The Edinburgh Festival Fringe will be featuring another “comedy” show on abortion, as Irish comedian Katie Boyle explains, “I can f**king joke about [my abortion] if I want to”.
In what appears to be becoming an annual event at the comedy festival, another comedian is set to be centering her act on abortion. This year, Boyle will be performing her latest comedy show at the Fringe in August titled Roe v. Wade versus Katie, which is described as “a uniquely personal dark comedy”.
Commenting that she does not “regret” an abortion she had earlier this year in America, Boyle told the Irish Independent “[Some people] are like ‘Oh, you’re doing a comedy show about this’. And it’s like, yeah, it is my trauma. So I can f**king joke about it if I want to. The whole point of the comedy show is that… I don’t regret it, thank God it was an option”.
In her comedy show, Boyle recounts her experience of having an abortion in America after the US Supreme Court struck down the Roe v Wade decision in 2022, the ruling that had previously legalised abortion across the United States since 1973.
The overturning of Roe v Wade did not introduce a total ban on abortion throughout the United States, instead, individual states are now able to decide their own abortion legislation.
Boyle’s show comes after the Edinburgh Fringe Festival has hosted pro-abortion comedy events in previous years. In 2024, a show called Catholic Guilt by US comedian Kelly McCaughan attempted to make light of abortion. Promotional content for the play read “Put on your waterproof panties and get ready to unpack everything from losing your virginity in the most holy way, to abortion, to a bowling experience that leads to eternal damnation”.
Comedy about abortion “very conflicting”
Another comedian, Grace Campbell, daughter of Tony Blair’s former spin doctor Alistair Campbell, described the “pervasive sense of guilt” she experienced after having an abortion and said her comedy show, in which her abortion features as a topic, is “almost like an exorcism”.
Campbell’s experience of abortion was incorporated into her comedy show Grace Campbell Is on Heat, which was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe last year. Campbell has described the discussion of abortion in her comedy as “very conflicting”.
“And people don’t know if they’re allowed to laugh”, she added.
Campbell’s show followed an “all-singing, all-dancing comedy cabaret show”, All Aboard! At Termination Station, about the playwright Lilly Burton having multiple abortions. The show, taken to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023, drew criticism for trivialising the subject.
Several other shows at the Edinburgh Fringe have also focused on abortion. One, Jane/Norma, explored the life of Norma McCorvey, known as ‘Jane Roe’, the plaintiff in America’s Roe v Wade case that led to the legalisation of abortion across all states in America. Other stand-up comedy performances took aim at pro-life views, encouraging viewers to “laugh at arbitrary religious teachings” and branding opposition to abortion as “control”.
Latest abortion statistics a “national tragedy”
These Edinburgh Fringe shows have conveyed the impression that abortion should be normalised and an appropriate topic for jokes. However, the latest abortion statistics show what can only be described as a national tragedy, with 29.69% of all conceptions in England and Wales ending in abortion in 2022, up from 26.54% a year earlier – and a large increase since 2012, when 20.84% of conceptions ended in abortion, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics.
Over 10 million abortions have taken place in the UK since 1967. In addition to over 10 million lives lost to abortion, many women have shared their painful experiences of abortion. Disability campaigners have also spoken about the discrimination they face as a result of the UK’s approach to abortion.
The Republic of Ireland, Katie Boyle’s own country, last year experienced the highest number of abortions since abortion was made legal in the country, with the latest figures showing there were 10,852 abortions in 2024.
Spokesperson for Right To Life UK, Catherine Robinson, said “It is deeply sad that we live in a society that has trivialised abortion to the extent that so-called comedies are being made about the ending of the lives of babies in the womb. Abortion is a deeply sensitive subject, as comedian Grace Campbell showed when she said she was left ‘floored by a grief so intense it scared [her]’ after her abortion”.
“The latest statistics show us that abortion is far from a laughing matter, with almost 1 in 3 conceptions ending in abortion in England and Wales in 2022″.
“These figures remind us that abortion is no laughing matter”.
