Sally Field has opened up about a traumatic abortion experience she had as a teen, in an effort to support women’s reproductive rights during this election cycle.
In a personal video shared to Instagram, the Academy Award-winning actress reflects on receiving an illegal abortion in the ’60s in Tijuana before Roe v. Wade was passed, saying, “I still feel very ashamed of it because I was raised in the ‘50s and it’s ingrained in me. It was beyond hideous and life-altering.”
As a child of a less progressive era, Field described, “I had no choices in my life. I didn’t have a lot of family support or finances. I didn’t know what I was gonna be, and then I found out I was pregnant.”
Field recalled that she was able to get the abortion because of her family doctor. Her mother, the doctor and his wife drove to Tijuana for Field to receive the procedure.
“We parked on a really scrungy looking street. It was scary,” she says. “And he parked about three blocks away and said, ‘See that building down there?’ And he 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.”
She recalled that during the procedure, she was given “a few puffs of ether” which numbed parts of her body but she was not under anesthesia. She shared that in the harrowing experience, she was molested.
Not long after her experience, Field would headline the 1965 ABC sitcom “Gidget.” She said she wanted to share her story because these are “the things that women are going through now,” referencing the increasing restrictions on reproductive rights since the repeal of Roe.
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