When Rihanna performed at the Super Bowl halftime show this week, she shocked the world by revealing a baby bump. While her performance itself may not have been altogether family-friendly, Rihanna has recently surprised onlookers by being an advocate for motherhood and family.

Before she gave birth to her first child in May 2022, she said that she had been open to the possibility of having children whenever it happened.

“Planning?” she said to Vogue when asked if she’d been intending to start a family when she did. “I wouldn’t say planning. But certainly not planning against it.”

After she gave birth, an insider told the press, “They want a big family, for sue. Rihanna loved being pregnant and fully embraced her pregnancy body.”

Then on Sunday, Rihanna debuted a baby bump during her first solo performance in seven years, just nine months after her son was born. Social media users and media outlets exploded with support.

“It’s official: Rihanna is pregnant with her second child!” tweeted Billboard.

“Rihanna is pregnant!” tweeted Vogue. “Few celebrities have the power to stop the internet the way Rihanna does. The superstar opened the Super Bowl Halftime Show by casually caressing her baby bump to announce her pregnancy with baby number two.”

“Rihanna pregnant with second child, makes reveal during Super Bowl,” read a headline from USA Today.

Compare that with those same outlets talking about abortion.

Last year, Billboard highlighted a quote from musician Phoebe Bridgers talking about her abortion story, saying it was unemotional: “I don’t think about it as a baby, of course not.”

Also last year, Vogue published a glowing profile of comedian Alison Leiby, including the pro-abortion narrative that preborn babies don’t really have heartbeats: “Recalling being asked during a routine pre-abortion sonogram whether she wanted to know if the fetus had a heartbeat (a misnomer, as embryos do not have developed hearts), she quips: ‘You can fax that to Mitch McConnell. I don’t really care. He seems to care a lot.’”

But, in Rihanna’s case, because the singer had unapologetically embraced her pregnancy , news outlets had permission to celebrate the “baby” in her womb. Had Rihanna announced an abortion, the child would’ve been a “fetus” instead.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean that Rihanna is pro-life; she has spoken out critically of pro-life legislators before. But that doesn’t change the fact that her actions made a powerful statement about the value of preborn babies, and provoked the press to do so as well.

It’s always a societal good when celebrities and public figures share the joys of parenthood and family. Whether or not they do so in explicitly pro-life terms, supporting pregnancy is a powerful pro-woman message that our culture needs to hear right now.