- Share this article on Facebook
- Share this article on Twitter
- Share this article on Flipboard
- Share this article on Email
- Show additional share options
- Share this article on Reddit
- Share this article on Comment
- Share this article on Whatsapp
- Share this article on Pinit
- Share this article on Linkedin
- Share this article on Print
- Share this article on Tumblr
Hollywood is sharing (and resharing) their abortion stories following the Supreme Court’s decision to end constitutional protections that had been in place for nearly 50 years.
The decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was made by the court’s conservative majority on June 24, with the ruling’s outcome expected to result in abortion bans in roughly half of U.S. states, including bans with no exception for rape or incest. It came over a month after a leak of a draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito indicated that the United State’s highest court was preparing to overturn an established privacy precedent set in 1973.
Ahead of the ruling and amid backlash to the leaked draft, 150 industry notables — including Megan Thee Stallion and Selena Gomez — attached their names to a public letter condemning what would be the court’s impending decision and declaring their public support for pro-choice policy, reproductive health care and an individual’s right to privacy and medical autonomy.
Following the Friday ruling, Barack and Michelle Obama, Taylor Swift, Halle Berry, Viola Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Alyssa Milano, Elizabeth Banks, Keke Palmer, Danny DeVito, Questlove, Stephen King and more industry members criticized the court ruling on social media.
Both Hollywood unions and studios responded with statements addressing how they will support entertainment industry members and company employees seeking reproductive health and abortion care in states where abortion will no longer be legal. Meanwhile, late night hosts also took the airwaves on the Monday after the court ruling, reacting to the “incomprehensible” decision to overturn the Roe ruling.
Actors, musicians, models and more are now speaking up in wake of the decision, emphasizing through their own experiences with reproductive healthcare why access to the procedure in a safe and legal way remains significant — and life-saving — in light of a new legal landscape for people seeking abortions.
-
Whoopi Goldberg
The View co-host — who previously discussed her abortion experience at the age of 14 — got emotional while discussing the Supreme Court’s ruling on the daytime talk show.
“It is a hard, awful decision that people make,” Goldberg said of the decision to seek abortion care during a May 5 episode. “If you don’t have the wherewithal to understand that, to start the conversation with, ‘I know how hard this must be for you,’ if you’re starting it by telling me I’m going to burn in hell, then you’re not looking out for me as a human being, whether I subscribe to your religion or not, and that is not OK.”
The actor, comedian and host declared that “my doctor, and myself and my child — that’s who makes the decision” when it comes to getting a procedural or medication abortion. She also noted that the 1973 Roe decision “came about because people wanted people to have somewhere safe and somewhere clean. It has nothing to do about your religion.”
“Women, when they decide something is not right for them, they’re going to take it into their own hands,” she added. “We got tired of tripping over [other] women in public bathrooms who were giving themselves abortions because there was nowhere safe, nowhere clean, nowhere to go.”
The EGOT winner first spoke about her self-managed abortion in an essay for the book The Choices We Made by Angela Bonavoglia, originally published in 1991. “I found out I was pregnant when I was 14. I didn’t get a period. I talked to nobody. I panicked,” she wrote.
“I sat in hot baths. I drank these strange concoctions girls told me about — something like Johnny Walker Red with a little bit of Clorox, alcohol, baking soda (which probably saved my stomach) and some sort of cream,” she continued. “You mixed it all up. I got violently ill. At that moment I was more afraid of having to explain to anybody what was wrong than of going to the park with a hanger, which is what I did.”
-
Jameela Jamil
The Good Place star Jameela Jamil attended a protest following the Supreme Court overturning Roe after having previously spoken publicly about her abortion experience.
In a tweet to a New York Post reporter on June 24 — the day of the decision — Jamil criticized the justices who supported overturning the 1973 ruling. “The people who have made this decision are so old that they are not going to be alive long enough to see the chaos that they have caused with this decision,” she said.
Jamil has spoken publicly about her abortion on several occasions, including back in 2021 when Texas’ six-week abortion ban kicked in. “I used two types of contraception, they both failed, and I aborted at 8 weeks. I was mentally/physically/emotionally and financially unstable and most importantly DID NOT WANT A CHILD. That should be enough. My life matters more than an unborn human,” she said in an Instagram post.
She continued on to say that she “had not a minute of regret” and “only felt deep relief and gratitude” that she, at the time, “lived in a country that made abortion accessible and safe.”
“Nobody made me feel bad for being there. They just gave me HEALTHCARE,” she recalled. “Because that is what abortion is. Banning it won’t stop abortion. It will ONLY stop SAFE abortion. Especially for the disadvantaged.”
-
Laura Prepon
The That ’70s Show and Orange Is the New Black actress reshared her abortion story after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The 42-year-old talent described the day she chose to get an abortion and end her pregnancy during her second trimester while working on the Netflix series as “one of the worst days of my life,” in an Instagram post the Monday after the June 24 decision.
“The devastating truth is that we found out the fetus would not survive to full term and that my life was at risk as well,” she explained. “At the time — I had the choice.”
Prepon went on to acknowledge that “everyone has their own story for seeking out this medical procedure” and empathizes with “anyone who’s been faced with this impossible decision.”
“I am praying for all of us, that we can get through this challenging time and regain agency over our own bodies,” she concluded in her post.
Prepon first spoke publicly about receiving abortion care in her 2020 book, You and I, as Mothers: A Raw and Honest Guide to Motherhood. The actress previously explained that she terminated the pregnancy after finding out the baby wouldn’t survive, but that it caused feelings of shame and anger.
-
Chelsea Handler
In wake of the Roe ruling, the comedian, writer and TV host addressed the abortions she had as a teenager during her first day as guest host of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
In her June 28 monologue, Handler nodded to her own abortions while pointing out why she spoke so directly about the court’s recent decision. “I’m speaking from experience on all of this as someone who had three abortions in high school and if that sounds too extreme, let’s pretend I had two,” she said, referencing a 2016 piece she wrote for Playboy discussing her experiences with abortion.
“Because here’s the thing: this planet is a much safer place without me polluting it with my children,” she added. “I’m responsible enough to know that we don’t need any more pothead Molly-loving alcoholics running around topless. I get that.”
In her 2016 essay, Handler details two instances at the age of 16 when she received abortion care. Happening during “a very bad stage in my life,” where she was having unprotected sex with her then-boyfriend, “who was not someone I should’ve been having sex with in the first place,” Handler’s first abortion as a teen saw her consider raising the baby.
“Of course, the idea that I would have a child and raise it by myself at that age when I couldn’t even find my way home at night, was ridiculous. My parents recognized that, so they acted like parents for one of the very first times in my life and took me to Planned Parenthood,” she wrote. “And when it was over, I was relieved in every possible way.”
Handler’s second abortion saw her scraping together money to visit Planned Parenthood and get a safe abortion. “Getting unintentionally pregnant more than once is irresponsible, but it’s still necessary to make a thoughtful decision,” she wrote. “We all make mistakes all the time. I happened to fuck up twice at the age of 16. I’m grateful that I came to my senses and was able to get an abortion legally without risking my health or bankrupting myself or my family.”
-
Alyssa Milano
The Charmed actress, activist and host of politics podcast Alyssa Milano: Sorry Not Sorry recounted her abortion story, which she had previously shared in 2019, in a June 27 episode. Milano revealed that after she had finished working on Who’s the Boss, she had her first of two abortions in 1993. She was with her then-partner and had been on birth control.
“Also, at that time, I was taking a drug called Accutane. Accutane is an acne medicine that is so likely to cause birth defects if taken by a pregnant woman, that the FDA now requires doctors, pharmacies and women to sign up to a registry before prescribing, dispensing or receiving it,” the actress recalled. “I knew this and so using birth control was a doubly important decision for me.”
Her growing career and personal anxiety helped the actress understand both times that she was not yet “equipped to be a parent,” she said.
“I chose. It was my choice, and it was absolutely the right choice for me,” she continued. “It was not an easy choice. It was not something I wanted, but it was something that I needed. Like most health care is.”
Milano argued that access to safe and legal abortion care was not just about her professional life or family planning. She explains that it’s also about refusing “to live in the narrative that sexual pleasure is for men and that women exist to deliver that pleasure.”
Without those abortions, Milano explained, she would not have her children, her husband, her career or platform, which she uses to raise awareness around depression.
“My life would be completely lacking all its great joys. I would never have been free to be myself and that’s what this fight is about: freedom,” she concludes. “Freedom from oppression, freedom for women to have the audacity to be equally sexual beings as men; freedom for women to live the life they were meant to have, not just the life that is thrust upon them by a pregnancy.”
-
Madeline Brewer
The Handmaid’s Tale star, whose character on the Hulu series when seeking out abortion care at first winds up being manipulated by workers at an anti-abortion crisis center, spoke out about her abortion in the days after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
Taking to her Instagram, Brewer began her message by writing that she wasn’t sure “how to post right now” as “the air feels weird” before briefly detailing her abortion at 20 and what her future hopes are as a result of it.
“[I] had an abortion when [I] was 20,” she said. “[I] hated myself and my body and punished myself for years but [I] never even for the blink of an eye regretted it. [T]oday my life is mine. [I can’t wait to be a mother someday on my own terms.”
Brewer previously spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about her character Janine’s decision and the reality of how abortion has impacted many more lives than it can seem. “They say that, whether they told you or not, someone you know has had an abortion,” Brewer explained. “It’s a much larger part of peoples’ lives than most think.”
The Handmaid’s Tale star also spoke to the bravery it took for Janine to make that decision for herself. “A lot of people who have sought out abortions have gone through something like what Janine has gone through. [Janine] had the autonomy, the understanding of yourself or the self-possession, to say, ‘No, this is what I know I need,” the actress said. “This is what I know is right for me and for my child that I already have.’”
Brewer added: “I was honored, truly, to bring this part of a reality of so many peoples’ lives to the screen.”
-
Hilarie Burton
The One Tree Hill star addressed her own abortion experience in the days after the sweeping Supreme Court decision, which will affect people seeking abortion care in around half of the U.S.
Burton, in a lengthy statement, celebrated her daughter with husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and spoke about how her own infertility led to her abortion. “Losing multiple pregnancies before her was traumatic,” she wrote. “But female bodies are all different and unpredictable. Having an abortion after my fetus died allowed for my uterus to heal in a way that made it healthy enough to carry future pregnancies.”
Reinforcing that abortions are used in varying medical situations, Burton stated that “it doesn’t matter if you use the term D&C. The official word on the hospital paperwork is abortion. That’s what it was.”
She also spoke about that “painful day” and ultimately how the court’s ruling will impact the future of all women who seek abortions, regardless of the reason.
“You know what would have made that painful day even worse? If abortion had been illegal, and law enforcement inspected my body to make sure I hadn’t caused my own miscarriage. Cause that’s what’s coming. It’s already happened. It was commonplace before #roevwade,” she wrote.
The actress went on to say that the court’s 1973 ruling protected her “rights as a woman to have miscarriages without scrutiny.” She charged that with overturning Roe v. Wade, “the Supreme Court just said it’s OK for states to look at you as a murder suspect in that situation.”
“Your miscarriage will make you a murder suspect,” Burton continued. “I can’t say this clearly enough or shout it loud enough.”
She ended her story with a reminder that “I only have my daughter because of my abortion,” and with a single message in response to the “right wing extremists who want my daughter to have fewer rights than what I was born with.”
“Fuck you very much to the Supreme Court.”
-
Phoebe Bridgers
The singer-songwriter shared her abortion experience in an Instagram story and on Twitter following the Supreme Court’s leaked Roe v. Wade decision in May 2022.
The 27-year-old artist revealed she went to Planned Parenthood while on tour last October, where she was able to access the pill. “It was easy. Everyone deserves that kind of access,” she wrote, while including a link of places her followers could donate to support abortion providers and those seeking abortion access.
Following the court’s official decision on June 24, Bridgers also led a chant during her Glastonbury Festival performance disavowing the decision made by the court’s conservative majority.
“In all honesty, it’s super surreal and fun, but I’m having a hideous day,” she told her concert crowd. “Are there any Americans here? Who wants to say, ‘Fuck the Supreme Court?’”
-
Cheryl Burke
In a TikTok published in the days following Roe‘s overturning, the Dancing With the Stars pro opened up about an abortion she had when she was 18 years old.
Burke said the decision “weighs heavy in my heart,” and championed reproductive health providers like Planned Parenthood who helped her. “I would be a mother,” the dancer said, speaking to what her life would have been like. “And I wouldn’t have been a great mother and I definitely wouldn’t be sitting here with you today.”
Burke, who reinforced that she has “no regrets” about her decision and that it’s ultimately “nobody’s business,” says she sought abortion care while she was going through “a really huge transition in my life.” She had also practiced safe sex, both with a form of protection and her being on birth control.
“I was two weeks pregnant when I got an abortion and I remember rolling up to Planned Parenthood with picketers holding anti-abortion signs and that alone was traumatic,” she recalled of the experience. “On top of it all, the whole process is traumatic, and the fact that now you’re making it illegal for us women to make this decision about our own bodies is absolutely insanity.”
-
Meadow Walker
The 23-year-old model and daughter of Paul Walker opened up about her experience getting an abortion in response to the Supreme Court ruling, calling it “a profound injustice to women across the United States” and “a huge setback in history.”
Acknowledging that “countless women who have struggled with making the decision to have an abortion,” Walker went on to recount her own choice in an Instagram post.
“I too have battled with the choice but in 2020, when the world was collapsing during the pandemic, I sought an abortion,” she wrote. “It is a very private and personal experience — the way it should be. I was lucky enough to have a great doctor who supported me through the debilitating process — with their help, I am able to be the happy and healthy person I am today.”
Noting that for “even more women” seeking a safe termination and the right to “choose their bodies first,” is no longer an option, Walker called the June 24 decision an “absolutely heartbreaking” assault on women.
“In a world that constantly marginalizes females, this feels like the biggest assault of them all,” she concludes. “Banning abortion doesn’t prevent abortions, it prevents safe abortions.”
-
Ireland Baldwin
The model says she had previously sought two abortions, including one after being sexually assaulted.
In a TikTok posted the Sunday after the court’s June 24 Roe v. Wade ruling, Baldwin elaborated on the circumstances that led to both and ultimately why she chose to receive abortion care. The first was an experience she never told her then-boyfriend or parents, Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin, about.
“I was raped when I was a teenager and I was completely unconscious when it happened, and it changed the course of the rest of my life,” she said in the video. “I kept that secret inside of me for years, and because I did, it caused a lot of hurt and a lot of pain to me and to people I love.”
The model says following the assault, she spiraled due to harboring “so much pain and so much guilt,” resulting in her drinking and partying a lot more, along with self-medicating.
“Seeing so many other brave women share their stories got me thinking what my life would have been like if I had become pregnant and if I had to raise a baby during everything I was going through at the time,” Baldwin said. “Mind you, I have medical resources, money and support that a lot of women do not have access to. It would’ve simply been traumatizing and impossible.”
Her second experience, she said, was the result of getting unexpectedly pregnant with her boyfriend at the time, with whom she was not only “very unhappy” but who was vocal about not wanting children or marriage.
“I chose to get an abortion because I know exactly what it felt like to be born between two people who hated each other,” Baldwin said, referring to her parents’ relationship and eventual divorce. “Choosing to raise a baby without my own financial security, without a loving and supportive partner, that wasn’t gonna work for me.”
“I chose me, and I would choose me again,” she added. “It’s your life. It’s your choice.”
-
Amanda Palmer
The singer-songwriter and Dresden Dolls lead vocalist spoke again — after a 2019 tweet thread — about her experience with abortion in the June 27 episode of the Alyssa Milano: Sorry Not Sorry podcast.
“As abortions go, actually pretty okay,” Palmer said of her first, which she had at 17 in the early ’90s. “I had had a birth control slip-up with my boyfriend. We’d been together for a couple of years. We were deeply in love. It was very hard for both of us. I was afraid to tell my mother but I did, and my mother and my boyfriend took me to Planned Parenthood, right outside Boston where I grew up.”
The “hardest part of that day” for Palmer wasn’t the procedure but the trip from the “car to the clinic where I had to — with my boyfriend and with my mother — walk the gauntlet of angry rageful judgmental protesters who were all yelling at me and showing me these signs of bloody fetuses.”
She said she would return back to school the next day, where she sat in French class, “just swallowing and compartmentalizing this experience with no way to process what it meant to process the grief.” But in her early 30s, she’d have another abortion experience, this time “after I got married, and I was pregnant very much by accident and had taken an antibiotic,” she recalled of her finding out a week after seeking treatment for a urinary tract infection that she was expecting.
Palmer said she was sure she couldn’t be pregnant, but after finding out, called her doctor and discussed her use of the antibiotic. “He knew what was going on and he just had to tell me over the phone, ‘I’m so sorry, Amanda. This one’s not gonna happen. You’re gonna have to terminate this pregnancy.'”
The singer was at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with Gaiman and went to a friend who was also a gynecologist, who have her the pill — a “really harrowing experience” versus “the surgical abortions that I’ve had.” But she said that unlike when she was a teen, she decided to talk openly about what had happened to her.
“Instead of just swallowing it and hiding this experience, I decided to start telling people,” she recounted. “Every single time I told someone I would just see this relief come over their face because they all had a story … Someone’s gonna know someone. Someone’s gonna be in that experience right now.”
-
Halsey
Writing for Vogue, in an essay that was published a week after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Halsey recalled having an abortion as part of one of three miscarriages they experienced before giving birth to their son, Ender, who was born in June 2021.
“One of my miscarriages required “aftercare,” a gentle way of saying that I would need an abortion, because my body could not terminate the pregnancy completely on its own and I would risk going into sepsis without medical intervention,” the singer wrote. “During this procedure, I cried. I was afraid for myself and I was helpless. I was desperate to end the pregnancy that was threatening my life.”
While observing the similar elements — a “sterile smell,” “white sheets,” “unnerving noises” — during their miscarriages and while giving birth, Halsey said they were surprised by “the hysterical euphoria” they experienced giving birth.
“My life’s long chapter of miscarriages and abortions was reduced to a page in that moment. It was simply divided into “before” this moment and all things that would come after it,” they wrote. “Years of blood and pain and misery from near-perilous and unwanted pregnancies, then the euphoria of chosen motherhood. ”
And even after struggling to “maintain a pregnancy,” as they wrote, their stance on abortion hasn’t changed since becoming a mom.
“In fact, I have never felt more strongly about it. My abortion saved my life and gave way for my son to have his,” they wrote. “Every person deserves the right to choose when, if, and how they have this dangerous and life-altering experience. I will hold my son in one arm, and fight with all my might with the other.”
THR Newsletters
Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day