Cecily Strong thanks 'SNL' cast after personal clown sketch about abortion

Cecily Strong is reflecting on a personal sketch about abortion she performed this weekend on "Saturday Night Live."

During Saturday's episode, Strong, 37, joined Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che dressed as the character Goober the Clown, in response to the Supreme Court hearing arguments around a restrictive new Texas abortion law.

"I had an abortion the day before my 23rd birthday … but it's a rough subject, so we're going to do fun clown stuff to make it more palatable," Strong says in the sketch as Goober, before making her large bowtie spin in circles.

Strong's Goober goes on to detail her abortion, as well as her experiences connecting with others who've also had abortions. At one point during the sketch, Jost says, "You don't have to do this, Cecily."

"Who's Cecily?" she quips back, while struggling to fashion a balloon animal. "I'm Goober. And I wish I didn't have to do this because the abortion I had at 23 is my personal clown business, but that's all some people in this country want to discuss all the time."

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Toward the end of the sketch, Strong's Goober sucks in helium from a balloon before delivering her final remarks.

"I know I wouldn't be a clown on TV here today if it weren't for the abortion I had the day before my 23rd birthday," she says. "(Abortions are) gonna happen, so it ought to be safe, legal and accessible."

Though Strong never explicitly said she was drawing on her own experience in the sketch, she took to her Instagram Stories on Monday to relay that it was indeed personal.

"I didn't tell my own wonderful and supportive mom for years and Saturday I told live TV," Strong wrote, adding three clown emojis.

The comedian also noted that she works with "the best people on earth" and thanked Jost and Che for "being on board and immediately giving this clown a seat at your table."

"Thank you (Anna Drezen) and (Ken Tola) for writing with me," she added. "And for (Erin Doyle Shechtman) being the first person I could text on Monday asking 'is this an insane idea or...'. Because she's not only a great friend she's an amazing producer."

Strong's candid sketch drew praise from television critics.

Decider's Sean McCarthy wrote that the clown character "helped illustrate the ridiculous(ness) of our current healthcare system and how we try to legislate morality, specifically when it comes to women who need abortions."

Los Angeles Times' Christi Carras described the sketch as "one of the most rousing and far-reaching rebukes of Texas’ controversial abortion law," and Vox's Aja Romano wrote that the bit "may well go down as one of the starkest political critiques in the show’s recent history."

"On one level, Strong’s sketch plays directly into the hands of people who think modern comedy has lost its edge — that woke culture has changed the art form into humorless political lectures," Romano continues. "But on another level, Strong arguably shows that comedy can not only withstand the political lectures but also be made stronger by them, if done well."

Not every reviewer found the sketch positive. Writing for National Review, a conservative magazine, Alexandra DeSanctis called the sketch "a truly bizarre three minutes, not one moment of which was even remotely amusing."

More: Some Supreme Court justices skeptical of Texas abortion law, impact on other rights

The sketch comes five days after the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding a Texas law banning abortions once cardiac activity is detected in an embryo, usually around six weeks and before many women know they're pregnant.

The law doesn't include traditional exceptions for abortion, such as for rape or incest, but allows women to have the procedure for "medical emergencies."

Under the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, states are prevented from banning abortion before viability, the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb, around 24 weeks of pregnancy. The justices will hear a separate challenge to those decisions in a case over Mississippi's ban on abortion after 15 weeks. Those arguments are set for Dec. 1.

Texas' law, which empowers private citizens to enforce the ban by suing abortion providers and anyone involved in "aiding and abetting" abortions, has galvanized forces on both sides of one of the nation's most bitter moral disputes.

Contributing: John Fritze, Rick Rouan, Matthew Brown, USA TODAY; Mark Sherman and Jessica Gresko, Associated Press

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Cecily Strong's abortion clown sketch on 'SNL' was personal, star says