John Legend Debates Abortion With Christian YouTuber Ruslan

R&B singer and songwriter John Legend responded to a video that Christian YouTuber Ruslan made addressing the singer’s views on abortion. Ruslan was reacting to comments Legend made in a conversation with former pro football player and commentator Shannon Sharpe in which Legend shared about a miscarriage his wife, Chrissy Teigen, had.

“I was always pro-choice,” Legend told Sharpe in the interview on Sharpe’s podcast, “Club Shay Shay,” on Oct. 23. “Actually, not always. I grew up in the church, and we were taught that, you know, we were supposed to be pro-life.”

“As soon as I became an adult, I just realized that we need that choice,” he continued. “We don’t need the government telling us what to do, and women don’t need the government telling them what to do with their bodies. And life is complicated, and there are all kinds of reasons why people might want or need an abortion, and the government has no place in that decision.”

John Legend, whose real name is John Roger Stephens, has won 12 Grammy Awards and received 36 Grammy Award nominations. Legend has served as a coach on “The Voice” and became the first Black man to achieve the prestigious EGOT, meaning he has won at least one Emmy (he has two), Grammy, Oscar and Tony.

Sharpe is a former NFL tight end and football analyst. He is a three-time Super Bowl champion and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame whom many view as one of the best tight ends of all time. During his conversation with Legend, Sharpe brought up that at one time Teigen had a “life-saving abortion” and asked if that event, in addition to the reversal of Roe v. Wade, impacted Legend’s views on abortion.

Legend shared that he and his wife had four of their children through in vitro fertilization (IVF) and that they lost their son, Jack, the only child they conceived naturally. Teigen initially spoke of the loss of their son as a miscarriage but later said it was “an abortion to save my life for a baby that had absolutely no chance.”

“When we went through all these fertility struggles and had a miscarriage, it made it even more clear to me how personal everything [is] that happens in that room with your OBGYN,” said Legend. “Everything that happens in that room is private, and it’s so intensely personal and intensely physical, a woman feels every aspect of this thing.”

He said that “forcing [women] to carry something for nine months” if they don’t want to is “crazy to me.” Regarding restricting abortions to no later than 15 weeks, Legend said, “People that have an abortion after 15 weeks, almost always, they wanted to keep the baby, but there’s some kind of complication that came up that they have to have an abortion.”

In his wife’s case, Legend said “she was well past 15 weeks when she had to have an abortion. She was miscarrying and bleeding out. All these things were happening. Her life was in danger.”

He expressed shock at the idea that the government would “need to evaluate this to make sure you’re sufficiently dying before you can have an abortion.” Source