Oscar-winning actress, Anne Hathaway has said that ‘abortion can be another word for mercy,’ while
claiming that the lives of teenage girls have been changed ‘irrevocably’ since Roe v. Wade was repealed.
In June 2022, the Supreme Court in the US overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion in the U.S. in 1973
Hathaway, a 39-year-old mother of two, appeared on The View on Tuesday to promote her new film, Armageddon Time.
Host Joy Behar asked Hathaway to explain her June 30 post celebrating 16 years of The Devil Wears Prada, and noting that the young women in the film were able to carve out careers because they had not fallen pregnant as teenagers.
‘Looking back on photos of this beloved film that shaped the lives and careers of so many – mine included – I am struck by the fact that the young female characters in this movie built their lives and careers in a country that honored their right to have choice over their own reproductive health,’ Hathaway wrote on June 30 – six days after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court.
‘See you in the fight,’ her post concluded.
‘My own personal experience with abortion – and I don’t think we talk about this enough – abortion can be another word for mercy,’ Hathaway told Behar.
We know that no two pregnancies are alike, and it follows that no two lives are alike, it follows that no two conceptions are alike.
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‘So how can we have a law, how can we have a point of view on this that says we must treat everything the same?’
She continued: ‘And I just – it had just happened and I just – I think about it all the time.
‘I think we all think about it all the time, and what the implications are and what it means to live in a country that puts us in this position.’
The Brooklyn-born actress said that if she played the role today, she ‘couldn’t take that for granted. I couldn’t take that freedom for granted, the freedom of choice.’
She added: ‘And by the way, this is not a moral conversation about abortion, this is a practical conversation about women’s rights, and by the way human rights, because women’s rights are human rights.’
Abortion is now illegal in 12 states, according to Planned Parenthood’s tracker: Idaho, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
It is severely restricted in 11 more states and restricted in five.
Last month, her fellow Hollywood superstar Jennifer Lawrence said she was devastated by the repeal of Roe v. Wade.
Lawrence told Vogue that a miscarriage she suffered several years ago in Toronto convinced her of the importance of abortion access for young women.
She says she was ‘100%’ planning to get an abortion prior to the miscarriage, but the overturning of Roe v. Wade catapulted the issue to new importance to her personally, and in terms of her relationship with her family.
‘I don’t want to disparage my family, but I know that a lot of people are in a similar position with their families,’ she remarked.
‘How could you raise a daughter from birth and believe that she doesn’t deserve equality? How?’
