In his new autobiography, Tyler recalls a then-16-year-old girl from his past. He has talked emotionally about the abortion she had: “It was a big crisis. It’s a major thing when you’re growing something with a woman, but they convinced us that it would never work out and would ruin our lives. . . . You go to the doctor and they put the needle in her belly and they squeeze the stuff in and you watch. And it comes out dead. I was pretty devastated. In my mind, I’m going, Jesus, what have I done?”The rest of Lopez's column elaborates on the pain and regret that many women suffer after they've had their baby killed. Whether abortion should be legal or illegal, one thing it will not be, apparently, is consequence-free.
This unveiling story became a duet when that girl, now the mother of six other children, married, and a practicing Catholic, told her side of the story, which differs from Tyler’s. She writes: “He has talked of me as a sex object without any human dignity. I have made a point over these long years never to speak of him, yet he has repeatedly humiliated me in print with distortions of our time together. I do not understand why he has done this. It has been very painful.”
All of the details of their testimonies do not match. She says the pregnancy wasn’t entirely unplanned, that Tyler had thrown her birth-control pills away. She says that he pushed her to have the abortion.
Kevin Burke, who wrote a piece for National Review Online highlighting Tyler’s abortion comments, wonders if the soft-porn treatment of his relationship with Holcomb in his autobiography is his “way to avoid the pain and reality of his role in the abortion.”
This much we know: There was an abortion, and there are pain and regrets.
Read Lopez's piece and then, for a contrasting view, read the declaration of Janette Barber, Rosie O'Donnell's producer, who recently said this on Rosie's show:
I think if you want an abortion, you get an abortion. If you don't want to get an abortion, I would never force anyone to get an abortion, but I'd fight to the freakin' death for somebody's right to have an abortion. When I was a kid, I thought, 'If we lose this right, I'm leaving this country.'Presumably, it never occurred to Ms Barber when she "was a kid" that if she didn't have sex she wouldn't have to fantasize about such hideous solutions to her predicament.
I had plans [in the event of pregnancy]...I'm gonna wear a tent dress while I don't eat so I can get big and I can go in the woods, have it, kill it, and bury it, 'cause I didn't know how else I would get rid of it if I lost that right. I was pretty young when I had that plan, and I got over it.
I know. It's unrealistic to expect kids not to have sex. It's much more enlightened to give them the means of canceling unintended consequences by just making it easy for them to snuff out the life inside them, and surely we live in enlightened times.
On a related matter, Byron forwards a report from America's most trustworthy news source, The Onion, which informs us of the grand opening of an $8 billion Abortionplex in Topeka. It sounds like a great facility:
"All women should feel like they have a home at the Abortionplex," Richards continued. "Whether she's a high school junior who doesn't want to go to prom pregnant, a go-getter professional who can't be bothered with the time commitment of raising a child, or a prostitute who knows getting an abortion is the easiest form of birth control—all are welcome."Thanks to Jason for the link to the Lopez column.
Nineteen-year-old Marcy Kolrath, one of the Abortionplex's first clients, told reporters that despite her initial hesitancy, she was quickly put at ease by staff members who reassured her that she could have abortions over and over for the next decade before finally committing to motherhood. Kolrath also said she was "wowed" by the facility's many attractions.
"I was kind of on the fence in the beginning," she said. "But after a couple of margaritas and a ride down the lazy river they've got circling the place, I got caught up in the vibe. By the time it was over, I almost wished I could've aborted twins and gotten to stay a little longer."
"I told my boyfriend we had to have sex again that very night," Kolrath added. "I really want to come back over Labor Day."