On a recent episode of her podcast Miss Me?, Lily Allen spoke candidly about her experience with reproductive healthcare, specifically, having multiple abortions. “I have an IUD now, I think I’m on my third, maybe fourth? And I just remember, before that it was a complete disaster area,” she said. “I’d get pregnant all the time.”
“Abortions, I’ve had a few,” she added. “But then again, I can’t remember exactly how many…. I think maybe like, I wanna say five. Four or five?”
Her co-host, Miquita Oliver, responded with support and openness: “Lily, I’m so happy I can say that and you can say it and no one came to shoot us down, no judgment… We’ve had about the same amount of abortions.” The conversation was light-hearted, and peppered with humour.
It’s not the first time Allen has addressed the shame that still clings to abortion. In a previous episode, she admitted: “I’ve felt really embarrassed to even say that I’ve had more than one abortion… I was like, ‘Why the f**k should I be ashamed?’”
Every woman should have the right to a safe, legal abortion.
And yet, here we are. A conversation that should have simply added to long-overdue normalisation of abortion access has instead been weaponised. Column inches and social media feeds have since been flooded with backlash, some from predictable sources, others more disappointing.
The Spectator ran a piece insisting we should all be “outraged” by Lily Allen’s comments. The alt-right bigot Tommy Robinson called the conversation “absolutely vile,” receiving over 13,000 likes. And The Telegraph ran an opinion piece that scolded Allen for “trivialising” abortion.
But perhaps the most telling reactions came from self-proclaimed pro-choice people online, who labelled Allen and Oliver “disgusting” or “brainless” for having had more than one abortion. This is where the cognitive dissonance kicks in: If your pro-choice stance includes caveats - if it only extends to one abortion, or the “right kind” of abortion - then it’s not really pro-choice at all. Abortion should never have to be justified. The reason doesn’t matter. The number doesn’t matter. You either support a person’s right to have autonomy over their own body, or you don’t. You can’t claim to support reproductive freedom while policing and moralising the decisions people make about their reproductive health.
One of the most infuriating parts of this saga, for me, is how little progress we’ve made in society when it comes to making abortion socially acceptable. We are still easy to outrage, and quick to judge. It’s giving me déjà vu. In 2016, Marina Abramovic faced backlash for saying she had 3 abortions. At the time she said, “I had three abortions because I was convinced that it would be a disaster for my work, that you only have so much energy in your body and I would have to share it," she said. People called her “self-centred” and “vile”. The pushback is always aimed at women, as if collectively we forget that most pregnancies also involve a man. Yet equal condemnation of the men involved is nowhere to be found. No, of course they are only focused on her - because the truth is that these “pro-life” arguments often have very little to do with abortion. What they are about is misogyny, and an excuse to belittle women.
The stigma surrounding abortion is still entrenched in misogyny, and challenging it is essential. Abortion access cannot be conditional. We cannot allow a culture where someone must meet certain “acceptable” criteria (trauma, assault, medical emergency) for their decision to be respected. We’ve already seen what happens when those conditions are tightened. Just look at the United States, where reproductive rights have been systematically rolled back across dozens of states. This isn’t a hypothetical slippery slope. It’s already happening.
I felt safer getting my abortion in a country that forthrightly enshrines abortion access in law.
And for those still clinging to the tired narrative that people regret abortions? Research consistently tells a different story. A major study from the University of California found that 95% of women who had an abortion reported it was the right decision for them, even five years later. Positive and negative emotions alike faded over time, but what endured was clarity and relief.
Allen and Oliver should face no scrutiny for that podcast episode. Their honesty should have created space for others to feel less alone, to make abortion less scary and more normalised - because whether or not you ‘agree’ with abortion, it is normal, it has always happened and always will. According to research from 2017, in the UK approximately one in three women will have an abortion during their lifetime, according to the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, making abortion the most common gynaecological procedure in the UK.
If we're truly pro-choice, then we have to hold the line unapologetically, and without exceptions. Abortion is not a moral failure. It is a right. And like all rights, it must be defended, especially when people try to chip away at it via tomato throwing and shame. Reproductive healthcare is healthcare. That includes the first abortion. It includes the fifth. It includes the ones people talk about and the ones they don’t.
