Fans aren’t rushing to forgive actress Lena Dunham following her controversial comments about abortion. The Girls creator and actress said she “wished” she could have had an abortion – an act she believed would have made her a better women’s rights activist.
“And I realized then that even I was carrying within myself stigma around the issue. Even I, the woman who cares as much as anybody about a woman’s right to choose, felt that it was important that people know that I was unblemished in this department. Now I can say that I still haven’t had an abortion, but I wish I had,” she said, concluding her Dec. 14 Women of the Hour podcast.
Dunham, 30, issued an apology on her Instagram Tuesday, labelling her comment “a distasteful joke” that was lost in translation, and also took the opportunity to provide an explanation for her poor choice of words.
“My latest podcast episode was meant to tell a multifaceted story about reproductive choice in America, to explain the many reasons women do or don’t choose to have children and what bodily autonomy really means,” she writes. “I truly hope a distasteful joke on my part won’t diminish the amazing work of all the women who participated.”
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She goes on to say her words were spoken from “a sort of ‘delusional girl’ persona” she often inhabits.
“I would never, ever intentionally trivialize the emotional and physical challenges of terminating a pregnancy,” she says. “I take reproductive choice in America more seriously than I take literally anything else, and therefore own full responsibility for any words I speak that don’t convey this truth clearly.”
She concluded her apology by saying she would donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds in New York, Texas and Ohio.
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Her apology may have gotten over 15,700 “likes” on Instagram as of Wednesday morning, but many on social media made it clear her apology wasn’t good enough.
However, some fans were on-hand to defend the Girls star.
Dunham is gearing up for the sixth and final season of Girls, which premieres on Feb. 12.