“Girls” actress Jemima Kirke recently opened up about an abortion she had back in college in a new video for the Center for Reproductive Rightss “Draw The Line” campaign.
As the Huffington Post explains, the 29-year-old Brit felt that at the time of her unexpected pregnancyin 2007, the decision to terminate the pregnancy was the right choice for her. She had a boyfriend with whom she could not see herself with for a lifetime or raising a child with. “My life was just not conducive to raising a happy, healthy, child. I just didn’t feel it was fair,” she explained.
Kirke terminated her pregnancy at a Planned Parenthood in Providence, Rhode Island, where she was attending school. She felt should couldn’t tell her mother about having an abortion, so she paid for it out-of-pocket and by borrowing money from her boyfriend, also chosing to forgo anesthesia to keep the cost down.
“It’s these obstacles and it’s this stigma that makes these things not completely unavailable — and that’s the tricky part, is that we think we do have free choice and we are able to do whatever we want, but then there are these little hoops we have to jump through to get them,” Kirke said.
Now the “Girls” actress is the mother of two daughters (an eight-year-old stepdaughter and a four-year-old daughter) and says she wants her children to grow up not having to “fight for the rights over their bodies.” Her belief that “reproductive issues should be something women should be able to talk about freely,” is a wonderful sentiment for a celebrity to speak openly about. Hopefully, women will take note of her courage and feel safe to speak out about their own experiences as well, leading to the dissolution of the stigma surrounding a woman’s right to choose.
You can find out more from the Center For Reproductive Rights here.
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