In an appearance on ‘The View’ on Monday, actress Anne Hathaway said that in her own personal experience “abortion can be another word for mercy.” Hathaway’s comment was prompted when co-host Joy Behar asked about a post the actress had made on her Instagram shortly after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. In the post from June, Hathaway lamented the Supreme Court’s ruling, saying there is no alternative but to “keep fighting with the people in reproductive justice” and “never commit to never getting used to minority rule.” She concluded her post saying, “let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair.” Hathaway seems to not understand that there is more than the mother’s well-being at stake when an abortion is being considered. The life of the unborn is equal to that of any other human, and choosing to take that life away is the exact opposite of mercy.
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Behar asked Hathaway why it was important for her to make the post on Instagram and she responded:
“Because we’re in the fight. We’re in the fight every day. We’re in the fight every minute. And you mentioned ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ turning sweet 16. Some 16-year-old’s life has been irrevocably changed because of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And I played a young woman who was starting out her career. And when you are a young woman starting out your career, your reproductive destiny matters a great deal. It had just happened, and I just think about it all the time. What its implications are and what it means to live in a country that puts us in this position.”
“By the way, this is not a moral conversation about abortion. This is a practical conversation about women’s rights and, by the way, human rights because women’s rights are human rights and the freedom we all need to be able to choose and build our lives and have access to excellent health care.”
“May I just say one other thing, without going into too many details, my own personal experience with abortion, abortion can be another word for mercy. We don’t know. We don’t know. We know that no two pregnancies are alike, and it follows that no two lives are alike. It follows that no two conceptions are alike. So how can we have a law? How can we have a point of view on this that says we must treat everything the same? Where I come at it from is when you allow for choice, you allow for flexibility which is what we need in order to be human.”
