AUSTRALIA: Abortion Comment By Dan Savage Ignites Internet Firestorm

For several years the Sydney Opera House has hosted a forum titled the Festival Of Dangerous Ideas, where pundits and personalities like (the late) Christopher Hitchens, Julian Assange, and Alan Dershowitz have appeared. At this year's event, Savage was asked to present a "dangerous idea." His response:

"Population control: there's too many goddamn people on the planet. You know, I'm pro-choice, I believe that women should have a right to control their bodies. Sometimes in my darker moments, I'm anti-choice. I think abortion should be mandatory for about 30 years."

Savage's response is blowing up on Twitter this afternoon and is being posted across the wingnut-o-sphere. Pat Buchanan's biographer Tim Stanley goes off at Britain's Telegraph:

In retrospect, Savage might try to insist that he was only joking but there's no smile on his face and the point seems quite seriously made. It's also not funny. Had he said that old people should be exterminated to bring the numbers down, his career might be over. Because he said something similar about abortion, he'll probably be defended by radical pro-choicers. But what he's basically saying here is that women should be compelled to abort their children so that there are less people around to annoy Dan Savage. Of course, they already do this in China. The irony is that prior to this comment Savage and Hitchens were arguing about who was the more authoritarian: religious conservatives or free-loving liberals. With this statement on abortion, Savage answers his own question. In a way that should make both Left and Right shudder.

As you'll see in the clip, Savage was joking. And the audience did laugh.