{"id":230525,"date":"2020-09-10T08:37:18","date_gmt":"2020-09-10T13:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=230525"},"modified":"2020-09-10T06:58:54","modified_gmt":"2020-09-10T11:58:54","slug":"hbo-max-comedy-unpregnant-abortion-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/hbo-max-comedy-unpregnant-abortion-joke\/","title":{"rendered":"New HBO Max comedy ‘Unpregnant’ tries to turn abortion into a joke"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A new film premiering on HBO Max aims to make a joke out of abortion, and in doing so, downplays and mocks women who have undergone abortions and the very real, painful abortion trauma<\/a> they have suffered.<\/p>\n

The storyline for “Unpregnant” follows a teenage girl who attempts to obtain an abortion for an unplanned pregnancy without her Catholic parents’ knowledge. Because the abortion laws in her home state of Missouri include the requirement for minors to obtain parental consent, she and a former friend plan an abortion road trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico, so she can have the abortion there.<\/p>\n

Parental consent laws<\/a>\u00a0are put in place to protect young women from abuse<\/a> and sex trafficking<\/a>, which are tied to abortion. Films like this one make light of the risky situation of a minor seeking a dangerous medical procedure without a parent’s knowledge, and also make light of the tragic fact that sex traffickers and abusers<\/a> use these sorts of “loopholes” to their own benefit.<\/p>\n

WARNING<\/strong>: This post contains a graphic image of an abortion victim.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps the writers don’t realize that a major abortion business in Albuquerque, Southwestern Women’s Options, is currently under investigation<\/a> for the 2017 death of 23-year-old Keisha Atkins, who went there for a late-term abortion on her viable baby at 24 weeks. It is also a facility that profits off the sales of body parts from aborted babies<\/a>, a process temporarily halted at SWO. SWO’s Albuquerque location has sent at least 35 women to the hospital<\/a> for abortion injuries too severe to be handled by the staff there.<\/p>\n

None of this is a laughing matter, yet it is presented<\/a> that way. The goal of such a movie, of course, is to remove the stigma of abortion \u2014 to present it as “no big deal” \u2014 as a comical road trip between friends.<\/p>\n

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