People who defend abortion rights have done practically everything to get their message out, from rallies and marches to #shoutyourabortion and poignant Supreme Court testimony, to Hollywood comedies, celebrity involvement, and high school valedictorian speeches. It shouldn’t be difficult to rally support for the idea that the government should not force women to carry pregnancies, yet it is.
Saturday Night Live tried clown performance for the first time on the 6th of November.
Do you think clowns aren’t amusing? Neither are the legal constraints that make getting an abortion practically impossible in many states. And it’s only getting more difficult. Anti-abortion state politicians are passing increasingly harsh measures as a result of President Donald Trump’s appointment of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court.
If Roe v. Wade, a major Supreme Court decision from 1973, is overturned, At least 26 states are expected to pass legislation prohibiting abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute. People seeking abortions in Louisiana, for example, would have to travel 630 miles to reach a legal clinic. That is simply not possible for most individuals.
Parts of American life are becoming increasingly indistinguishable from those of other countries, In The Handmaid’s Tale, What other option do you have except to send in the clowns? In a performance on Weekend Update, the show’s satirical news segment, comedian Cecily Strong With the help of Weekend Update host Colin Jost, executed an extremely odd act. Strong, dressed as Goober the Clown, pours water in Jost’s face, fails to build a balloon animal, and discusses having an abortion on her 23rd birthday.
“I wish I didn’t have to do this, cuz the abortion I had at 23 is my personal clown business, but that’s all some people in this country wanna discuss all the time!” she adds with a laugh, “Did you know that one in three clowns will have a clown abortion in their lifetime?”(The number of women who will have an abortion is represented by this figure.)
Strong delivered a masterful monologue about the sensation of disclosing an abortion at a dinner party only to have other women at the table reveal that they, too, had had abortions. “We kept this secret for so long, despite being so grateful it happened!” she said, expressing the general agreement at these occasions.
“Here’s my truth: I know I wouldn’t be a clown on TV here today if it weren’t for the abortion, I had the day before my 23rd birthday. Clowns have been helping each other and their pregnancies since the caves. It’s going to happen, so it might as well be safe, legal, and accessible.”Strong said after inhaling helium from a balloon “We will not go back to the alley! I mean, the last thing anyone wants is a bunch of dead clowns in a dark alley.”
As per Glamour, when you witness a piece of comedy that you know will be taught in classes, spread well beyond the news cycle, and encourage more females and women to pursue comedy, you know it’s a good sign. One of these will be the SNL clown abortion sketch. Comedy is sorrow plus time, as the adage goes, but we don’t have any as states continue to pass anti-choice legislation. The political stage is set like a clown show: messy, tragic, and frightening. The bodies of women are flung about like helium balloons. We have no choice but to chuckle because it’s so sad.
