Entertainment

‘We are wearing Valentino!’

Matt K. Lewis Senior Contributor
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Fusion TV’s Jorge Ramos recently pressed Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards, who is a mother, to answer the question: “When do you think life starts.” “For me,” Richards responded, “life began when I delivered them.”

I thought of that last night when actress Olivia Wilde joked to Ryan Seacrest that “we are wearing Valentino.”

Wilde is most likely not pro-life politically, but that’s beside the point. She talked about her baby the way almost all people talk about unborn babies. Which is to say, nobody talks about their fetus.

“I’m drinking for three,” I would often joke at dinners when my wife was pregnant. We say these things because they are humorous and because they are fundamentally true (and, perhaps, because we drink too much).

A confession: I debated whether or not to even bring this up. Like every large event in our modern society, politics creeps into the Oscars. Many of the films have overt political messages, of course, but it doesn’t end there. “A happy-go-lucky lesbian” hosted this year’s event (according to the New York Times), best Actor Oscar-winner Matthew McConaughey thanked God, and co-star Jared Leto mentioned Ukraine and Venezuela (just to name a few of the topics he covered) during his Oscar speech.

This is to say there was a lot of cultural and political ground covered. But the most telling political statements aren’t planned statements. They’re organic. How we think and talk when we don’t think we are being political at all probably says more about our fundamental beliefs than our public political pronouncements.

Along those lines, it’s worth noting that Wilde wasn’t the only expectant mom to talk about her baby like, well, a baby. For example, journalist Brandi Hitt tweeted this photo:

Again, my guess is that many of the celebrity moms who talk about their unborn babies aren’t even pro-life, and might intellectually agree with Richards’ argument that life begins at delivery.

At the very least, this is an interesting example of cognitive dissonance at work.