Josie Cunningham is a glamour model and sometime-call girl who first upset the great British public when she announced she had had a boob job on the NHS. Her Twitter profile boasts a topless photo of her, with the NHS logo photoshopped over her boobs, labelling where they were provided.
Josie is now back in the public eye because she's said she's going to have an abortion to increase her chances of appearing on Big Brother. Really. The 23-year-old told* The Sunday Mirror*: 'I’m finally on the verge of becoming famous and I’m not going to ruin it now.
‘An abortion will further my career. This time next year I won’t have a baby. Instead, I’ll be famous, driving a bright pink Range Rover and buying a big house. Nothing will get in my way.’
This decision comes weeks after an interview with *Closer *where she stroked her stomach in the photoshoot and proudly announced her pregnancy. She doesn't know the identity of the father, but says he could be either a Premier League footballer or a client she worked for as an escort.
We haven't yet found out why Josie is telling the world about her personal life, but it's probably because that's what aspiring reality stars do. As for why she's getting an abortion, she says: 'Channel 5 were keen to shortlist me[for Big Brother] then they found out I was pregnant. Then they suddenly turned cold.
‘That was when I started considering an abortion. After the operation I will be going back to them and asking if they will still consider me.'
Josie, who has two children, also said that she wanted to terminate the foetus to further her career and 'piss off' the trolls online who abuse her.
Her announcement has got her a lot more grief online from people, who claim that 18 weeks is too late to have a pregnancy terminated (in fact, according to the law, 24 weeks is the upper limit for the termination of the pregnancy), Josie is simply doing all of this for attention (nothing new there, then) and that if she appears on Big Brother, the show should be axed (well..).
However, though her admission might seem grotesque, tacky and calculated, and 93 per cent of The Mirror's readers would boycott Big Brother if she appeared on it, it's Josie's decision what she wants to do with her body. And, according to Education For Choice, one of the main reasons women choose to have abortions is because 'She wants to carry on with her job/education/career'.
That said, examples like Josie don't exactly give credence to the pro-choice movement. All in all, a pretty messy state of affairs.
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
Photo: Facebook
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.