Induced abortion — the direct, intentional, and violent killing of living human babies in the womb — was the butt of several jokes on Irish television last week, as comedian Katie Boyle poked fun at her own abortion and promoted her new abortion-focused comedy tour.
Boyle told Ireland AM hosts Muireann O’Connell and Tommy Bowe that she is using comedy to “break the stigma” about killing innocent human beings in the womb.
Key Takeaways:
- Kate Boyle is an Irish comedian who lived in New York, where she underwent an abortion in February.
- She joked about her abortion, poked fun at the preborn baby she killed, and falsely claimed that St. Brigid committed the first documented abortion in Ireland.
- Boyle claimed she knew little about certain types of contraception, or even about how her own body worked.
- She claimed she felt bad when she had her abortion, but claimed it was other people who made her feel that way — not her own moral conscience.
- Her new comedy show is called “Roe v. Wade versus Katie” and is billed as a “personal dark comedy.”
The Details:
Last week, Irish comedian Katie Boyle visited Ireland AM to promote her comedy tour: Roe v. Wade versus Katie. Her show is marketed as “uniquely personal dark comedy… about living in America, Catholic shame, St Brigid, cutting off a parent and somehow all connected to abortion.”
During her interview, O’Connell asked about Boyle’s show, saying that the subject of abortion, especially in “Trump’s America… might be quite controversial…”
Joking about abortion
Boyle joked, “It was based on my own abortion. Tea!” She continued:
No, because when I left Ireland we didn’t have abortion rights here. I remember being in America while the repeal was happening and… I had gone to a city that was the more progressive city and there, while I’m living there these rights are being taken away and you’re hearing stories of friends who live in different states, and like, the fear.
And it’s something I’ve always advocated for and I’ve talked about crazy stuff online, but [] I talk about St. Brigid and I use her to advocate for abortion. I always have, because she gave the first documented abortion in Ireland, which then the Catholics call a miracle — which I love the Christianization of that.
So in the show I talk about how instead of saying I went for an abortion, I went for a ‘miracle’. I never knew I would actually have to go through it myself, especially at 34 in Trump’s America. Like, it’s so crazy.
There’s a lot to unpack in this one statement.
1. St. Brigid did not commit the “first documented abortion in Ireland.”
This rumor is based on an account that was written two centuries after St. Brigid lived, which claims that a nun broke her vow of chastity and became pregnant. The tale goes that St. Brigid, wanting to protect the nun, caused the preborn child to disappear through prayer. The idea that this “abortion” is “documented” is not based on fact.
2. Abortion during the time of St. Brigid was not seen as acceptable.
Catholic Answers explains that this story is “more influenced by legends than historical data.” Dr. Paul Byrne, a lecturer on early Irish history at University College Dublin, said abortion in the time of St. Brigid (born in 450) was largely seen as a sin, and the Penitential of Finnian, a contemporary penitential list in the nation, shows that penance was assigned to abortion at any stage of pregnancy.
He told Catholic News Agency, “There is no credible evidence that any Irish saints were involved in any form of abortion.” Such stories of saints include “folklore, legend, political anecdote, which was demonstrably compiled long after (usually some centuries after) the saint in question had lived.”
In addition, Thomas Charles-Edwards, a professor emeritus of the University of Oxford said, “In these examples the saint’s intervention is directed towards restoring the honor of the woman concerned; it does not imply that the hagiographer thought that abortion was not a great sin.” He added that “miracles as conceived by later hagiographers… is usually bad evidence for what they actually did, better evidence for what later writers could imagine happening.”
Uneducated about her body and about abortion
Boyle underwent the abortion in February simply because she did not want to have a baby. However, she took the morning after pill first, which she joked didn’t work like the “nuclear bomb” she thought it would be, and she later learned she was pregnant.
“I was like, ‘I do not want to have a child,'” she said. But she admits that she didn’t know much about her body or abortion.
“I didn’t know they put you to sleep. I didn’t know the medication they give you, which by then I accidentally overdosed on because I didn’t know it was serious pain medication,” she said.
She joked that she had “no education” on any part of the abortion, or on what “got me into that situation.” She said, “… [S]omeone was like, ‘You didn’t know about ovulation?!’ And I was like, ‘I can’t even spell it.'”
O’Donnell agreed with Boyle that women are expected to know what’s going on in their bodies and they don’t — as if their bodies are a complete mystery to them that they are incapable of solving. The truth is that women have been tracking their fertility for generations and its easier now than ever to pinpoint ovulation by paying attention to your body.
Misinformation
Boyle claimed the abortion nurse told her that her particular “bunch of cells” — a.k.a. her preborn child — “grew faster” than other babies grow, but that she “caught it in time” to still have an abortion. She said she wants to tell women everywhere that the “cells can grow at its [sic] own speed.”
“So when people are like, ‘Oh you’ve got 12 weeks,’ you might actually only have 10 weeks because it can grow faster. That’s what had happened to me. The nurse even told me — now I was fine because I had — when I say this it sounds like an illness. I’m like, ‘Oh I caught it in time,'” she joked. “No, but I was very lucky that I found that out in time. They could find out within ten weeks but then be told this bunch of cells just grew a little faster.”
Live Action News could find no proof of this claim allegedly made by Boyle’s abortion nurse.
A so-called “bunch of cells”
But the ‘going out of business sale’ mentality that abortion businesses use to convince women to abort when they might be on the fence about it often pressures them to rush the decision. They often tell women that it’s easier, cheaper, and safer to have an abortion sooner rather than later. This is true, of course, but that pressure can convince women who don’t want to abort that they need to do it right away without taking time to really consider the ramifications.
Reddit user BackgroundPea7785’s photo of aborted baby at 9 weeks gestation (enlarged).
According to the Endowment for Human Development, at 10 weeks pregnant (eight weeks post fertilization), a preborn child is far more than a “bunch of cells.” The preborn child’s heart has been beating and pumping blood beginning at 21 days post-fertilization (three weeks) and she can touch her face with her already-developed hands, respond to touch, open and close her mouth, and even has the first hair of her eyebrows.
10 weeks from fertilization (12 weeks gestation/LMP)
By 12 weeks (10 weeks post fertilization), preborn children can yawn, bend their hips and knees when the sole of their feet are touched, suck their thumbs, and they even have tiny, unique fingerprints.
This is not a “bunch of cells,” but a growing human being — and if she’s growing, she’s living.
Abortion shame
Boyle admits that though she jokes about abortion, she felt bad when she got her abortion.
“I was thinking about it when I got the abortion,” she said, “I was like, ‘Why do I feel bad about this?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t regret this. This is the right decision for me.’ I only feel bad about the idea of people being mean to me. And then I was like, ‘Ok but if they’re going to be mean to me, we don’t agree. We don’t have the same morals so what does it matter what they say about me?… I’ve been slut shamed, all of these things.”
The arm of a baby killed by a D&C abortion. Photo courtesy of prolifesociety.com
Having different morals is an interesting — and somewhat honest — way to frame the abortion debate. Pro-lifers believe it is immoral to intentionally kill an innocent human being. Abortion supporters believe that women’s ‘bodily autonomy’ gives them the ‘right’ to kill, without regard for that innocent human being’s life.
The Bottom Line:
While Boyle’s comedy is an attempt to normalize abortion and make women feel better about having had one, it ultimately serves to invalidate the feelings of women who do regret their abortions and it desensitizes women and men to the tragedy of abortion.
Go Deeper:
- Misinformation and jokes about abortion do not help women and may cause further harm to the women who are already suffering from the trauma of abortion. Read more here.
- 64% of post-abortive women who took part in a study said they underwent the abortion due to pressure from others or from their financial and lifestyle situations. Read more here.
