Just in time for E! to honor 10 years of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” TMZ revealed the youngest Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, who just turned 20 last month, is expecting a baby with her boyfriend. While half the Internet is applauding, the other half is outraged because a popular entertainment commentator, Perez Hilton, suggested Jenner have an abortion.
Given how popular abortion is and how much Hollywood pushes that narrative, it makes sense that Hilton would suggest it. What doesn’t make sense is the vicious backlash he’s receiving — it’s like Hollywood can’t make up their mind on abortion.
In a YouTube video, Hilton revealed his views on Kylie’s pregnancy:
I’ve just got to do a slow clap, a slow clap for Kylie Jenner. She knows how to work it. She is the new Kim Kardashian. I don’t care about any of them other bitches right now, Kylie Jenner has just one-upped everybody. In case you haven’t been paying attention, Kylie Jenner has been dating rapper Travis Scott for what, um, 5 months, 6 months? And also, a reminder Kylie Jenner is 19 years old. Um, I love life, I love babies. If I were Kris Jenner, I would tell that girl to get an abortion!
Hollywood as a cultural influence has been throwing abortion around in television shows and film for decades. It’s made it seem everything from confusing to aspirational, painful to glorified — often, but not always, erring on the side of being more pro-choice than pro-life. Hilton makes his case, stating that at Jenner’s young age and stage of life, she might not be a great mother. Hilton also points out she and her boyfriend won’t likely remain together. Given the history of Kardashian women with men, he’s probably correct.
So it makes perfect sense that Hilton would simply follow the typical Hollywood narrative and advocate for abortion, even though it ends the life of a young baby. That’s how people respond to unplanned pregnancies when abortion as a cultural landmark remains for decades.
What’s atypical is how the other half of the Internet responded. Upon viewing Hilton’s video, viewers were outraged at his suggestion that Jenner get an abortion.
Some fans were outraged by Hilton’s reaction and took to Twitter to express their disgust over his comments. One Twitter user wrote, ‘Perez Hilton’s latest video which I refuse to watch (all I had to do was read the headline to know) is beyond disgusting.’ Another asked, ‘Why you telling a woman what to do with her body? It’s not your place to tell women to get an abortion,’ another woman tweeted. ‘So a woman needs a stable relationship with a man to raise a child??’ wrote another, ‘How sexist. Women can do freaking anything.’
Of course, as a mother of four, I tend to agree with the outraged Internet, but as an observer of the abortion spectacle, it’s obvious why Hilton suggested Jenner get an abortion and the fact that many shot back “But pro-life!” seemed surprising, if not, ironic.
This is the problem with truth in a post-modern society: Abortion is relative so it means different things to different people and everyone seems free to interpret it differently. So if a nameless 19 year old gets pregnant by her boyfriend (one assumes, accidentally) her friends encourage her quietly, yet vocally, to get an abortion. She agrees and they celebrate. Yet change the circumstances a bit and look at a famous, wealthy now-20 year old who gets pregnant — her friends, and the collective Internet, shout: “It’s not for you to say what she should do to her body!”
Which is it?
Hollywood and this post-modern society would like us to believe that the rightness or wrongness of abortion is based on circumstances, but it’s not. It’s just wrong, period. If everyone viewed it this way, there would be no shifting of worldviews or different advice based on circumstances — it’s either always wrong or always right.
Whether Jenner remains with her boyfriend or would be a good mom is no longer the issue here. It’s whether she plans to give her baby a chance at life — either with her or an adoptive family, regardless of the cultural tide in the other direction.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She was the 2010 recipient of the American Spectator’s Young Journalist Award.
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