Sally Field Shares Harrowing, Illegal Abortion Story
“Everyone, please, pay attention to this election, up and down the ballot, in every state – especially those with ballot initiatives that could protect reproductive freedom,” Field captioned her video. “We can’t go back.”
Photo: Getty Images AbortionCelebrities 2024 Election
It’s less than a month to Election Day and, in an effort to mobilize voters behind Vice President Kamala Harris, Sally Field shared her “traumatic” story of getting an illegal abortion in Mexico when she was just 17.
In a video shared to Instagram on Sunday, the Oscar-winning actor described the “beyond hideous and life-altering” procedure that took place 60 years ago, in 1964, nine years before the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling in 1973.
“I’ve been so hesitant to do this, to tell my horrific story,” Field captioned the post. “It was during a time even worse than now. A time when contraception was not readily available and only if you were married. But I feel that so many women of my generation went through similar, traumatic events and I feel stronger when I think of them. I believe, like me, they must want to fight for their grandchildren and all the young women of this country.”
The Oscar-winner previously shared her abortion story in 2018, in her memoir, In Pieces, but went into greater detail in her video: “I had no choices in my life, I didn’t have a lot of family support or finances. I graduated high school but no one ever said, ‘How about college?’ Nothing. I didn’t know what I was gonna be,” Field said. “And then I found out I was pregnant.”