'Last Week Tonight With John Oliver' HBO/Screenshot
Abortions are like breast implants, said Oliver: "Some are against them, others believe they're fine in rare cases, and many believe you should be able to get them whenever the f— you want."
On Sunday's Last Week Tonight, John Oliver took on abortion laws, a topic so polarizing that he first announced the segment's subject to be breast implants, and noted of both procedures, "Some are against them, others believe they're fine in rare cases, and many believe you should be able to get them whenever the f— you want."
Oliver outlined that current state laws lean on the 1992 Supreme Court ruling Planned Parenthood v. Casey, after which "women can be asked to jump through a few hoops, just not too many" to undergo an abortion. But some states' TRAP laws (targeted regulation of abortion providers) which claim to protect women's health actually lead to the spread of misinformation, the prevention of procedures and the forced closure of clinics, to the point where four states now only have one abortion clinic each: "Mississippi now has four times as many S's as abortion clinics."
For example, one state's proposed law asked that clinics be located at least 2,000 feet away from schools. "They’re treating someone like a sex offender when he clearly isn’t one — it’s a move that’s now commonly known as a reverse-Cosby," Oliver explained.
"Abortion cannot just be theoretically legal, it has to be literally accessible," the host asserted, as an important Texas case is on the table. He closed the segment by fulfilling his promise to share footage of "sloths in a bucket," plus a live sloth on set — with a nightcap, to help the Sunday night viewers get to bed.
Watch the full segment below.
