch.
Take this argument, which Winstead probably would have been more guarded about proffering if the interviewer were even slightly critical:
“As someone who has had abortions, I know that they allowed me to create a life for myself that allowed me to survive and thrive,” Winstead said.
“Thank God for those who provide this care; it saves lives, and I will not sit back and let those who provide abortions and those who need them be alone in this fight. They need all our support. And to those of you compelled to weigh in on the health care decisions of strangers, literally — no one asked you.”
Yeah, I don’t quite think God is the one you want to be thanking for that.
The interview also allowed Winstead to pretend she was living in a universe where adoption didn’t exist, abortion was necessary health care and legislators were trying to take it away from women because of a petty thing like a global pandemic.
“This country has already profoundly stripped away access to abortion care,” Winstead said.
“To think that [pro-life politicians] would use a pandemic as an excuse to cut off health care to people in a time where so many people are food, housing and job insecure because they see an opening to achieve their political goals is unconscionable.”
Those reprehensible theocrats. Why would they label an elective procedure nonessential when doctors are reusing PPE on patients with actual life-threatening ailments?
Continuing the news release theme: “Instagram is where people publicly share intimate feelings and a more personal side of who they are, and we thought it the perfect platform to bring conversations and raise awareness about a very personal topic,” Winstead said.
Is this an advertisement for Instagram? It feels like one — and it blessedly detracts from the message.
And then there’s this part of the article that’s supposed to act as an inducement to watch this thing and instead seems to actively warn you off of it: “Other stars taking part ‘from the confines of their quarantine’ include Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls, Kristin Hersh, Alysia Reiner (Orange Is the New Black, Better Things), Donna Lynne Champlin (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend), Ambrosia Parsley, Beth Stelling (Stand Up), Dana Gould, Josh Gondelman, Samantha Irby, Shannon Woodward, Greg Proops (Whose Line Is It Anyway?), Jessica Kirson (Stand Up), Krystyna Hutchinson (co-host of the Guys We F—ed pod), Lea DeLaria (Orange Is the New Black), Lori Alan (SpongeBob SquarePants, Family Guy), Lindy West and DJ Samantha Ronson,” the article reads.
“The event will feature performances, interviews and an auction including handmade crafts and experiences.”
Amanda Palmer and DJ Samantha Ronson are deliberately awful and I’d do anything not to hear their music. Kristin Hersh hasn’t made a good album in a quarter-century. I haven’t heard of any of these other people who aren’t in “Orange Is the New Black” and I don’t particularly care about them either.
I don’t want to see them interviewed or auctioning off “handmade crafts and experiences.”
Perhaps most importantly, I don’t care what any of these people think about opening up abortion clinics at the same time that they want to wail and gnash their teeth about COVID-19 deaths.
What would this motley crew have to say, anyhow?
Lizz Winstead can talk about how ripping babies out of her womb made her life better. Can she speak to the public health risks of running abortion clinics during a pandemic?
Can Margaret Cho speak to the kind of PPE that abortion doctors use and how that might be better used elsewhere?
Can Donna Lynne Champlin of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” (whoever she is and whatever that is) speak to us about the challenges of running an independent abortion clinic without it becoming a locus of coronavirus infections?
No? But I thought we were all listening to experts now.
Yeah, I’m sure the co-host of the “Guys We F—ed” podcast might be able to tell us about how one might arrive in the condition that might lead one to seek a pregnancy termination, but not necessarily about the nature of the procedure in the time of coronavirus and why it is being banned in many states.
And — while I haven’t polled every member of the Operation Save Abortion lineup to see what their opinion on the matter was — they belong to a cohort wringing their hands over the possibility of opening up the country again.
But abortion clinics? They’re not only fine, they’re essential.
So buy those handmade crafts and experiences, folks. Rest assured it’s going toward a cause that not a single member of the cast of Operation Save Abortion actually understands.
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