While some pro-life organizations occasionally distribute lists of pro-life celebrities on social media in order to make the anti-abortion cause appear trendy, those lists are generally very short for a very simple reason: The entertainment industry and the stars that populate it are, with only a handful of exceptions, extremely pro-abortion. In a world where celebrity and fame are sought by millions and actors, actresses, and singers are society’s most prominent storytellers, the influence that these men and women can occasionally wield is potent and far-reaching.
During the ugly campaign to repeal the Republic of Ireland’s 8th Amendment, for example, celebrities rushed to express their firm support for feticide and the removal of protections for pre-born children from Ireland’s constitution. Russell Crowe tweeted his support for repeal. The singer Pink posted a photo of a “Yes” button on Instagram. Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, who tried to pressure his son’s girlfriend into aborting his grandchild some time ago, expressed his support for abortion in Ireland. Courtenay Cox of Friends fame, who is dating Irish rocker Johnny McDaid of Snow Patrol, took to social media to encourage repeal, as did the band U2. Liam Neeson lent his voice to a creepy ad depicting pro-life laws as a medieval hangover. And the list goes on.
Now, as pro-lifers in Northern Ireland (often assisted by their comrades from the Republic) fight desperately to keep abortion out of their country as the feticide activists turn their attention to the last country in the United Kingdom to protect pre-born children, more celebrities are appearing out of the woodwork. In an open letter sent to British Prime Minister Theresa May and signed by over 70 female celebrities urging her to decriminalize abortion in Northern Ireland, they stated that: “This Friday, women across the UK will be waiting with anxiety and fear as their reproductive rights are debated in Parliament. We’re counting on you and your government to stand with women and decriminalise abortion.”
“Give us choice and control over our own bodies,” they went on. “Show women from Northern Ireland that you won’t stand for them being governed by one of the harshest and cruellest abortion laws in the world. Show us that you value and champion the rights of all women, no matter which part of the UK they’re from.” At no point, of course, was the chilling fact that abortion results in the decapitation, dismemberment, and disembowelment of a developing human being mentioned—nor that these laws were created to protect these little humans from such cruel practices. As always, the children with everything to lose are left out of the debate entirely.
Signatories of the letter advocating for abortion included Dame Emma Thompson, Claire Foy (who played the Queen in the Netflix drama The Crown) and Oliva Colman (who will succeed Foy.) As always, the celebrities and storytellers of our post-modern society muster their star-power in defence of a procedure that targets the very weakest and most vulnerable members of our society—while besieged pro-life activists are left to tell the stories of these victimized children as best they can.
For anyone interested, my book on The Culture War, which analyzes the journey our culture has taken from the way it was to the way it is and examines the Sexual Revolution, hook-up culture, the rise of the porn plague, abortion, commodity culture, euthanasia, and the gay rights movement, is available for sale here.
