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Comedienne Alison Leiby suggested people should be open to laughing about abortions in a guest essay on the New York Times on Wednesday.
Leiby described her experience performing her comedy routine, "Oh God, a Show About Abortion," after the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked and the mood being "somber." She emphasized the importance of telling her story and how "a lot of people appear to relate" to it.
"I talk in the show about how I feel bad about not feeling bad about my abortion. I talk about how hard it is to be a woman who doesn’t want children in a culture that doesn’t make room for us outside of a few depressing stereotypes. I talk about how surprisingly simple my abortion experience was, despite the fact that every corner of our society told me it would be an overwhelming tragedy," Lieby wrote.
Abortion-rights protesters gather outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Friday, June 24, 2022. The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years, a decision by its conservative majority to overturn the court's landmark abortion cases. ((AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana))
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Although she said, "I get messages from audience members all the time telling me they were delighted or relieved to see something they have felt or experienced accurately reflected back at them, without apology," Lieby acknowledged that there have been critics of her show due to traumatic experiences with abortions and the end of Roe v. Wade. However, she hoped that her show can be an "extremely valuable coping mechanism in these dark days of American culture."
She described her own abortion as "easy and privileged," and explained her reasoning for it as not wanting to raise a child alone, no wanting to have to move out of her apartment in Brooklyn and not being "able to afford the kind of child care that would allow me to continue my professional life."
Lieby wrote, "I hope that the show helps destigmatize a procedure that should have no stigma. The show also has helped me on a personal level. I needed to laugh through my abortion experience because the alternative — the way my life without the abortion could have turned out — is so upsetting."
FILE PHOTO: A billboard advertising adoption services targets pregnant women at a bus stop in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S., December 7, 2021. (REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo)
She added, "Abortion stories don’t need to be the trauma Olympics. We don’t need to only focus on the most upsetting, violent, dramatic instances of abortion to make the point of its value. We must acknowledge and fight for those cases. We also need to acknowledge and fight for the right that has just been taken from millions of Americans: the right to decide if we want to be pregnant based solely on our own needs."
The New York Times has published several opinion pieces defending abortion following the Supreme Court decision in June. On Friday, another guest essay suggested that Democrats should lean into "the politics of fear" to protect abortion rights in the 2022 midterm elections.
A pregnant woman clutching her unborn baby. (iStock )
At her show performance immediately after Roe was overturned, she said, "[T]he energy was not somber at all," and the "evening provided a sense of community for everyone."
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Lieby closed, "I cried as the show ended, partly from my sadness and anger about the loss of civil liberties for so many people in this country, and the damage and death that will result. But also I cried from the happiness of being with people, and getting to feel these things together."
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