"Today, we are going to be talking about abortion because it is tearing up my insides," controversial comedian Nicole Arbour said in a video titled "Why Abortion Is WRONG!" that she published to her YouTube channel on Friday.
Arbour is the producer, star, and self-proclaimed "head cheerleader for life"/"blonde comedian" behind the horrifying video "Dear Fat People," released in early September. That video received more than 6 million views on YouTube — and a whole lot of criticism. "Why Abortion Is WRONG!" appears poised to follow in its footsteps — with over 200,000 visits in the few days it's been live. It also promises to generate roughly the same of amount of outrage.
The video's title is a trick: Her rant is in favor of abortion rights. It opens with Arbour saying, "Abortions are wrong…said no smart person, ever," and then she goes on to express a basic tenet of the pro-choice movement: "Do what you want, what you want with your body," she tells women.
The rest of the video is characteristically Arbour — that is, pretty brash and always straddling the line of being straight-up offensive.
One example: She sums up women who aren't pro-choice by saying it's "ironic that the people against abortion are the ones who probably should've been aborted."
She goes on to say, "I have a theory that some kids were supposed to be aborted, and the ones who weren't turned into murderers and crazy people."
Presumably, the video's intention is to point out what she sees as a lack of empathy on the part of pro-life activists — Arbour calls them "people with the giant signs of dead babies protesting" — such as those whose decision to doctor Planned Parenthood videos has dominated the news cycle recently.
But sometimes, it seems more that her intent is just to get people riled up. To the idea that abortion is murder, Arbour says, "That means that every single ejaculation would have to be used for procreation, and considering you guys" — meaning right-wing, pro-life people — "jack off all the time on your stupid fucking ideas, that's not gonna happen. Sperm can swim. They're alive."
Whether you think it's funny, offensive, or counterproductive, it's certainly succeeding at one thing: getting her videos viewed.