Rosie O'Donnell's Producer Compares Post-Abortion Guilt to Blaming a Rape Victim for Her Clothing

On Thursday's edition of Rosie O'Donnell's XM/Sirius radio show, abortion was on the agenda. What could have been a rational discussion about the nation's most debated social issue ended up being a slew of left-leaning perspective on the matter. In the end, some pretty bizarre statements were made. Newsbusters has more:

On Thursday’s edition of Rosie Radio on XM/Sirius, Rosie O’Donnell discussed talk show host and comedian Chelsea Handler's recent statement in a New York Times interview that she had an abortion when she was sixteen and still feels she made the right choice. Rosie and her executive producer Janette Barber agreed that it was courageous of Handler both to reveal the abortion and to say she doesn't regret it.

Here's where it turned ugly. A woman who had personal experience with abortion called in and expressed regret over her decisions. While Rosie responded pretty well to the woman's admission, the producer's rebuttal was disturbing at best. She dismissed the notion that the caller should feel any guilt over her abortions, comparing the woman's understandable emotions to the blame that rape victim might receive for wearing skimpy clothing. Newsbusters provides a transcribed account of the interaction (notice Rosie actually being the voice of reason here):

JANETTE BARBER: To me, it's almost like saying, 'Yeah, why were you in that alley in short shorts when you got raped?'

O'DONNELL: Well, it's different, because one is preventable and one isn't, right? If you're in an alley and you're raped, you don't have any control --

BARBER, not budging: But [people will say] ‘ your problem was you shouldn't have gone in the alley, you shouldn't have worn that outfit...’

But Barber's cracked-up commentary doesn't end there. After stating that she'd "fight to the freakin' death" for abortion rights, she explains what, as a kid, she had planned had she found herself pregnant in a nation that didn't afford women abortion rights:

I had plans [in the event of pregnancy]...I'm gonna wear a tent dress while I don't eat so I can get big and I can go in the woods, have it, kill it, and bury it, 'cause I didn't know how else I would get rid of it if I lost that right. I was pretty young when I had that plan, and I got over it.

Apparently, when Barber was young, nobody told her that adoption might me a more welcome plan that a covert birth and subsequent child-murder in the woods. Luckily, she "got over it."

Rosie has tackled abortion on her show in the past. Below, hear a clip where she discusses taxpayer-funded abortions versus paying for unwanted children in foster care:

(h/t Tim Graham/NewsBusters)