Actor Kelsey Grammer’s pro-life (or anti-abortion/anti-choice, depending upon your world view) T-shirt has prompted a lot of Internet controversy, with both supportive and opposing responses.
A now-viral photo on his and wife Kayte’s Instagram page shows Grammer wearing a shirt containing language seemingly linking abortion to gun violence. Kayte herself also models a matching (other than color) shirt on the same joint Instagram account along with the hashtags #standwithbabies and #abort73.
The shirt, which also contains the image of a handgun, reads “Would it bother us more if they used guns?” along with the web address Abort73.com.
The T-shirt comes into play as a controversy over the Planned Parenthood organization allegedly harvesting and selling organs from aborted babies is under investigation by Congress.
A nonprofit Christian organization, Abort73 describes itself as “an online resource designed to creatively and comprehensively educate students about the injustice of abortion.”
The year 1973 is when the Supreme Court issued its landmark abortion ruling in the Roe v. Wade case.
As far as the controversial T-shirt — which the organization sells for $15 — is concerned, Abort73 explains that “This is not a shirt about gun control. It’s simply a response to the fact that when children are the victims of gun violence, the world is outraged. When children are the victims of abortion violence, the world barely notices.”
A father of six children who has had a volatile personal life, Grammer is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Dr. Foster Crane on the long-running NBC sitcoms Cheers and Frazier . He is a five-time Emmy winner, with three Golden Globes also on his resume. He divorced wife number three, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Camille Grammer, shortly before marrying Kayte Walsh in 2011, with whom he has two kids.
Setting aside the merits of a particular issue, publicly expressing right-of-center political views can often be a career killer in Hollywood, but Grammer, 60, is so far along in his acting journey that it probably doesn’t matter. In an August 2012 appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, however, Grammer attributed political bias against him as an “out of the closet” Republican for not receiving an Emmy nomination for his work as the title character on the Starz drama Boss, in which he played a fictional mayor of Chicago .
In a 2011 CNN interview, Grammer explained that “I don’t tend to warm too well to people that tell me how I’m supposed to think. So, my life in Hollywood — I’m afraid I was destined to be a Republican.”
Feminist website Jezebel is not a fan of the rhetorical question posed by the Kelsey Grammer/Kayte Grammer pro-life T-shirt.
“Well, to answer your question, Kelsey’s ugly T-shirt: yes, it would bother us more! Mainly because guns aren’t generally used by doctors for medical procedures. When imagining a doctor hovering over their patient, you picture them saying, ‘Scalpel,’ not, ‘Semi-automatic pistol.’”
The SheKnows website also chimed in with a similar opinion.
“[Grammer’s] flippant disregard for those affected by gun violence and those who would like to see gun laws overhauled in this country is entirely within his rights. He is also allowed to think that these two extremely complex issues are simple enough to boil down to a catchy T-shirt slogan and snap a photo of himself creepily smiling like he is showing off a new prize.”
ICYMI! I am so DISTURBED by #KelseyGrammer ’s anti-abortion t-shirt! http://t.co/7V5N5oKncl pic.twitter.com/2OY4pJGcut
— Perez Hilton (@PerezHilton) October 10, 2015
Kelsey Grammer is blowing up Instagram with this shirt and his 1,800-ton brass balls. http://t.co/xwhc1QiIm9 pic.twitter.com/Difjezsg5w
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) October 9, 2015
Do you think that the Kelsey Grammer pro-life T-shirt will advance the anti-abortion cause?
[Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images Entertainment]