When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
On the Rosie O’Donnell show, Chelsea Handler, the crass, bawdy, blonde comedienne, and author of My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands, opened up about her experience getting pregnant as a teen:
“I was so delusional,” she said. “I was like, ‘I’m ready for a baby.’”
But--cue Madonna song, Papa Don’t Preach: “Papa don’t preach, when I’m in trouble . . . cause I made up my mind, I’m keeping my baby . . ."---
Her parents had a very different perspective, pushing her toward having an abortion right away. “You’re throwing your entire life away,” they told her. “You’re supposed to create a life for yourself. We want you to enjoy your life and not be raising a child, and we’re certainly not going to raise it for you.”
That’s a tough position to be in, and weighing her own feelings against her parents’ reasoning, Handler decided to get the abortion:
O’Donnell cited opponents of the landmark Roe v. Wade court case that legalized abortions coming out and saying that the abortion they had ruined their lives. “That’s not the stuff I’ve heard from my friends who’ve had abortions,” she said. “Listen, not that it was a casual thing that they never think about again, but it wasn’t a life-defining negative thing.”
She now thinks “You should do whatever you want with your body and you shouldn’t let anyone tell you what to do." She means that today, of course, as an endorsement of the pro-choice position. But her assertion, if applied to her situation as a 16-year-old, would have meant that she kept the baby. Interesting food for thought.
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Oct '10
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
When my wife was 16, she resisted pressure to have an abortion and gave birth to a son. He is the light of her life, she talks to him or texts him nearly every day. He graduated from NYU several years ago, so naturally he's got strong pro-choice views.
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
It's a sad story, albeit one that helps explain her rather obvious anger. Lord, have mercy.
I will say that my friends who have had abortions wouldn't say it ruined their lives either. They are haunted by it, sometimes in surprising ways, but they tend to think that aborting their unborn child was something that they had to do.
May '10
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
She describes her life as a series of one night stands? And she wants to believe that that abortion wasn't "a life-defining negative thing"?
I wonder what her parents think of the life she's created for herself since they pressured her to kill her baby?
May '10
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
I can't help noticing the alienation from her body that is expressed in the "we should do whatever we want with our bodies"--as if they're some sort of instrument rather than, in a sense, our selves.
John Paul II considered this the great spiritual sickness of our day.
Dec '11
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
What the hell kind of deviant sociopaths wouldnt help their daughter in a bind? Really?
See the breakdown of the family is right there, and they were actually still a family.
May '10
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
So the only 2 options they could come up with was A. Have the baby and raise it. B. Kill it. Did the idea of giving the child up for adoption NEVER come up?
Mar '11
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
Guruforhire: What the hell kind of deviant sociopaths wouldnt help their daughter in a bind? Really?
See the breakdown of the family is right there, and they were actually still a family. · 15 minutes ago
She's basically called out her parents as being completely self-absorbed, unfeeling swine.
I've managed to inadvertently miss Ms. Handler's career so far. I intend to amend that. It will no longer be inadvertent.
May '10
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
All I have ever heard from liberal women is that the worst sin a man can commit is to view a woman as a non-human "object" that is to be used for sexual gratification and then discarded.
But within in their own twisted mind they have learned how to "objectify" their children into "non-viable masses of fetal tissue" and blithely engage in infanticide.
And, as a man, I never understood this, either: If a woman wants an abortion, the father has no say. If a woman doesn't have an abortion the father is responsible for the child. It takes two to tango, doesn't it?
But as I have told women, they are not "pro-choice," they are actually "pro-third choice." First, they chose to have sex. Then they chose to have unprotected sex. Then they ask for a third choice and demand the world pay for it. And if the sex was non-consensual, you'll get no argument from me if you want to purge the rapist's contributions to the gene pool.
Why are we subsidizing casual sex? What's next? Tax-paid hookers for ugly people?
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
I also find it interesting that she always makes these self-deprecating jokes about how she hates kids, doesn't ever want to have kids, would be a terrible mother, etc. But putting it all together, you're right, Mollie--it's all very angry.
Nov '11
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
Emily Esfahani Smith
That's tragic enough right there.
I can think of so many people I know who have sacrificed so much for the children of a struggling son or daughter. It's not ideal, at all, for grandparents to have to raise their grandchildren, but so many thousands do it or help out, because when the need arises that's what love dictates.
May '10
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
The Dutch are way ahead of us on this one. Years ago already a Dutch judge ordered a town to pay for a "socially disabled" man to visit a prostitute once a week, since a psychologist had determined that he needed sex for his health, but couldn't find girlfriends on his own.
May '10
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
You're right, EJ. Women are objectifying their babies, and they're objectifying themselves.
Sep '10
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
katievs
The Dutch are way ahead of us on this one. Years ago already a Dutch judge ordered a town to pay for a "socially disabled" man to visit a prostitute once a week, since a psychologist had determined that he needed sex for his health, but couldn't find girlfriends on his own. · 8 minutes ago
Just to be fair on the subsidized hookers, I don't believe Eliot Spitzer used public monies to procure services. Of course, it may have been inherited money. Just wanted to put that out there.
Aug '10
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
... and we’re certainly not going to raise it for you ...
I guess they weren't Hillary "it takes a village" Clinton fans.
Dec '11
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
Leigh
Emily Esfahani Smith
That's tragic enough right there.
I can think of so many people I know who have sacrificed so much for the children of a struggling son or daughter. It's not ideal, at all, for grandparents to have to raise their grandchildren, but so many thousands do it or help out, because when the need arises that's what love dictates. · 11 minutes ago
I am fully enfranchised in the idea of a multi-generational home.
Aug '10
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
... and if the sex was non-consensual, you'll get no argument from me if you want to purge the rapist's contributions to the gene pool ...
<devil's advocate mode = on>
So Jack Kennedy was right to have his teenaged mistress get an abortion.
<devil's advocate mode = off>
May '10
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
No, because a rapist should have no say in the matter. Rapists are not emotionally invested in a relationship so the idea that they would be responsible enough to undertake the duties of fatherhood would be fantasy in the first place. That only happens on soap operas. The rapist should only have a say between a life-sentence and a penectomy.
Jun '10
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
I don't believe she ever wanted to keep the baby. That wasn't the emphasis of the story when it first came out in the press. She's been extremely pro-abortion for a long time--flippantly so. If she's trying to transfer the guilt to her parents now, I think it's a public relations cleanup operation. Apparently, she discovered that loving abortion was not quite as popular as she thought.
May '10
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
To be fair, if you went to Planned Parenthood last year there was (likely) a .3% chance it was brought up (900 / 300,900).
I, for one, think it is up to the individual's own conscience to decide what to do with his or her body. An abortion, however, doesn't kill the person who is making the decision. Ultimately Chelsea decided to pursue her own financial interests over the life of her child; after nine months, some might call that sociopathic.
May '10
Re: When Chelsea Handler Was 16 and Pregnant, She Wanted to Keep the Baby
Does that mean you are in favor of repealing laws against attempted suicide? If someone is threatening to jump off a building do we substitute calling mental health specialist or specially trained police officers and just call out the cleanup squads?