Anne Hathaway told The View that ending an unborn child's life could be an act of mercy.
Four years later, that same clip just resurfaced online, and it is costing her.
Now conservatives are lining up to make sure she feels it at the box office.
Anne Hathaway's 2022 Comments on Abortion and Mercy
Back on November 1, 2022, Hathaway sat down with the panel on The View just months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Co-host Joy Behar brought up an Instagram post Hathaway had written mourning the decision.
Hathaway did not hold back.
"Abortion can be another word for mercy," she said, live on national television.
She kept going, arguing that no single law could fit every pregnancy or every woman's situation.
"When you allow for choice, you allow for flexibility, which is what we need in order to be human," Hathaway told the panel.
Translation: killing an unborn child is just another form of flexibility.
That clip sat quietly for almost four years – until the pro-life outlet LifeNews.com dug it up and put it back in front of the country.
Hollywood's Pattern of Abortion Comments on The View
This is not the first time a star has used that couch to normalize ending an innocent life.
Actress Jane Fonda once suggested murder as an option for fighting pro-life laws on that same set, and a co-host quickly insisted she was only joking.
Actress Natasha Lyonne has publicly complained that twelve year old girls do not have enough access to abortion.
Writer and actress Lena Dunham once said on camera that she wished she had had an abortion herself.
Hathaway's "mercy" line fits right into that lineup.
Senator Mike Lee was not buying it.
The Utah Republican posted the clip on X and let the unborn get the last word.
"Anne Hathaway: Abortion can be another word for mercy. Babies: The word 'mercy' doesn't mean what you think it means," Lee posted.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham called the resurfaced comment "truly sick."
Conservative commentator Riley Gaines went further.
"Anne Hathaway thinks it can be merciful to end human life deemed inconvenient," Gaines wrote, adding, "And all the women of The View smile and nod along in agreement."
Days of Thunder 2 Backlash Grows for Tom Cruise and Anne Hathaway After the Abortion Clip
Here is where it gets expensive for Hathaway.
She is currently attached to Days of Thunder 2 opposite Tom Cruise, a sequel set for 2028.
The casting was already under fire before the abortion clip resurfaced.
Original Days of Thunder star Randy Quaid trashed the choice just days earlier, calling it a "horrible choice" for the franchise.
The abortion clip has now handed conservative moviegoers a second reason to skip the theater entirely.
Online, boycott talk is already spreading, with one post calling Hathaway's comments "straight up demonic" and another predicting the film is "already DOA."
Mercy Was Never the Right Word
Hollywood keeps making the same bet – that a soft word can cover a hard reality, and their fans will never notice the difference.
Anne Hathaway did not call abortion what it is.
She called it mercy, the same word people once used to justify eugenics and so-called mercy killings against the weak and the inconvenient.
That word did not work on Mike Lee, and it is not working on the parents and grandparents scrolling past that clip this week.
Real mercy already exists for a scared young woman facing an unplanned pregnancy, and it does not require ending a heartbeat.
Pregnancy centers across the country hand out free ultrasounds, baby supplies, counseling, and rent help so a mother never has to trade her child for her career.
That is the flexibility Hathaway said she wanted back in 2022.
She just never bothered to ask for it.
Days of Thunder 2 does not need Anne Hathaway's politics to succeed.
It has Tom Cruise, and it has decades of goodwill built by working-class racing fans who buy movie tickets, not lectures.
If Hathaway wants those fans in the seats in 2028, mercy is not the word she wants attached to her name between now and then.
Sources:
- David Rutz, "Anne Hathaway tells 'The View' that 'abortion can be another word for mercy,'" Fox News, November 1, 2022.
- Staff, "WATCH: Anne Hathaway tells The View 'abortion can be another word for mercy,'" Washington Examiner, September 2026.
- Staff, "Anne Hathaway on 'The View' Calls Abortion 'Another Word for Mercy,'" The Daily Signal, November 3, 2022.
- Staff, "Anne Hathaway: 'Abortion Can Be Another Word for Mercy,'" Washington Stand, 2022.
- Staff, "Three of the Worst Celebrity Takes on Abortion," Texas Right to Life.
- Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee), post on X, September 1, 2026.
- Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_), post on X, September 1, 2026.
- Staff, "'Days of Thunder 2': Anne Hathaway Cast in Tom Cruise Sequel Film," TV Insider, August 2026.
- Staff, "Days of Thunder's Randy Quaid Calls Anne Hathaway Horrible for Sequel," Deadline, August 2026.
