Oscar-winning actressSally Fieldis sharing her personal abortion story as part of her ongoing advocacy for women’s healthcare and reproductive rights. In a message to her 18 million followers, the Hollywood icon recalled her own experience with an unplanned pregnancy while urging voters to support Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming 2024 presidential election.
Field first revealed details about her abortion in her 2018 memoirIn Pieces, but she revisited the topic in anemotional Instagram videoon Oct. 6. In it, the legendary actress describes her upbringing in the 1950s and the societal pressures women faced. She recalls becoming pregnant as a teenager and undergoing an illegal abortion at 17. She credits her brave family doctor who risked his license to drive her to Tijuana, Mexico, to undergo the procedure – shockingly, without anesthetic:
“There was a technician giving me a few puffs of ether but he would then take it away, so it just made my arms and legs feel numb weird, but I felt everything — how much pain I was in. And then I realized that the technician was actually molesting me, so 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.”
In the clip, Field admits she had a grim outlook about her future after graduating from high school, but upon learning she was pregnant, she was overwhelmed with insecurities. “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," theForrest Gumpactress shared on Instagram “I didn’t know what I was gonna be, and then I found out I was pregnant.”
Sally Field Booked Her Breakout Role Shortly After
Several months after the abortion, Field booked her breakout role in the one-season sitcomGidget.The show centered on a boy-crazy teenage girl and her widowed father (Don Porter). The series aired for one season on ABC from 1965 to 1966. Field said her Hollywood image became the opposite of what her real-life experience had been at the time.
“A few months after that, I began auditions. I didn’t have an agent. I wasn’t really an actor. I’d been doing it in high school constantly. And I began auditioning. And by the end of that year, I was Gidget. I was the quintessential, all-American girl next door.”
Since then, Field has collectednumerous awardsduring her acclaimed careerspanning six decades. She became a mother for the first time in her twenties, andsaid in a speechat the 2012 Human Rights Campaign dinner: “The three things I am most proud of in my life are Peter, Eli, and Sam. My sons.” TheSybilstar and her first husband, Steven Craig, share Peter, 54, and Eli, 52, and her second husband, Alan Greisman, is father to 36-year-old Sam.
Best Sally Field Movies and TV Shows, Ranked
From The Amazing Spider-Man to Steel Magnolias, these are Sally Field’s best works so far.
In the caption of her Instagram video, Field notes that she had reservations about reliving the distressing abortion memory but wanted to speak out as the conversation around women’s healthcare heats up:
“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.”
Field’s personal abortion experience adds to the ongoing national debate about protecting women’s healthcare leading up to the 2024 presidential election. The actress writes, “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!!"
