I didn’t know Alyssa Milano had a podcast called “Sorry Not Sorry.” I do now, as do lots of people. I guess she can count that as a victory.
The reason we all know about it is because of the fact she used it as a pulpit to evangelize about the “great joys” that abortion can bring. It was arrant selfishness masquerading as #ShoutYourAbortion-era liberation.
It was yet another attempt to recast the formerly “safe, legal and rare” ending of an unborn child’s life as mere “health care.”
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And it was, from one of the loudest voices on the American left, a full-throated defense of the most egregious kind of selfishness — the idea that life “would be completely lacking all its great joys” had she given birth to other lives two decades ago.
The actress began the episode thusly, according to The Hollywood Reporter: “I’m Alyssa Milano and I’ve had an abortion. I control my own body.”
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All right, this is nothing new. You’ve heard this all before, as have I. Milano’s story was that, at the beginning of her career as an adult actor, she underwent the procedure twice.
In the same year.
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“In 1993, I had two abortions,” she said during the podcast, published Monday.
“I was in love for the first time in the breathless way you can only be in love when you are young. It was huge — overwhelming even. It filled every part of living and it was a joyful and exciting and powerful time in my life.”
Do you agree with Alyssa Milano?
Even though she was on birth control, she got pregnant.
“I was devastated,” she said.
“I was raised Catholic and was suddenly put in conflict with my faith — a faith I was coming to realize empowered only men to make every single decision of what was allowed and what was not allowed. I had a career and a future and potential.”
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Yes, the truth or untruth of the Catholic faith apparently rests in part on the fact that the pope, cardinals and other prelates are exclusively male. That‘s why they’re opposed to abortion. Allow females in the priesthood and you’ll see the Vatican throw out all that silly defense of the unborn posthaste.
So anyhow, her career, future and potential would apparently be too inconvenienced by giving birth to a child — a child who could have also had a career, future and potential, mind you, but who cares about them? She also had “crippling anxiety,” which would have made her an unfit parent, and was taking a drug that could cause birth defects.
“I knew at that time I was not equipped to be a mother and so I chose to have an abortion,” she said.
“I chose. It was my choice and it was absolutely the right choice for me. It was not an easy choice. It was not something I wanted, but it was something that I needed, like most health care is.”
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Need. That’s an interesting word, particularly when paired with the concept of health care.
There are certainly elective forms of health care that we “need” to do. We need to see doctors for routine checkups even though we sometimes neglect them. When it comes to surgeries, however, that word takes on a different hue.
Of course, we need surgery to resect a cancerous tumor or deal with some similar ailment. And we may not die if we don’t have an elective surgery to remove problematic adenoids, say, or to alleviate pain in a joint, but we could rightly say those are needed.
The instances in which one “needs” an abortion are rare. They don’t have to do with a career or future or potential. They don’t have to with potential birth defects. (Milano certainly didn’t know whether her unborn child had any at the time.) Mental health issues can be dealt with concurrently with a pregnancy, so that’s out of the question.
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In short, Alyssa Milano wanted an abortion, which she equates with need. And the reason she wanted the abortion was because she wanted to engage in sexual activity, which can create that horrible, career- and potential-killing burden of motherhood that so many other mothers have managed to navigate. (Also, if someone in her inner circle could inform her of the existence of adoption so that she can buttress this argument in its future iterations, that would be fantastic.)
“I refuse to let anyone else’s bulls— morality force me into a life of premarital celibacy. I refuse to live in the narrative that sexual pleasure is for men and that women exist to deliver that pleasure,” she said.
“Nobody will say that he was at fault for enjoying sex with me, but you can be damned sure that the men enacting these laws think less of me for deriving the same pleasure from him.”
What about these women who have enacted “these laws?” (Milano, you may not be surprised, has been one of the loudest voices against fetal heartbeat laws and similar legislation — laws which have been voted for and signed into law by women as well, who must be gender traitors of some sort.)
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The saga continues: “A few months later I found out I was pregnant again. I had done what I knew to do to prevent pregnancy and was still pregnant, so once again I made the right decision to end that pregnancy,” she said.
WebMD puts the odds of this occurring in rather blunt terms: “when taken correctly, [the oral contraceptive pill] is up to 99.9% effective.”
If Milano was uncomfortable with that 0.1 happening again, I hear there are other implements out there that can act as a backup to ensure you don’t get pregnant. I don’t know what they are, mind you — I’m just one of those simple conservative men supporting those other conservative men who are enacting these draconian laws Milano detests so much, so how would I? — but I’ve heard you can purchase them in almost any drugstore, both now and back in 1993.
To top this episode of “Sorry Not Sorry” off, she claimed she wouldn’t have the life and the kids she has now if she hadn’t aborted the children she had conceived 26 years ago.
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“I would not have my children — my beautiful, perfect, loving, kind and inquisitive children — who have a mother who was so very, very ready for them,” she said.
“I would not have my career. I would not have the ability or platform I use to fight against oppression with all my heart,” Milano said.
“I would never have met my amazing husband, David, whose steadfast and immeasurable love for me sustains me through these terrifying times.”
And finally: “Fifteen years after that first love had fizzled, my life would be completely lacking all its great joys.”
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“I would never had been free to be myself — and that’s what this fight is all about: freedom,” she concluded.
This is all a great emotional plea that makes no sense.
There’s nothing that says Milano’s having a child would have precluded her from having a career in show business. As for motherhood, again — there was certainly adoption available to her.
As for her career, I looked up what Milano was doing during the period in which she had the two abortions. Among the roles that stood out were Amy Fisher in the TV Movie “Casualties of Love: The Long Island Lolita Story,” a spot in another TV movie called “Confessions of Sorority Girls” and a place in the terminally ridiculous big-screen adaptation of the video game “Double Dragon.” (I’m one of five people on earth who’s actually seen this thing, and it felt like one of those movies which was missing the silhouettes of the guy and the two little robot puppets at the bottom of the screen making wisecracks.)
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Milano’s career didn’t take off until 1997, when she got a role on “Melrose Place.” A pregnancy certainly wouldn’t have precluded this. But Milano is convinced, and she says having a child would mean her “life would be completely lacking all its great joys.” She wouldn’t have her current husband, she wouldn’t have her other children, she wouldn’t have had her career and she wouldn’t have the cultural voice she has now. (I’ll refrain from quips about her current career and level of cultural voice if just because they practically make themselves.)
This is a naked paean to selfishness. It says that parenthood — foisted upon us when we’re unready for it — means your life is over. This is part of Milano’s implicit message to those who were in her position and didn’t abort their child: You missed out. You could have fulfilled all of your dreams had you not been saddled with that parasite for nine months.
But don’t worry, oppressed women of the world: The woman best known for her role in “Charmed” is here to speak for you. And she’s going to do it by telling us all how her life isn’t “lacking all its great joys” and yours doesn’t have to be, either, if you choose the “health care” you “need” and abort your child. Then you can be free to be yourself.
I cannot think of a less efficacious argument for abortion, or one that reflects more poorly on the individual making it, than the one advanced by Alyssa Milano. This is someone conflating convenience with need, the decision to terminate the unborn with freedom and the defense of the unborn with misogyny. It’s nothing but a defense of the most heartless form of selfishness. Sorry, not sorry.
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