The ladies of The View are known for being not only opinionated, but for the deeply personal antidotes and experiences they often share to back up their thoughts. This week’s programming was no different when Sherri Shepherd shared some information about her stance on a new Texas law during “Hot Topics”. The law, created in an attempt to prevent abortions, requires women to have a sonogram, see images, hear fetal heartbeats and know features of the fetus at least 24-hours before terminating a pregnancy. Considered the most extreme sonogram law in the nation, the mandate went into effect on Tuesday; unsurprisingly, it was met mixed reviews and great outcry from women’s rights organization.
Equally as mixed in views were the ladies on the show, from Joy Behar calling it “totalitarian” to the conservative, Elizabeth Hasselbeck saying it made perfect medical sense like seeing a cyst removed. When Shepherd chimed in, the debate went from lively to emotional as she spoke about how this law would have changed her past. “I’m speaking as a girl who had a lot of abortions and I swear to God, if they had shown me a picture of the fetus… I would have put my child in a lot of situations that wouldn’t have been good because I didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with having a child,” she said. “It was real difficult, it’s a hard thing.”
Shepherd and Whoopi Goldberg then said that those who protest against abortions don’t work to support mothers who aren’t quite ready to have children. Mentioning the recent attacks on Planned Parenthood, Shepherd acknowledged that there needs to be support for those who decide to keep their babies after viewing the sonogram.
How might this new law impact women who find themselves shamed into keeping a pregnancy? And was Shepherd’s reveal a bit too personal?
