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Lena Dunham says she wishes she had an abortion, and people are really mad

Yikes.

Martha Tesema

on December 20, 2016

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

UPDATE: Dec. 21, 2016, 6:09 p.m. AEDT Lena Dunham has responded to the furore over her abortion comments via an Instagram post, apologising to "the women who have placed their trust in me."

Dunham said she hoped to tell a "multifaceted" story about reproductive rights and did not mean to trivialize the choices some women make.

"My words were spoken from a sort of "delusional girl" persona I often inhabit, a girl who careens between wisdom and ignorance (that's what my TV show is too) and it didn't translate," she wrote. "I take reproductive choice in America more seriously than I take literally anything else, and therefore own full responsibility for any words I speak that don't convey this truth clearly."

Lena Dunham made some comments this week that have people all riled up —again.

The actress is currently under fire for remarks made on her podcast, Woman of the Hour.

In a recent episode, Dunham spoke about a conversation she had while visiting a Planned Parenthood in Texas. A young woman opened up about her decision to have an abortion and before launching into that narrative, Dunham herself said she wished she had an abortion, too.

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Yikes.

“I wanted to make it really clear to her that, as much as I was going out and fighting for other women’s options, I myself had never had an abortion," Dunham explained on the show. "I realized then that even I was carrying within myself stigma around this issue. Even I, the woman who cares as much as anybody about a woman’s right to choose, felt that it was important that people know that I was unblemished in this department.”

And while using the word "unblemished" in the context of women's reproductive rights is itself a moment in Dunham's monologue that might need further examination, people were particularly pissed about a later statement.

“Now I can say that I still haven’t had an abortion, but I wish I had," Dunham said, after recognizing those in her life who had undergone the medical procedure.

The reaction was strong, and folks were not afraid to tackle Dunham's problematic trivialization in 140 characters.