'Restrictive abortion laws punish and endanger girls': Emma Watson's support for abortion rights has some fans upset

Lauren Holter

Emma Watson isn’t shy about sharing her political beliefs when it comes to feminist (or antifeminist) policies. Over the weekend, she shared an open letter she wrote for Porter magazine addressed to Savita Halappanavar, the woman whose death became a rallying cry for Ireland to repeal its longtime ban on abortion.

“You didn’t want to become the face of a movement; you wanted a procedure that would have saved your life,” Watson began her letter to Halappanavar.

Ireland voted to legalize abortion in May, and the president made the repeal official in September. The Eighth Amendment previously prohibited the procedure unless there was a serious risk to the mother’s health, though some doctors would still refuse to perform an abortion in those cases. Thousands of women traveled outside of the country to terminate a pregnancy each year, but others like Halappanavar didn’t have that opportunity.

Emma Watson penned a letter to the woman whose death became a rallying cry for Ireland to legalize abortion. (Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)
Emma Watson penned a letter to the woman whose death became a rallying cry for Ireland to legalize abortion. (Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

When doctors at an Irish hospital found that she was miscarrying 17 weeks into her pregnancy, she was refused the procedure multiple times because a fetal heartbeat was detected. The 31-year-old dentist died in 2012, a week after first going to the hospital.

“That the eighth amendment enabled valuing the life of an unborn fetus over a living woman was a wake-up call to a nation,” Watson wrote. “For you, and those forced to travel to the U.K. to access safe, legal abortion, justice was hard-won. From Argentina to Poland, restrictive abortion laws punish and endanger girls, women and pregnant people. Still, Northern Ireland’s abortion law predates the lightbulb.”

Watson’s letter ended with a call to action, urging people to support the global abortion funds Abortion Support Network and Women Help Women. But while fellow feminists praised her activism, she also faced backlash online from those who oppose abortion rights.

Reese Witherspoon received similar backlash in September for speaking out about reproductive rights. After Witherspoon retweeted the transcript of California Sen. Kamala Harris asking President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh if any laws give the government power over men’s bodies, some people online told her to keep her “Hollywood elite” politics to herself.

As debates about reproductive rights heat up around the globe, celebrities are increasingly using their prominence to speak out and encourage fans to support women’s autonomy.

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