How many people who call the unborn “just a clump of cells” are prepared to read Britney Spears’ new memoir?
Normally, a memoir from a troubled pop star wouldn’t be anything of sociopolitical import. There are bound to be some “shocking revelations” that the denser portions of your social media friends list will be talking about for a week or two (see also: Smith, Jada Pinkett), and then the book will hit the remainder bin shortly thereafter.
However, when the pop star has been through a series of grueling public trials — including breakdowns and a conservatorship — yet still calls an abortion she feels pressured into one of the worst experiences of her life, you can see why those who were all behind #ShoutYourAbortion might hush up on this one.
According to an excerpt obtained by People magazine, Spears alleges in her forthcoming memoir, “The Woman in Me,” that she became pregnant by longtime boyfriend Justin Timberlake in 2000 but was pressured into having an abortion.
“It was a surprise, but for me, it wasn’t a tragedy. I loved Justin so much,” Spears wrote in the book.
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“I always expected us to have a family together one day. This would just be much earlier than I’d anticipated,” the 41-year-old singer said.
However, the complication was the man in her life wasn’t ready to man up, she said.
“But Justin definitely wasn’t happy about the pregnancy. He said we weren’t ready to have a baby in our lives, that we were way too young,” Spears wrote.
She wrote that “had been left up to me alone, I never would have done it. And yet Justin was so sure that he didn’t want to be a father.”
So, Spears aborted the unborn child. The two would break up in 2002.
“To this day, it’s one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life,” she wrote in the book.
Britney Spears reveals she and Justin Timberlake agreed to get an abortion after she got pregnant with his baby, due to him not “being happy” about it:
“It was a surprise, but for me, it wasn’t a tragedy. I loved Justin so much. I always expected us to have a family together one… pic.twitter.com/o63B8m1PiA
— Pop Base (@PopBase) October 17, 2023
Spears has two sons with her former husband, Kevin Federline — ages 18 and 17.
As LifeSite News noted Tuesday, the pop star lost custody of her children under her conservatorship and said she was forced to have an intrauterine device implanted during that period to stop her from getting pregnant again.
On social media, many users have been speculating that the song “Everytime” — from Spears 2003 album “In the Zone” — deals with her abortion experience.
Among the lyrics? “I guess I need you, baby; and every time I see you in my dreams I see your face: it’s haunting me,” and, “Please, forgive me; my weakness caused you pain; And this song’s my sorry.”
The video also features a woman in the delivery room:
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Now, it’s worth noting that Timberlake’s camp has thus far declined comment.
According to the New York Post’s Page Six, sources close to Timberlake said the former *NSYNC singer was “concerned” about what Spears might reveal in her memoir and that it was “eating at him.”
As well it should, given the public barbs the two have traded over the years. Granted, this is one woman’s side of the story, but it’s certainly a compelling one — and one that, with the retrospective corroborating evidence provided by the “Everytime” video, seems even more credible.
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The abortion pressure Spears described is not uncommon: As the pro-life Live Action noted, one study found that “64% of women who have undergone an abortion did so due to pressure from parents, boyfriends, employers, and friends” and “research published by the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons reported that 73.8% of women with a history of abortion experienced ‘at least subtle forms of pressure’ to abort.”
Spears has been through the media ringer since she was a teenager, and Britney-bashing is something that has ceased to be a form of amusement for all but the most sadistic.
She’s been sexualized, infantilized and stigmatized by a culture and society that likes its celebrities to be just the right amount of fake and hate-worthy. When it became too uncomfortable and too real because Spears’ problems seemed all too human, Us Weekly readers moved on to the next target.
Yet, after all that, Spears still says having an abortion was “one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life.”
Even the most passive observer of the media knows something of Spears’ travails. If she can say that in honesty, then no, it’s not just surgically flushing “a clump of cells.”
