The Abortion Lobby’s Horrifying New ‘Comedy’ Act

By Heather Wilhelm Published on July 14, 2016

In a year of national anxiety, you know what’s sure to get America smiling again? A “comedy” video about abortion, courtesy of NARAL Pro-Choice America!

No, really: This happened, and a bunch of people thought it was an A+ idea. Witness Comedians in Cars Getting Abortions, brought to you by the not-so-good people at NARAL. The video plays on Jerry Seinfeld’s successful comedy video series, which has a similar name — but Seinfeld’s version has him in cars with various celebrities getting coffee, not abortions, because he’s not completely deranged.

NARAL’s version, on the other hand, stars two C-list comedians who ride around in a Prius pretending they can’t get an abortion, presumably in California, and who also seem quite enraged about life in general. You would not want to sit next to either of them on a plane.

Let’s meet our stars, shall we? There’s the crabby Alice Wetterlund, our protagonist, an actress who also appears in HBO’S Silicon Valley. She looks like her head might explode any minute. Then there’s the glum Nato Green, a stand-up act who is reportedly big in San Francisco, and who also seems perfectly comfortable wearing a jacket that looks like it came from Kim Jong-un’s body double’s last garage sale.

“So,” says Nato to Alice, as the video begins — this is before he proceeds to toss out occasional sad imitations of Jerry Seinfeld — “would you like to tell the cameras why you want an abortion?”

Boy, oh, boy, would Alice ever. “I want an abortion,” she huffs, giving the impression that she would like to punch you and maybe even your grandma in the face, “because my body is doing a thing right now, that is not incubating a person, and I would like it to continue doing that thing. It’s my choice. OK?”

First of all, this sentence, which is delivered in the style of an overly opinionated 13- year-old just denied a highly questionable neck tattoo, makes absolutely no sense. If your body is not “incubating a person,” Alice, what exactly is it doing? Why are you so upset? Why do you need an abortion to stop your body from not incubating that non-person? Oh, and how did this all happen, anyway? Don’t you hate it when your body just randomly starts not creating a non-person, which you then need to dispose of?

Hold your befuddlement, folks: It gets worse. “Also, I mean, look at that kid,” Alice says, gesturing out the window. We hear the sounds of a crying toddler, off camera. This toddler is, at least according to the latest science, a living human being with a heart and a brain and, depending on where you stand, a soul.

“That kid is slapping his dad in the face,” Nato says, in the manner of a man whose own soul has lost its batteries.

“Yeah, we don’t need more of those in the world!” declares Alice. Yeah, girlfriend! We don’t need any more pesky kids! Let’s get rid of them in a vague and unspecified fashion! Oh, but wait a second: My brain just got in the way, because it is larger than that of a stegosaurus. Why are toddlers related to your problem, Alice? You’re not incubating a person, right, so why worry?

Well, whatever, folks. Don’t think too hard. It will ruin the mildly horrifying spectacle of non-comedy. The video moves on through a series of tired abortion tropes that don’t help the pro-choice case at all. There’s the blasé “everyone’s getting an abortion one month after the Coachella festival” joke. Ha-ha, good one! Abortion’s no big deal, and it’s not like they’ve invented something like birth control yet! There’s the evil Christian crisis pregnancy center, where a Kim Davis lookalike spouts lines like “Who needs doctors when you have the book of Jeremiah?”

Oh, and there’s Alice and Nato’s arrival at the “real” abortion clinic, where Alice is told that if she really wants an abortion, she should go “somewhere where it’s legal. Like Canada. Or Uruguay. Or you could sail into international waters.” Yes, NARAL. You nailed it. Abortion is totally inaccessible in America, home of many second- and third-trimester abortions, unlike, say, France, where abortion on demand is banned after 12 weeks.

Unlike Jonathan Swift’s famous A Modest Proposal, the satire here is unintentional, crashing back upon the people who think that they’re dishing it out. Comedians in Cars Getting Abortions may, in fact, be one of the greatest pro-life videos ever made.

“Here’s your baby at 536 weeks,” the abortion worker tells Alice, showing her a picture of a 10-year-old. It’s stunning, really: For years, large segments of the pro-choice movement vehemently denied abortion involved a human child, or at least avoided that fact. Now, many no longer even try to hide it.

Amid the photos of babies at various stages of development — forced upon the abortion clinic, of course, by imaginary government regulations — Alice, desperate, snatches up a plain, empty white sheet of paper.

“Ooh, is that a blank one? That’s what I want. I want a blank one,” she says, gritting her teeth. “This is what I want. Right? Just nothing at all.”

Nothing at all: It’s kind of deep, when you think about it — and very, very sad.

 

Heather Wilhelm is a writer based in Austin, Texas. Her work can be found at  heatherwilhelm.com and her Twitter handle is @heatherwilhelm.

This article originally appeared at RealClearPolitics July 14, 2016 and is reprinted with permission.

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