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As reproductive rights and women’s health become some of the most repugn issue ahead of the 2024 presidential election, actress sally field shared her own experience with abortion in angstrom unit newvideo that she share on Instagramon Sunday, October 6. The Oscar-winning actress spoke about angstrom unit “traumatic” illegal abortion that she had Sir Thomas More than 60 years ago beforeRoe v. WadeAffirmed the right to abortion in the unify States—and was turn over in 2022.

“I still feel very shamed about information technology because atomic number 53 Evergreen State raised in the ’50s, and it’s ingrained inch me,” she said. “I have got no selection inch my life, I didn’t rich person angstrom mickle of household support or finances. I graduated high school simply no single ever said, ‘How about college?’ Nothing. I didn’t know what I was gonna be. And then iodine found out I Evergreen State pregnant.”

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She add that she had to enlist the help of a family friend and thrust to Mexico for the procedure.

go along her story, she tell that she “had a home doctor who Evergreen State a friend of the family, and He drove Pine Tree State and his wife and my mother, in their brand-new Cadillac, to Tijuana. And we parked on angstrom unit really scroungy-looking street, IT WA scary and he park about 3 block away and said, ‘See that building down there?’ And he gave ME an envelope with hard currency and I Washington to walking into that building and give them the cash and then seed right back to him.”

Field share more details, expression that the experience was “beyond hideous and life-altering” and that she “had no anesthetic,” except “there was angstrom unit technician giving Pine Tree State A few puffs of ether only helium would then issue IT away, so IT just do my arms and legs feel numb weird, but iodin felt everything—how much pain I was in.”

“Then the state of affairs turn darker,” Field continued. “I realize that the technician was actually molesting me, so iodin have got to figure out, how can iodin make my arms move to push him away? So, information technology was just this absolute cavity of shame. And then, when information technology was finished, they said, ‘Go tour go spell go!’, like the building was on fire. And they didn’t want ME there, you know, it WA illegal!”

She finished by expression that she Evergreen State to a fault offspring to know what to do and that information technology was surreal for her to experience that and then jump into acting—specifically determination herself in wholesome roles, like Gidget.

“And more probably, because iodin was too naif to know anything. I’d never be out of the state, I’d never been on an airplane. And fate, you know, something glorious outside of ourselves, whatever you believe, reached in,” Field finished. “And a few month after that, I start out auditions. iodine didn’t rich person Associate in Nursing agent; I wasn’t really Associate in Nursing actor. I’d been do it in high school constantly. And atomic number 53 begin auditioning. And by the end of that year, I was Gidget. I WA the quintessential, all-American girl next door.”

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field also discussed the state of affairs inch her 2018 memoir,in Pieces.During her video she refer it, saying, “The thing that iodin wrote about in the book, in reality, atomic number 53 WA the quintessential, all-American girl next door, because soh many young women, my generation of women, be going through this.”

She concluded her message with A call to action for voters and remind everyone how consequential this year’s election will be.

“And these are the things that women ar going through now—when they’re trying to get to another state, they don’t wealthy person the money, they don’t have the means, they don’t know where they’re going. And it’s beyond, how you tin can go dorsum to that and do that to our little girls and our young women, and not wealthy person respect and regard for their health and their own decisions about whether they feel they’re able to give birth to angstrom child at that time,” she said. “We can’t go back. We have to all stand up and fight.”