The actress opens up about why she decided to terminate a pregnancy at age 21 — and why it was the right decision.
Writing this article comes as a surprise.
I could never have imagined that a decision I made at age 21 would be such fodder for scrutiny today.
I had an abortion. I am simply one of millions of women who have exercised this constitutionally protected right, and according to recent data, I am part of the 95 percent of women who do not regret their choice.
I once asked Nancy Keenan, former president of NARAL, why the marriage equality movement had gained so much ground while the reproductive justice movement seemed to be moving in reverse. She answered with a simple word: "stories." The tide of marriage equality turned when same-gender couples began to tell their very specific stories: not being allowed in the hospital room of their partner, not being able to adopt children together, not being seen as equal to their heterosexual peers.
This makes sense to me. I am a storyteller by trade, after all. I believe that we connect and learn by the specifics of stories, our own and others'. I am also a believer in taking our private stories public, where the residue of shame — even the shame we were not aware we had — gets evaporated in the light of community and shared experience. We women are especially susceptible to shame for all sorts of reasons: psychological, societal, biological. Tendrils of shame have a tendency to pull us back into the habit of silence, but clearly silence isn't doing us any good.
Our constitutional right to abortion is under attack, as it has been for years, but more viciously than ever. It is time for me to speak up with the specifics of my own story. Because of this, I have lent my voice, along with eight other women, to an amicus brief for Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, the most significant abortion case before the Supreme Court in 25 years. The case challenges a Texas law that targets abortion providers with onerous and unnecessary restrictions, and would force more than three-quarters of the state's clinics to close their doors. If this law were allowed to stand, it would leave only 10 clinics remaining in a state with 5.4 million women of reproductive age, many of whom will find themselves in the same position that I was in at age 21.
So here is my story.
In the spring of my junior year at Harvard, my period was late. I had been in a relationship for almost two years with a loving and supportive boyfriend. We used birth control, but it malfunctioned. When I learned I was pregnant, I knew immediately and without question that I wanted an abortion. I had no desire to be a mother at that time — I wanted to finish college and start my career.
We found a doctor in the yellow pages. We went to his clean and respectable office. I had the procedure done with no pain; my boyfriend was with me the whole time. Afterward, I breathed huge sigh of relief and thought to myself, I get my life back! I was grateful that I lived in a country where forced birth was not the law of the land and where motherhood was not a lifelong consequence for a contraception slip.
I have never, not for one moment, regretted my abortion. My husband of 20 years and I became parents when we had built a home to nurture our children. Indeed, being a parent has only strengthened my commitment to reproductive justice as access to legal abortion allows children a fighting chance to be born into families that desire them and can support them.
I grew up in a world that the civil rights movement built. I was raised by parents who believed in a woman's right to choose her destiny. My mom, the Honorable Frederica S. Brenneman, was in the first class of women at Harvard Law School and the third female to be put on the bench in the State of Connecticut. She taught me about the inexorable movement in society toward justice and equality. She taught me that women have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — as well as equal protection under the laws as enshrined in our Constitution. This means all Americans, men and women, should be free to decide whether and when to become parents.
My abortion story is absolutely uneventful. It has left no scars. But in this current political climate, one in which a woman who makes the responsible choice of not bringing an unwanted child into this world is forced to drive 500 miles or is violently harassed on her way to the clinic door or is pushed to take matters into her own hands, this uneventful-ness seems downright miraculous. May it always be so uneventful. May abortion once again be accepted for what it always has been: a necessary component of responsible family planning.
