People deserve bodily autonomy and the fitting to get a protected and customary medical process once they want it. And though an all-time excessive proportion of People help abortion entry, per Gallup, the Supreme Courtroom voted to repeal the right to abortion in 2022.
Over the previous few years, because the anti-abortion motion gained traction, a number of of Hollywood’s greatest stars have made their private lives political and drawn consideration to the problem of abortion. That’s large, as a result of stars being vocal about their very own abortion tales is invaluable in normalizing the expertise and lifting the stigma that surrounds it. In spite of everything, when folks have the flexibility to decide on when and in the event that they need to develop their households, they’ve a greater likelihood of engaging in what they need to do and dwelling the lives they need. And seeing high-profile folks share their very own reproductive well being decisions (and the positive aftermath of getting that entry), it’s an awesome reminder that we just about all know and love somebody who has had an abortion.
Forward — from Busy Phillips to Nicki Minaj, Ashley Judd to Stevie Knicks — listed here are a few of the actual celebrities (who we completely love) who’re altering the dialog, and serving to to finish the stigma, surrounding abortion.
A model of this story was printed December 2020.
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Kerry Washington
Picture Credit score: Gotham/GC Pictures through Getty Pictures In her 2023 memoir, Thicker Than Water, Kerry Washington opened up about having an abortion in her 20s. Per People, Washington gave docs a pretend identify to guard her privateness, as her profession was simply taking off on the time because of roles in Save the Final Dance and She Hate Me. She shared that she felt some disgrace and hypocrisy over the process, on condition that she’d labored as a sexual well being educator as a youngster.
“I struggled rather a lot to start with with whether or not or to not embody my abortion story,” Washington informed Folks. “At first I wasn’t actually positive the way it match into this story of my life. However I began to really feel prefer it was actually essential for me to share this.” Washington additionally wished to open up about her story as a result of the fitting to abortion is underneath assault. “It’s simply so essential to me that abortion isn’t a nasty phrase, and that my abortion isn’t one other factor on the record of issues that I’m ashamed of,” she mentioned, including, “We’re at a second the place it’s actually essential to be telling the reality about our reproductive decisions as a result of a few of these decisions are being stripped away from us.”
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Paris Hilton
Picture Credit score: Neilson Barnard / Employees through Getty Pictures In a current interview with Glamour UK, Paris Hilton shared she had an abortion in her early 20s, as a result of she “was not prepared for” all that got here with being pregnant and parenthood at such a younger age
“This was additionally one thing that I didn’t need to discuss as a result of there was a lot disgrace round that,” Hilton mentioned. “I used to be a child and I used to be not prepared for that.”
She additionally opened up about about her emotions on the over-turn of Roe v Wade: “I feel it’s important [to speak out]. There’s simply a lot politics round it and all that, however it’s a lady’s physique… Why ought to there be a regulation based mostly on that? It’s your physique, your alternative and I actually imagine in that.”
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Phoebe Bridgers
Picture Credit score: Theo Wargo / Employees through Getty Pictures Following information of the leaked opinion that, if finalized, would overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade court docket choice, singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers shared through Twitter that whereas on tour in 2021, she had a protected, efficient remedy abortion because of Deliberate Parenthood.
“I had an abortion in October of final yr whereas I used to be on tour. I went to Deliberate Parenthood the place they gave me the abortion tablet,” Bridgers shared. “It was simple. Everybody deserves that sort of entry. “
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Stevie Nicks
Picture Credit score: Michael Loccisano / Employees through Getty Pictures Shortly after the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Courtroom, Stevie Nicks spoke to The Guardian about her worry for the state of abortion entry and what it meant that she may safely terminate her personal being pregnant in 1979, simply two years after “Rumours”.
“If I had not had that abortion, I’m fairly positive there would have been no Fleetwood Mac,” Nicks mentioned. “There’s simply no manner that I may have had a toddler then, working as laborious as we labored consistently. And there have been plenty of medicine… I’d have needed to stroll away.”
Nicks felt that the aim Fleetwood Mac was fulfilling was greater than having kids. “I knew that the music we have been going to deliver to the world was going to heal so many individuals’s hearts and make folks so comfortable. And I assumed: what? That’s actually essential,” she mentioned. “There’s not one other band on this planet that has two lead ladies singers, two lead ladies writers. That was my world’s mission.”
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Sally Area
Picture Credit score: Selection through Getty Pictures Sally Area had an abortion earlier than Roe v. Wade was handed, and known as the expertise “traumatic” in an Instagram video forward of the 2024 election. Area defined that she was simply 17 years outdated on the time and felt disgrace when she realized she was pregnant. “I had no decisions in my life, I didn’t have plenty of household help or funds,” mentioned Area, who added that she’d simply graduated from highschool on the time and was nonetheless determining what she wished to do along with her life.
Finally, a health care provider who was a good friend of her household drove Area to Tijuana, Mexico to get the process carried out. Area “had no anesthetic” in the course of the process and mentioned she was molested throughout it as properly, calling the expertise “past hideous and life-altering.” She additionally drew parallels to “issues ladies are going via now,” after the Dobbs choice took away the federal proper to abortion. “They’re attempting to get to a different state, they don’t have the cash, they don’t have the means,” Area mentioned. “And it’s past, how one can return to that and do this to our little ladies and our younger ladies, and never have respect and regard for his or her well being and their very own selections about whether or not they really feel they’re in a position to give start to a toddler.”
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Ashley Judd
Picture Credit score: AP Picture/Jae C. Hong Actress Ashley Judd was one of many first folks to go on report along with her allegation against Harvey Weinstein, has spoken on the Girls’s March, and is a passionate activist for ladies’s rights and the concept “democracy begins with our pores and skin.” In 2019, Judd addressed Georgia’s fetal heartbeat invoice and the way, as a three-time rape survivor, protected abortion entry was life-changing her her.
“One of many instances that I used to be raped,” Judd shared, “there was conception. And I’m very grateful I used to be in a position to entry protected and authorized abortion. As a result of the rapist, who’s a Kentuckian… has paternity rights in Kentucky and Tennessee. I’d’ve needed to co-parent with my rapist.”
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Jameela Jamil
Picture Credit score: Steve Granitz/WireImage through Getty Pictures Jameela Jamil first opened up about her abortion in 2019 when a law was handed in Georgia making the process unlawful as quickly as a heartbeat will be detected (which will be as early as six weeks into being pregnant). In a since-deleted tweet, she known as the regulation “upsetting, inhumane, and blatantly demonstrative of a hatred of ladies, a disregard for our rights, our bodies, psychological well being, and basically a punishment for rape victims.”
Jamil went on to share her personal story. “I had an abortion after I was younger, and it was the most effective choice I’ve ever made,” she wrote. “Each for me, and for the newborn I didn’t need, and wasn’t prepared for, emotionally, psychologically and financially.”
Folks had rather a lot to say about The Good Place actor’s stance on reproductive rights. In a separate tweet, Jamil added: “Name me no matter you want. I’m not sorry about my abortion. Contraception failed me and I did what was finest for my psychological and bodily well being on the time. And I’d do it once more if I needed to. I don’t really feel at ALL ashamed, and when you had one too, for any cause, neither do you have to.”
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Busy Philipps
Picture Credit score: Eric Kayne/Middle for Reproductive Rights Busy Philipps has been an outspoken advocate for abortion entry – even testifying earlier than the Home Judiciary Committee about why she bought an abortion at age 15 in Arizona, the place current state laws make it far more tough to get entry to that well being care.
“I’m so unhappy that now we have to sit down right here in entrance of a row of politicians and provides deeply private statements,” Philipps mentioned in her testimony final yr. “As a result of the ‘why’ doesn’t matter. It mustn’t matter. I’m a human being that deserves autonomy on this nation that calls itself free, and decisions {that a} human being makes about their very own our bodies shouldn’t be legislated by strangers who can’t presumably know or perceive every particular person’s circumstances or beliefs.”
The actress has additionally opened up about abortion on her late-night talk show and in her guide, This Will Solely Damage a Little, and inspired ladies to share their tales on Twitter utilizing the #YouKnowMe hashtag.
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Chrissy Teigen
Picture Credit score: Kristin Callahan/Everett Assortment Chrissy Teigen went via what she initially thought was a miscarriage in 2020, when she misplaced her son Jack after experiencing being pregnant problems. It wasn’t till she was speaking along with her husband, John Legend, after the Supreme Courtroom overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, that he informed her she’d really undergone a life-saving abortion.
“I by no means skilled any ache in it so I by no means considered it as being something apart from a miscarriage,” Teigen defined in an October 2024 speech in Arizona to help a right-to-abortion initiative, per CNN. “We hear the phrase abortion, we expect there’s some sort of ache with it… nowhere in these days within the hospital getting blood transfusions did I feel that I used to be at risk of shedding this child as a result of I used to be in no ache.”
Placing phrases to the expertise and sharing it brazenly is a manner for Teigen to combat the “stigma across the phrase ‘abortion,’” she mentioned. “No person desires to say abortion … I didn’t even know I had one. And that was so embarrassing to confess in entrance of your entire world.”
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Amber Tamblyn
Picture Credit score: Presley Ann / Stringer through Getty Pictures Final yr, Amber Tamblyn joined the #YouKnowMe dialog on-line, tweeting, “In 2012, I had an abortion. It was one of many hardest selections I’ve ever needed to make. I nonetheless give it some thought to today. However these truths don’t make me remorse my choice. It was the fitting alternative for me, at the moment in my life. I’ve not a single doubt about this.”
The actress opened up after Alabama lawmakers voted to outlaw being pregnant termination and threaten docs with a 99-year jail sentence in the event that they ignore the laws, proper after state officers in Georgia signed the fetal heartbeat invoice.
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Minka Kelly
Picture Credit score: Jason Mendez/Getty Pictures After Alabama lawkmakers successfully banned abortions in 2019, actress Minka Kelly shared her #YouKnowMe story in a prolonged put up on Instagram, explaining how an abortion saved her from a lifetime of wrestle.
“For a child to’ve been born to 2 folks — too younger and utterly in poor health outfitted — with no means or assist from household, would have resulted in a toddler born into an pointless world of wrestle. Having a child at the moment would have solely perpetuated the cycle of poverty, chaos and dysfunction I used to be born into,” she wrote.
Kelly additionally famous that denying abortion entry ignores what occurs to the ladies carrying these kids, and does nothing to help moms after the youngsters are born.
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Nicki Minaj
Picture Credit score: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic through Getty Pictures Nicki Minaj bought private about her abortion in 2014, shortly after the discharge of her album The Pinkprint.
“I assumed I used to be going to die,” she informed Rolling Stone of the time she discovered she was pregnant in highschool. “I used to be a youngster. It was the toughest factor I’d ever gone via.” Although the singer famous the choice has “haunted” her all her life, she additionally felt it was the fitting factor to do. “It’d be contradictory if mentioned I wasn’t pro-choice. I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t have something to supply a toddler.”
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Tess Holliday
Picture Credit score: Jon Kopaloff/Stringer through Getty Pictures Whereas sharing her #YouKnowMe story on Instagram, mannequin Tess Holliday spoke to the truth that if she have been nonetheless dwelling within the South at this time, she may not have been in a position to have the abortion she final did. “My psychological well being couldn’t deal with being pregnant once more,” she wrote. “I made the most effective choice for ME & in the end my household. It wasn’t the ‘simple factor to do’, it was excruciating on many ranges, however vital. Do I remorse it or query my alternative? By no means.”
Although Holliday particularly reacted to the ban on abortions in Alabama, she famous that the problem is related to everybody; the frequent false impression that solely cis, heterosexual ladies can get pregnant has made entry to abortions disproportionately tough for queer, trans and non-binary of us.
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Lisa Marie Presley
Picture Credit score: WireImage In her memoir From Here to the Great Unknown, Lisa Marie Presley revealed she had an abortion that she in the end regretted, after getting pregnant with then-partner Danny Keough. In excerpts shared in People, Presley wrote that she was “sloppy” when it got here to being pregnant prevention and didn’t use contraception, and she or he and Keough have been not sure what to do when she bought pregnant.
Presley mentioned she was “devastated” after the abortion, and that her relationship with Keough “fell aside” quickly after. “I couldn’t stay with myself,” Presley defined. However, due to her guilt, Presley later “deliberate and plotted and schemed” to get pregnant by Keough once more, whether or not “he wished to be part of it or not. I felt that I needed to redeem, to make amends, as a result of I nonetheless couldn’t imagine I had had an abortion,” she wrote. They in the end had two kids collectively, Riley Keough and Benjamin Storm.
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Tara Lipinski
Picture Credit score: Penske Media through Getty Pictures Tara Lipinski has been open about her fertility struggles, and in 2024, she revealed that her journey to motherhood includes 4 surgical abortions. In an essay for Allure, Lipinski recalled experiencing “utter disbelief and heartbreak” when she discovered her first being pregnant wasn’t viable, and her physician suggestions she have a D&C (dilation and curettage process, also called a surgical abortion). “Carrying an unviable being pregnant must be probably the most disturbing experiences,” Lipinski wrote. “You are feeling pregnant… however as an alternative of figuring out there’s a light-weight on the finish of the tunnel, {that a} child will come from all this ache, you might be compelled to sit down and wait [for an abortion].”
Lipinski repeated that have three extra instances, explaining she sacrificed her psychological and bodily well being whereas struggling to get pregnant and underwent “traumatic” experiences adopted lastly by a way of “reduction” after her closing abortion. “Even when I couldn’t have the newborn that I so desperately wished, I knew that my well being was in good arms and that I’d be on the highway to restoration quickly, even when my journey via the grief would by no means totally heal,” she wrote.
Lipinski additionally used the experiences to take a stand for reproductive rights. “With out my abortions, and the required medical care that I required, I don’t know if I’d be right here at this time,” the Olympian wrote. “… Girls deserve the medical entry that they need, and wish.”
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Maya Henry
Picture Credit score: Getty Pictures Former mannequin Maya Henry’s debut novel, Wanting Ahead, options an abortion scene that’s “very comparable” to at least one Henry went via in actual life, she informed People in Could 2024. “If it have been as much as me, I wouldn’t have carried out it,” Henry mentioned of her abortion. “However then additionally, if I have been to have made a special choice, then I’d’ve misplaced the person who I cherished. There have been positively tough conversations about it.”
Henry informed the outlet that she skilled problems in the course of the abortion and needed to go to the hospital, expressing frustration that her expertise was downplayed beforehand. “It was very lonely, having these males inform you, ‘Oh, it’s going to really feel like a heavy interval, it’s not going to be that painful, it’s going to be simple.’ However I’m like, you’ve by no means even gone via something like [this], so how would you already know to inform me?” Henry defined — which was why she determined to put in writing about it. “I’ve seen so many individuals on-line discuss taking the abortion tablet and it was essentially the most painful factor for them. It’s simply thoughts boggling to me that you might inform a lady how they’re going to really feel.”
