UPDATED 12/21/16: Lena Dunham is at the center of another controversy. During the most recent episode of the Women of the Hourpodcast, the Girls creator spoke about visiting a Planned Parenthood location in Texas and coming to terms with her own internalized "stigma" surrounding the practice of abortion. However, Dunham's closing statement on this revelation hasn't exactly landed with many listeners:
"I sort of jumped," Dunham said when asked to be a part of a project in which women spoke openly about their abortions, Micreported Tuesday. "'I haven't had an abortion,' I told her. I wanted to make it really clear to hear that as much as I was going out and fighting for other women's options, I myself had never had an abortion." Though having an abortion is by no means a prerequisite for engaging in activism centered on protecting organizations such as Planned Parenthood, Dunham continued:
"Even I, the woman who cares as much as anybody about a woman's right to choose, felt it was important that people know I was unblemished in this department."
And then Dunham delivered this, the quote that apparently has everyone firing off the Dunham tweets:
"Now I can say that I still haven't had an abortion, but I wish I had."
The backlash, as noted by several frustrated listeners Tuesday, stems solely from the fact that wishing to have gone through an abortion can be easily construed as an insensitive characterization:
But don't get it twisted by way of some botched words from a celeb. Planned Parenthood absolutely needs protecting, and getting an abortion should absolutely come with zero stigma. For more information on how to help a PP location near you, peep this.
Dunham later apologized for what she called a "distasteful joke" in an Instagram post Tuesday night. "My words were spoken from a sort of 'delusional girl' persona I often inhabit, a girl who careens between wisdom and ignorance (that's what my TV show is too) and it didn't translate," Dunham said. "That's my fault. I would never, ever intentionally trivialize the emotional and physical challenges of terminating a pregnancy."
