In a video posted over the weekend, Perez Hilton, a blogger and media personality, reacted to the news that Kylie Jenner of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” is expecting a baby with boyfriend, Travis Scott. Hilton, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, ranted about how Jenner, recently turned 20, would be an unfit mother and therefore should abort her preborn daughter.
Hilton opined, “It’s just sad, because, I don’t want to project too much onto Kylie Jenner, but based on everything I know, I personally don’t think at 19 and given who she is and where she is in her life she’s gonna be a great mom!” Based on these judgmental assessments he exclaimed, “She should have had an abortion, right?” Celebrities have begun to speak out about the prevalence of coerced abortions in Hollywood, and Hilton’s rambling PSA is a good example of the culture that breeds such inhumane thinking.
As Hilton repeated throughout the video, the news story is “great for business.” Not only are the Kardashians gaining media attention but Hilton also garnered countless clicks through his posting about the situation. Hilton’s offensive remarks outraged anti-Life and Pro-Life commentators alike. Anti-Life pundits sadly see Hilton’s deranged tirade as proof that “Perez Hilton—and all men—should shut up about abortion.” The original video drew so much ire that Hilton posted a follow-up piece in which he claimed, “I 1000 percent respect a woman’s right to choose,” in response to the anti-Life criticism of his comments.
Hilton elaborated with the flimsy defense, “I am not saying that Kylie Jenner should get an abortion right now. What I said… is that if I were her mother, I would have told Kylie Jenner to get an abortion when they found out in July.” Why killing a preborn child in July would be acceptable while there is something objectionable about killing a preborn child in September is unclear, because science confirms that human Life begins at fertilization. Whether in July or September, the preborn child is a human being and either killing that human being is right or wrong. Hilton dismisses any argument asserting, “You do you; I’ll do me. You do you; I’ll keep doing me!”
More disturbing than this run-of-the-mill argument that abortion is acceptable early in pregnancy is Hilton’s unapologetic repetition of his key point from the original video. He claims, “I truly believe, if I were Kris Jenner [Kylie’s mother], the best option for Kylie and her future and for that child would have been for her to abort that baby.” According to Hilton, a preborn baby would be better dead than alive simply because he deems that baby’s parents unfit.
Hilton’s comments are significant, not as the ramblings of a B-List celebrity gossipmonger, but for what they reveal about the anti-Life worldview. Once abortion is a socially acceptable way to decide that a child will be born dead instead of alive, you cannot fathom any course of action except abortion in certain circumstances. In this deluded way of thinking, Hilton can say “my heart just goes out to that poor, unborn child” while advocating for the violent death of that child. In a just society, a person’s Right to Life cannot depend on the maturity of his or her parents or the likelihood that those parents will be approved by peers. Financially stable parents can lose their jobs or their health; attentive parents can develop mental illness that impairs their ability to care for their children. None of those factors can ever justly determine whether a child lives or dies.