Bill Maher Admits He's 'Squishy' on Abortion, Gets Absolutely Wrecked by Rep. Katie Porter

By Mike Redmond | Celebrity | June 10, 2019 |

By Mike Redmond | Celebrity | June 10, 2019 |

Bill Maher fancies himself an intellectual libertine, unmoored by the lesser constraints of society’s pedestrian views on sexual congress. As a frequent guest of Hugh Hefner’s pajama parties, Maher’s habitual pursuit for pleasures of the flesh has led him to elicit such hot takes as “Hey, maybe Michael Jackson gently masturbating young boys wasn’t so bad?” (He literally used the word gentle.) So given Maher’s laissez-faire views on sex, it’d only make sense that he’d share a similar view towards his partners’ bodily autonomy.

NOPE.

While discussing Joe Biden’s reversal on the Hyde Amendment, Maher cemented his already well-fortified status as a cranky, out-of-touch, old white prick by admitting he’s not entirely on board with abortion, and Rep. Katie Porter was not having it.

Wow @RepKatiePorter out-funnied Bill Maher on his own show. Maher said he's "squishy" on choice because his mom almost didn't have him, and Porter absolutely brought down the house with this response pic.twitter.com/F6WDDfYSqQ

— Tommy Xtophernobyl (@tommyxtopher) June 8, 2019

For those of you who can’t watch the video, here’s a rundown by Mediaite, which really doesn’t do justice to how absolutely pissed Maher gets after being thoroughly murdered on his own show.

Maher pushed back by telling Porter that a lot of women are “pro-life,” and added “I mean look, I am pro-choice, but I mean, I’m a little squishy and always have been because they told my mother after my sister, very difficult birth, she shouldn’t have another one.”

“So knowing that I could have been on the cutting room floor, I’m…” Maher said, pausing for what he expected would be groans from the audience. There were no groans, but Maher responded to them anyway by saying “What? What? Why is that so terrible? But I get it, as long as it’s still in you you…”

“Look, your mom made her choice,” Porter said, and after a beat, added “And we’re all here with the consequences of that choice.”

The audience and the panel erupted, and Maher stood up and told the audience “First of all, f*ck you, you can go watch another show, we got a lot on the lot here if I’m not doing it for you.”

And as Porter tried to continue, Maher protested “No, no, I’m asking the hard question.”

I don’t want to rehash the abortion debate because, point blank, it is exactly wrong to deny women the right to choose what to do with their own bodies because a couple of assholes in the ’70s realized Christian conservatives will show up and vote “pro-life” every single election without fail like the goddamn mindless zombies that they are. What I do want to get into is the fact that it is extremely telling that Bill Maher not only believes that he should have the right to f*ck whoever and whenever he wants, but if one of those women get pregnant, they should have to deal with the consequences for nine months while he bounces off to the next hooker.

In a way, Maher is actually worse than Meghan McCain when it comes to abortion. For starters, Meghan isn’t knocking people up then going, “Whoops, did I do that?” as they’re left to drown in a pool of theocratic quicksand. And at least with Meghan, she’s upfront with her ass-horrible views. Maher, on the other hand, acts like he’s an enlightened voice of reason when really he’s just another old white guy who wishes the world would go back to the way things were. Like when you could pop a kid in the mouth before he or she starts asking for things like healthcare, living wages, and not being sexually harassed from sun-up to sundown.

Via The Daily Beast:

Standing at the lectern, Maher said, “Parents, I’m here today to tell you the results of your parenting have been incredible—for the pharmaceutical industry. Because these kids are fucked up and need drugs. They need drugs for the crushing levels of anxiety they have, brought on by the knowledge that after the way you pampered and spoiled them, life is going to crush them like the white kid in a spelling bee.” (Translation: Maher believes that America’s prescription drug problem is mainly due to soft parenting, not, say, his generation overprescribing dangerous medications.)

“I’m just trying to be your friend, which is someone who tells you the truth,” Maher continued. “And the truth is, the world is unfair—it’s not like college, it’s like the Electoral College. And you kids, you’re about to enter freshman year of life, and that can be very unsettling—much like the slap in the face that your parents should have given you the first time you swore at them.” (Translation: parents should have slapped their children more.)

As someone who’s not a millennial — missed it by *that* much — and was routinely smacked in the face, let me tell Bill Maher exactly how that panned out because, clearly, I should be a sterling example of the fruits of hard parenting: I am f*cking riddled with anxiety. Which tends to happen when you introduce violence into a child’s world at a young age, and it remains a constant presence until they leave the house. That person grows up never feeling truly safe, good enough, or not hovering on the edge of anger. And before someone jumps in and accuses me of being one of those parents who lets their kids run around like feral cats, there are ways to teach your children rules, boundaries, and proper respect without bringing assault into the picture. It just requires more effort than immediately taking your frustration out on a human half your size.

Anyway, the obvious rebuttal from Maher will probably be the same as it is whenever this topic comes up, “My parents beat me and I turned out just fine.” While there’s something intrinsically wrong with becoming an adult who thinks beating children is not only acceptable but something to spend your spare time demanding more people do, in this particular case, the person definitely didn’t turn out fine. They turned out to be Bill Maher.

Hard pass.