Pro-Life Guest Appalls Hosts of ABC's 'The View'

Media Research Center ^ | January 22, 2003 | Brent Baker

[Stand Watch Listen]

The View gang ganged up, though politely, on a guest on Tuesday who dared to suggest that abortion may not always be a wonderful experience. Actress Jennifer O'Neill came aboard to promote her “Silent No More” campaign and told how she regrets having an abortion and how pregnancy sites with which she's affiliated inform mothers of the physical and emotional risk of an abortion.

     Her variance from the “pro-choice” line clearly appalled the regulars on the ABC daytime show, especially Joy Behar and former NBC News reporter Star Jones, though former CBS News reporter Meredith Viera also revealed where she stands. (Barbara Walters was out, replaced by former Saturday Night Live cast member Ana Gasteyer who was also appalled that O'Neill's work might threaten Roe v Wade.) In the next segment, actress Katey Segal scolded the View team for being so “polite” to O'Neill.

     Some of the comments and exchanges on the January 21 The View, as transcribed by MRC intern Rudy Peseckas:

     -- Before O'Neill appeared, Behar was upset that a poll about abortion included the views of men:
     Behar: "Just ask women because we're the ones who have to do it all, so I just think that it's our business, it's our problem and leave them out of it [audience applauds]....Look, if I had a set of scrotum then it would be my problem, right? If my scrotum was in trouble -- scroti [everyone's laughing, crosstalk]. Since I'm the one that's carrying the baby, I want to be the one to decide....I think it's a woman's issue and just be concerning women, and the Senate is comprised of majority of men, the Congress is men, and they're making decisions for women, and I don't like it."

     -- O'Neill noted that “80 percent of women that go in and have the opportunity to have an ultrasound change their mind. They do want their babies. I was not told that, and a lot of women–"
     Behar jumped in: "There seems to be a lot of shame around just having an abortion, though, which I think, I don't understand. It's a legal thing in this country, but a lot of women are embarrassed to say that they've had one. Maybe we should change that."

     -- Jones lectured her: “But Jennifer, there is a difference between secrecy and privacy, and there are some women who say this is a matter of my business and my body and I need to make a choice that’s right for me at this time.”

     -- O'Neill advised that if you “have a teenager and you think you are doing them a favor with an unwanted pregnancy to go and get an abortion you are sentencing them to 30 percent higher risk of cancer. That’s a fact that you need to know before you make that choice.”
     Behar countered: “But it is also a fact that it’s a higher risk to have a child, to give birth than it is to have an abortion.”
     O’Neill: “That’s not true.”
     Behar: “That’s what I read.”

     -- Viera worried: “But prior to abortion becoming legal that’s when things were really secret much more so than after it became legal, and very dangerous. So there is going to be abortion one way or the other.”

     -- O’Neill urged adoption: “Offer adoption as an option. One-third of our babies conceived in this country are aborted, now perhaps it's a little better now.”
     Behar complained: “I think that adopted children have issues of their own too and giving up a baby after its come to term is a very painful thing also. I know girls who gave up babies years ago in the '60s before Roe v Wade and they suffer to this day that they gave up their baby so theres that issue too.” 
     O’Neill: “I just want them to have the option, look at all the different ways that you can go-”
     Behar: “Well I’m afraid that your particular thing that you are going to thell them is going to influence them to roll back their abortion rights.”

     -- Jones proposed: “Suppose I am eighteen years old. I’m going to college. I was careless I made a mistake. My life is ahead of me and I have chosen that I want to terminate that pregnancy and I don’t want to hear from you Miss O’Neill. In the first trimester, I make the decision in seven weeks. I don’t want to hear the options. I’ve made an informed decision.”
     O’Neill zinged her: “How can you be informed if you haven’t heard the options?”
     Jones: “Because I am a smart women who is at eighteen, I have looked it up. This is what I want to say, if I’m that person what do you say to me?”

     -- Ana Gasteyer inadvertently suggested most women are idiots: “The whole point of family planning is to give you options and alternatives. In fact the whole rollback is the fear that people don’t know that they have the option of abortion.”

     -- In the next segment, actress Katey Segal, best-known as the mother in Fox's old Married....With Children, came aboard to plug her new ABC sit-com, 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter. She scolded The View crew: “Well I thought you girls were extremely polite....I think she is not going to Washington to do much other than probably try and alter things. I mean I have a lot of opinions about that but do you really want to talk about that? It seems you covered that a lot, I’m definitely pro choice that's what I will say [audience applause] and I thought you girls...but you know I like that everybody has an opinion and I think you are extremely polite.”

     The Web site for The View: http://abc.abcnews.go.com/theview/main.html

     The Internet Movie Database bio page for Segal: http://us.imdb.com/Name?Sagal,+Katey

     Web site for 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter:
http://abc.abcnews.go.com/primetime/8simplerules/index.html

     Jennifer O'Neill is best-known for her role in the 1972 movie, Summer of '42. For her IMDB bio: http://us.imdb.com/Name?O%27Neill,+Jennifer+(I)

     Fun fact, she's in her ninth marriage: http://us.imdb.com/Bio?O%27Neill,%20Jennifer%20(I)

     For an old picture of her, check out a poster for the Summer of '42 movie: http://us.imdb.com/Posters?0067803

     Her abortion alternatives Web site: www.PregnancyCenters.org

     The View boasts having women hosts “with different points of view,” but on abortion they all have one view. -- Brent Baker

[fifteendogs]

If I take pictures of my kids naked, playig in he bathtub and have the pictures developed at Wal-mart, I could find myself charged as a pedophile. If convicted, I would have to register as a child molester. I can't think of any greater molestion of a child than the taking of their life. Whay don't we register all women who have abortions as child molesters? If I were a single man looking for a wife with the idea of raising children, i would think twice before I married a woman who committed the ultimate child molestation.

[MadelineZapeezda]

Jones proposed: “Suppose I am eighteen years old. I’m going to college. I was careless I made a mistake. My life is ahead of me and I have chosen that I want to terminate that pregnancy and I don’t want to hear from you Miss O’Neill. In the first trimester, I make the decision in seven weeks. I don’t want to hear the options. I’ve made an informed decision.”

O’Neill zinged her: “How can you be informed if you haven’t heard the options?”

Jones: “Because I am a smart women who is at eighteen,......

If she was so $^#king smart she wouldn't have gotten pregnant.... should have been her comeback reply!

[rocknotsand]

These same people who promote abortion think a death sentence for a proven hardened killer is immoral. But they think nothing of killing innocent babies.

Can we say INCONSISTENCY ALERT or multiple-personality disorder. Liberalism is like that, pathologically.

For further discussion, note that the liberals are staunchly against GM foods and scientific experimentation with mother natures seeds BUT fully supportive of the stem cell research and scientific experimentation with human embryos. Go figure. Here we have liberals arguing against the adoption solution yet the gay and lesbian sacred cow is adoption and family...

[F16Fighter]

Jennifer O'Neill should have pulled a General von Stauffenberg -- exchange "pleasantries" with the fascist pro-abortion panel, then excuse herself from the show...AND "aftermath."

[Smokin' Joe]

About time someone broke ranks there.

41,000,000 little smiles that will never have a face since Roe v. Wade and counting.

The Holocaust is a mere drop in the bucket in comparison.

[Jonathon Spectre]

-- O'Neill noted that “80 percent of women that go in and have the opportunity to have an ultrasound change their mind. They do want their babies. I was not told that, and a lot of women–"

Behar jumped in: "There seems to be a lot of shame around just having an abortion, though, which I think, I don't understand. It's a legal thing in this country, but a lot of women are embarrassed to say that they've had one. Maybe we should change that."

>speechless<

Yes, let's make murder less embarrassing. By all means. Let's start this brave new understanding of the merits and meaning of life and death with "Behar", whoever the f**k that is.

[MissAmericanPie]

What a chilling point, I hope some media lurker latches onto your post and repeats it often.

[F16Fighter]

"I only watch it so I can be there when Star Jones explodes."

LOL...

And for those Freepers who have a crush (pun intended) on Star Jones, I once met a producer of the show who claimed that Jones was not only an egotistic b*tch, but had (cough, gag, bleeech) an extremely bad case of BO.

[Smokin' Joe]

Maybe never had an opportunity to become familliar with such devices? Hmmmmm. A real authority.

[lonestar]

Behar jumped in: "There seems to be a lot of shame around just having an abortion, though, which I think, I don't understand. It's a legal thing in this country, but a lot of women are embarrassed to say that they've had one. Maybe we should change that."

Maybe we should change the thinking that because something is legal doesn't mean it's right.

[Theodore R.]

Meredith Viera does not have freedom of "choice" on abortion. If she were to speak out against abortion, she would be yanked as the daytime hostess of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" So she is consigning infants to the trash can to protect her own personal turf. Who can know her true feelings, for she cannot state a contrary view to that of Roe v. Wade and the liberal establishment?

[mystery-ak]

Last week the View girls were wondering if the *murderer* of Laci Peterson can be charged with the murder of her unborn child...last week an unborn child was a baby....yesterday the unborn child was a fetus(or mass of tissue).....what hypocrites!

[Pablo64]

"She's got a point. If you kill the kid, you'll spare him the trauma of "adoption issues."

I would suggest to you that quite a bit of those "issues" are put into peoples minds by those who have no first-hand experience. I, myself, am adopted. So is my brother. So is my sister. As adults, we've had many in-depth discussions about what it means to be adopted. None of us has felt that we are "incomplete" or "unfullfilled" (or any of the other psychobabble commonly thought that adoptee's feel) by not knowing our birth mother. In fact, none of us have even given any serious thought to trying to track her down.

We are all unanimous in our appreciation for the fact that our mothers chose to give us up for adoption. We have even prayed and asked God to bless them whoever, and wherever they are. But we are also unanimous in our agreement that we feel that we are somewhat special because, as we always used to joke with other kids, "our parents picked us out specifically; your's were stuck with the one the hospital made them bring home."

I feel that most of the kids who are having these "issues" about being adopted are having them because other people won't quit badgering them with questions like, "Doesn't it just make you crazy not knowing?", or "Don't you want to know just for your medical history?"(which, by the way, is a bogus argument in most cases), etc.

I have other relatives who are also adopted, and they are all very well adjusted, and don't have all these "issues" people keep talking about.

[uncbuck]

Does this really surprise anyone?

The only thing I can find useful in this is that I now know to support Ms. O'Neill.

[cricket]

"Just ask women because we're the ones who have to do it all, so I just think that it's our business, it's our problem and leave them out of it "

. . .except when it comes to the sperm donors support check. . .

[MHGinTN]

That distinction between right and legal can be nailed with liberal females by posing the following: 'if the court ruled in a famous rape case that the rape was legal --perhaps that bill clinton did rape Ms Broaddrick but the court chose to allow it for his sake as president-- and all rape then became legal, would rape be right since it had court protection?'

[Artist]

I have other relatives who are also adopted, and they are all very well adjusted, and don't have all these "issues" people keep talking about.

Thanks very much for your post. I couldn't agree more.

My family would be very small, and not nearly as happy, if adoption didn't exist. For instance, my mother was extremely close to her brother (who was adopted) while my sisters and I (all biological) have absolutely nothing in common but some DNA. We just try to avoid each other....so much for biology!

Personally, I think the "adoption trauma" thing has been really played up by "professionals" to make people who have aborted their children feel better about it. That is, they can tell themselves that if they'd placed their child for adoption, their child would have been damaged beyond repair....and was better off aborted. Of course, it's all garbage, but they don't care about that.

It's had a damaging effect though....I know an adoptive mom who was desperately trying to convince a friend whose daughter was pregnant not to take her to have an abortion. She tried to get her to consider placing the baby for adoption instead. The friend said, "Oh no, I could never do that to a grandchild," and the baby was aborted. It's tragic.

However, posts like yours are like a bucket of water on the Wicked Witch of the West. Please keep speaking out.

[ApesForEvolution]

"Jones proposed: “Suppose I am eighteen years old. I’m going to college. I was careless I made a mistake [so now, someone else has to die? self centered trash]. My life is ahead of me and I have chosen that I want to terminate that pregnancy and I don’t want to hear from you Miss O’Neill. In the first trimester, I make the decision in seven weeks. I don’t want to hear the options. I’ve made an informed decision.”"

What a gaggle of stupid communist be-atches. Baby butchers are pathetic.

[blue jeans]

Behar complained: “I think that adopted children have issues of their own too and giving up a baby after its come to term is a very painful thing also.

Whoah! You mean there's actually consequences for getting pregnant? Sounds to me that she's flummoxed that there's no easy way out.... in that if O'Neal is pointing out that abortion isn't the easy way out, then Behar assumes that the other options O'Neal lays on the table must all be easy too.

You play with fire... you get burned. Not that hard to understand.

You take a wonderful thing that God made and tied to creating children and if you play around... you end up suffering consequences. Not hard to figure out... folks just don't want to believe it... nevertheless even hear it.

[pke]

Post 26: Fantastic site! Thanks!