The New York Instances nearly earned factors on Thursday by declaring New York had differing takes on the recent subject of abortion within the metropolis’s theater areas. In a “Critic’s Pocket book” by Laura Collins-Hughes, there was this headline:
Comedian or Graphic, Reveals About Abortion Floor a Stark Divide
Decidedly anti-sensationalistic, Alison Leiby’s shrewd and humorous private monologue performs downtown. Uptown, a staged studying focuses on a grotesque case.
So that you shortly suspect the “shrewd and humorous” one is selling abortion, and the “grotesque” one is opposed. (Is there such a factor as a “non-gruesome” abortion?)
So right here is the very first thing you might want to learn about Leiby’s abortion story: In a sensible and entertaining present, stuffed with observations in regards to the generally painful messiness of feminine our bodies — menstruation, childbirth, lactation — and the social strain to placed on a cheerful face about all of it, her journey to Deliberate Parenthood is the least dramatic, most calmly simple half.
Collins-Hughes says getting abortions is widespread, saying her personal abortion late within the article: “As for going behind these doorways, ladies do this each day, searching for abortion care. Leiby did it. I’ve achieved it. My mother did it, too, pre-Roe v. Wade, to save lots of her life from an ectopic being pregnant earlier than my brothers and I had been born.”
Then the tone turned adverse:
A few miles uptown, on the Chain Studio Theater on West thirty sixth Avenue, is a present that introduced its New York run as Oh Gosnell: The Reality About Abortion — a tabloid title with stalkerish overtones, particularly on condition that its personal information launch mentions Leiby’s present.
A publicist for Oh Gosnell stated that the creation of the play was impressed by Leiby’s comedian monologue. “They snort about it — we inform the reality about it,” says the web site of the play now going by the title Oh Gosnell: A Present In regards to the Reality….
Laughter and fact should not mutually unique, in fact, even when McAleer, a right-wing provocateur whose program bio calls him “a veteran investigative journalist,” implies in any other case.
As for conveying any normal fact about abortion, somewhat than particular truths in regards to the grotesque case of Kermit Gosnell — a Philadelphia doctor convicted in 2013 of first-degree murder for killing three infants after botched late-term abortions — it doesn’t. Neither is it constructed to steer.
Collins-Hughes took exception to the play’s producer Phelim McAleer claiming “no nationwide media coated the story” of the Gosnell trial. She is true that the New York Instances coated it. However most of the national media displayed an allergy to the Gosnell story, ignoring it for years at a time. His clinic was unsanitary, and his strategies had been unsafe. The feminist critic right here surprisingly leaves out the lady who died in Gosnell’s clinic, from being overmedicated. Gosnell was additionally convicted of involuntary manslaughter within the dying of Karnamaya Mongar, a refugee from Nepal.
Discover that Leiby the abortion comic is not “left-wing,” she’s someway Everywoman. You may see the paper’s enthusiasm for her routine as a result of on the backside they hyperlink to different promotional Instances articles about Leiby’s abortion comedy.
