Bonnie Blue has achieved something nigh impossible in today’s political landscape – she has united Britain under one singular opinion: unilateral disgust. After faking a pregnancy, the “adult content star” is now, apparently, genuinely expecting a baby due in November. Far from halting her explicit internet sex stunts to prepare for motherhood, Bonnie Blue has doubled down – announcing her intent to host an X-rated “golden baby shower,” featuring all manner of bodily fluids.
The unborn baby carried in her belly is seemingly to become a fetish prop for a porn party. He’s being exploited for profit within the sex industry before he’s even been born. From Conservative MP Alicia Kearns and Your party-turned-independent MP Adnan Hussain to Guardianista Owen Jones, the event has been denounced as irresponsible and degrading. Many have even called for social services to be involved out of concern for the child’s welfare.
The abortion movement has spent decades insisting that pregnancy concerns only one person
The outrage is understandable. What is less understandable is how many of those expressing it fail to see the contradiction staring them in the face. If Bonnie Blue’s unborn baby matters enough for us to worry about what happens to it during pregnancy, then perhaps the unborn baby matters rather more than modern abortion politics would like to admit.
For years, Britain’s abortion debate has been dominated by a simple slogan: “My body, my choice.” The phrase is politically useful because it removes a difficult question from the conversation – inviting us to believe that pregnancy concerns only one person and one body. Any competing interest can simply be brushed aside. Yet nobody actually behaves as though this were true.
When a pregnant woman smokes or drinks heavily or takes drugs, people disapprove. We recognize that there is a victim beyond the woman herself. Why? Because we know perfectly well that there is another human being involved. The public reaction to Bonnie Blue proves the point. Critics are not expressing concern for an abstract concept – they are worried about a baby.
That instinct is entirely rational. A child in the womb does not suddenly acquire moral significance the moment he passes through the birth canal. Nor does his value depend on whether his mother is a porn star.
Our society already acknowledges this reality in countless ways. We celebrate pregnancy announcements. We buy baby clothes months before birth. We mourn miscarriages. We perform surgery on unborn children. Newspapers routinely describe expectant couples as “having a baby,” not “hosting a clump of cells.”
Indeed, advances in medical technology have made the old euphemisms increasingly difficult to sustain. Modern ultrasound imagery has allowed millions of parents to see their children before birth – squirming, hiccupping, swallowing, sucking their thumb. The humanity of the unborn child has become harder than ever to deny.
And yet the pro-abortion framing we have been forced to adopt in British society requires precisely that denial. The result is a bizarre moral double standard.
If Bonnie Blue’s baby is due in November, that means she’s somewhere between 18 and 22 weeks along. Her baby has taste buds and fingernails. His frontal cortex is rapidly developing. He’s capable of experiencing pain. With medical support, babies born at 22 weeks can survive outside the womb.
If his mother behaves abominably during pregnancy, we are told that concern for the unborn child is justified. If somebody harms a pregnant woman and her baby dies, public sympathy rightly extends to both victims. But if Bonnie Blue were to decide to schedule an abortion for her baby today, we are expected to pretend that no competing interests exist at all.
Let’s not gloss over what this procedure would involve. At 18 to 22 weeks, a surgical “dilation and evacuation” abortion would likely be performed: inserting forceps to pull the baby’s body apart in the womb and then removing him via the birth canal piece by piece. Claiming this action would be Bonnie Blue’s “right,” but that holding a “golden baby shower” is “wrong,” is not a coherent moral framework. We cannot patchwork together our moral convictions based on popular euphemisms and slogans.
In reality, most Brits are more pro-life than they think. Of course, most people support legal abortion in some circumstances. They may dislike the language or image of the pro-life movement. They may not support an outright ban. But their everyday moral intuitions reveal something important: they believe unborn children have value, and that pregnant mothers have responsibilities towards them. They believe some actions are wrong because they harm a child in the womb.
The deeper question is what follows from these intuitions. For decades, western societies have embraced a vision of freedom which reveres individual “choice” as supreme. Duties, obligations and social norms were increasingly viewed as relics of a less enlightened age. Yet dig down, and human beings have never really believed this. Freedom has always existed alongside responsibility, particularly towards the vulnerable.
Children are the most obvious example. We do not allow parents to neglect them in the name of personal liberty. We do not defend exploitation as self-expression. Why should the unborn be different?
The Bonnie Blue controversy has generated so much attention because it collides with our deepest moral instincts. People sense that there is somebody else involved – somebody who ought to be protected. The abortion movement has spent decades insisting that pregnancy concerns only one person. Public outrage over Bonnie Blue suggests that most people know better.
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