Sally Field shares abortion story as reason to support Kamala Harris

Sally Field shares her “horrible story” of the illegal abortion she underwent when she found herself pregnant at age 17 before the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Roe v. Wade.

And the two-time Oscar winner indicated, in an Instagram video posted Sunday, that that experience is a reason to support the Democratic presidential ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, which Field has endorsed, as well as other candidates and ballot initiatives “which could protect reproductive freedom,” he writes in the caption accompanying the video.

And then, in all caps, he writes: “PLEASE. WE CAN'T GO BACK!!”

In the video, Field recalls her feelings and the circumstances in which she discovered she was pregnant at such a young age.

“I had no choices in my life; I didn't have much family support or finances,” he said. “I graduated from high school, but no one ever said to me, 'How about college?' Nothing. I didn't know what I would be. And then I found out I was pregnant.”

Field began by saying, “I'm still very ashamed of this because I grew up in the '50s and it's ingrained in me.”

And in the caption accompanying the video, she wrote that she “was so reluctant to do this, to tell my horrible story.”

“It was in an even worse time than now,” he added. “A time when contraception was not easily available and only if you were married.”

In the video, Field said a family friend, who was a doctor, accompanied her and her mother to Tijuana.

“And we parked on a really seedy looking street. It was scary and he parked about three blocks away and said, “See that building over there?” And he gave me an envelope with cash and I had to go into that building and give them the cash and then come right back to him,” she said.

He had “no anesthetic” during the procedure, Field recalled. But, he said, “There was a technician who would give me a few puffs of ether, but then take it away, so it made my arms and legs feel numb and weird, but I felt everything: how much pain I was in.” .”

However, then she “realized that the technician was actually harassing me, so I had to figure out how do I move my arms to push him away? So it was just this absolute abyss of shame.

He continued: “And then when it was all over, they said, 'Go go go go go!', as if the building was on fire. And they didn't want me there, you know, it was illegal!”

The experience, Field said, was “beyond horrific and life-changing,” but he thanked the doctor for his “generosity” and “courage,” saying he “would have lost his license if anyone had found out” what he did.

Shortly after her illegal abortion, Field said, she began auditioning and landed her iconic role as Gidget by the end of the year.

And she used her experience to highlight the current challenges women are facing since Roe v. Wade was flipped in 2022.

“I feel like so many women of my generation have experienced similar, traumatic events and I feel stronger when I think of them,” Field wrote in her caption. “I believe that, like me, they should want to fight for their grandchildren and for all the young women in this country.”

“These are the things that women are going through now: when they try to get to another state, they don't have the money, they don't have the means, they don't know where they're going,” she said in the video. “And it goes way beyond how you can go back to that and do the same to our girls and our young women, and not have respect and regard for their health and their decisions about whether they feel able to give gives birth to a child.” child at that time. We can't go back. We all need to stand up and fight.”

Field concluded his caption by encouraging others to share their stories.

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