[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
Sally Field is opening up about going through a “traumatic” illegal abortion as a teenager.
In a vulnerable video posted to Instagram on Sunday, the actress revealed she was “so hesitant” to share her story — but wanted to be honest about her own history of abortion ahead of the upcoming presidential election. After all, it’s clear a national ban on abortion — and likely other women’s reproductive rights — is at stake this year.
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She wrote in the caption:
“I’ve been so hesitant to do this, to tell my horrific story. 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.
It’s one of the reasons why so many of us are supporting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. 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. PLEASE. WE CAN’T GO BACK!!”
In the emotional video, the Steel Magnolias alum said she still “feel[s] very shamed about” what she went through. The abortion took place when she was a 17-year-old high school graduate who got pregnant without “a lot of family support in any way or finances.” She recalled:
“We had a family doctor who was a friend of the family, and he drove me, his wife and my mother in their brand-new Cadillac to Tijuana.”
She remembered once they got to Mexico, they “parked on a really scroungy-looking street — it was scary.” They were about three blocks away from the place she’d have the procedure… and she was sent in alone:
“[The doctor] gave me an envelope with cash, and I was to walk into that building and give them the cash and then come right back to him. I guess he thought if I were dying then maybe he could help me. And it was beyond hideous and, you know, life-altering.”
For the procedure, she had “no anesthetic” and was only given “a few puffs of ether” by a technician who kept taking it away — but all that did was make her arms and legs feel “numb and weird.” She shared:
“But I felt everything, how much pain I was in. And then I realized that the technician was actually molesting me.”
Oh, no. So, so awful. Sally continued:
“I had to figure out, how can I make my arms move to push him away? So it was just this absolute pit of shame. Then when it was finished, they said, ‘Go, go, go, go, go!’ like the building was on fire. They didn’t want me there. You know, it was illegal.”
She praised her doctor for going out of his way to help her, something she now realizes could have cost him his career. And as horrible and violating as the experience was, just a few months later, she would start her legendary acting career — something that never would have happened had she been forced to bear a child when she wasn’t ready. Sally said she began auditioning months later and booked the 1965 sitcom Gidget by the end of the year:
“I was Gidget. I was the quintessential All-American girl next door. And the thing that I wrote about in the book [her memoir In Pieces], in reality, I was the quintessential All-American girl next door. Because so many young women, my generation of women, were going through this, and these are the things that women are going through now — when they’re trying 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 knows the pain of that struggle all too personally — and that’s why she’s speaking up:
“And it’s beyond, how you can go back to that and do that to our little girls and our young women and not have respect and regard for their health and their own decisions about whether they feel they’re able to give birth to a child at that time. We can’t go back. We can’t go back. We have to all stand up and fight.”
The Flying Nun star sarcastically finished:
“And that was that lovely story.”
Oof. Heartbreaking that she had to go through that. And at such a young age! Tons of followers shared their support and stories in the comments, including Busy Philipps who wrote:
“i just love you and the beautiful family you have. thank you”
See her full post (below):
That cannot have been an easy story to share, but we hope her honesty will inspire and help others.
Reactions? Tell us (below).
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence and would like to learn more about resources, consider checking out https://www.rainn.org/resources.
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