Lena Dunham’s Character on ‘Girls’ is Pregnant With a…Lentil Bean?

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By Dawn Slusher | March 13, 2017 | 5:49 AM EDT

On Sunday’s episode of HBO’s Girls, “Gummies,” Hannah (Lena Dunham) continues with her decision to keep her baby that she conceived after a very brief fling with a surf instructor while on a writing assignment. The seemingly pro-life storyline is a bit suspect given Dunham’s avid support of abortion and her wish that she could have had one herself (which she later apologized for while stating that she still wants to remove the “stigma” surrounding the controversial procedure.)

Maybe Dunham’s goal is to show a supposed “fair and balanced” storyline by having Hannah choose life while subtly denigrating the humanity of the unborn through scenes such as the one witnessed in Sunday’s episode, whereby Hannah places a lentil bean on her fingertip and stares at it contemplatively after searching the internet for information on the size of her unborn child at 6-weeks gestation.

After staring at the tiny bean intently, Hannah then tosses it behind herself with casual aloofness, possibly implying that an unborn child at that stage of development is easily disposable because of its size.

Don’t count on Girls for basic biology lessons, however. Though Hannah’s computer screen did appear to show an accurate photo of an unborn child at 6-weeks, what it didn’t show is that the child’s heart began beating at 3 weeks, his/her tiny arms and legs have begun to form, the baby can respond to touch, and brain waves are detectable.

Hannah also compiles a list of “Reasons it’s Insane to Have a Baby.” The list includes legitimate concerns such as her income level (less than 24k), to ridiculous reasons such as, “I once forgot about a guinea pig for six weeks.” I won’t mention the last reason on the list which was both ridiculous and crude.

The problem with this list is that Hannah is making it after already conceiving a child. So, the list would be more aptly titled, “Reasons I Might Want to Have an Abortion.”

The lack of support and anti-motherhood messages that Hannah receives in the “Gummies” episode is a very real problem in the real world, and one that often leads vulnerable women to choose abortion. Right at the opening of the show in a recap, we see Hannah interviewing an author (played by Tracy Ullman), who tells Hannah, “I am not a mother because childlessness is the natural state of the female author. Write that down. Get used to it.”

Later in the show, Hannah’s pregnancy is met with disdain by her best friend Elijah (Andrew Rannells).