Chelsea Handler said it best in an essay, in which she admitted to having two abortions at the age of 16.
“It’s okay if you think it’s not right for women to have abortions — but it’s not your problem, because we decide,” Handler wrote in Playboy‘s Freedom issue.
“We have 7.3 billion people on this planet. Anybody who carefully decides not to become a parent — let alone a bad parent, which is what I would have become — should be applauded for making a smart and sustainable decision.
“I’d love for somebody to try to tell me what to do with my body. I dare them.”
See the other celebrities who went public with their decision.
Nicki Minaj
Minaj told Rolling Stone that getting an abortion when she was a teen traumatized her. “I thought I was going to die,” she admitted. “It was the hardest thing I have ever gone through. . . It has haunted me all my life.†Minaj is still, however, pro-choice. “It’d be contradictory if I said I wasn’t pro-choice. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have anything to offer a child,” she explained.
Stevie Nicks
“To give up four babies is to give up a lot that would be here now. So that bothers me, a lot, and really breaks my heart. But they’re gone, so…” Stevie Nicks told VOX in 1992 of her four abortions. “But I couldn’t have because I was too busy. And I had all these commitments.”
Jemima Kirke
“We do have free choice and we are able to do what we want, but then there are these hoops we have to jump through to get [abortions],†the Girls star said in a PSA for the Center For Reproductive Right’s Draw The Line Campaign. “Reproductive issues should be something that women should be able to talk about freely.â€Â
Vanessa Williams
Back in 2012, Williams told ABC’s Nightline that she had an abortion. “Being pregnant is the most frightening thing that happens in your life,” Williams said. “I knew in high school that’s something that I was not prepared to do or fight or struggle with.”
Sharon Osbourne
“I had an abortion at 17 and it was the worst thing I ever did,” Osbourne admitted a few years ago. “It was the first time I’d had sex, and that was rotten. I’d always thought it was going to be all violins, and it was just awful. I was two months gone when I realized. I went to my mum and she said, without pausing for breath: ‘You have to get rid of it.’ She told me where the clinic was, then virtually pushed me off. She was so angry. She said I’d got myself in this mess, now she had to get me out.
Whoopi Goldberg
Goldberg performed an abortion on herself with a coat hanger at the age of 13.
Toni Braxton
Braxton regrets having an abortion at a time in her life when she was neither financially or emotionally ready to have a baby. “I felt selfish because I was thinking, I’m going through bankruptcy — there’s things going on with my life and I can’t give this kid any future. I was feeling hopeless for no reason, when I look at it now for no reason, what was I thinking?” She told Entertainment Tonight. “I am not really embarrassed about it, I am more ashamed of myself for doing that because I could’ve figured something out financially — that was just an excuse I was making for myself.”
Sherri Shepherd
Shepherd admitted to Christian magazine Precious Times that before converting to Christianity, she had gone through “more abortions” than she “could count.” After the article was published, Shepherd responded to accusations that she made a flippant remark about a serious matter. “This is something I went through,” she explained on The View in 2008. “I like to inspire women who go through a lot of shame and guilt [because] I too went through it.”
Amy Brenneman
Brenneman had an abortion when she was a junior at Harvard. “I am simply one of millions of women who have exercised this constitutionally protected right, and according to recent data, I am part of the 95 percent of women who do not regret their choice,” she wrote in a piece for Cosmopolitan in 2016.
Lil’ Kim
At 18, Lil’ Kim got pregnant by the Notorious B.I.G. Since he was married to Faith Evans, “Biggie” convinced Kim to get an abortion.
Margaret Cho
In 2015, Cho tweeted in support of Planned Parenthood, pointing out that it “helps women have babies. If you were truly pro-life, you wouldn’t take prenatal care away from low income women.†She also tweeted, “I do not believe in a God who would consider abortion a sin. God created abortion. As he did all of us. God created choice for all to DECIDE.â€Â
Sinead O’Connor
O’Connor was on tour in Minneapolis in the early 90s, and nine weeks pregnant when she opted to have an abortion. “I think people don’t necessarily understand, because they haven’t had the experience, that to decide to terminate a pregnancy is probably the most difficult decision a woman would have to make,” she later said.
Joan Collins
Collins chose to get an abortion while engaged to fellow actor Warren Beatty. ” It would have been unthinkable to have a child.†Collins told the Daily Mail. “He didn’t have any money, I had nothing, and I believe if you are going to bring a child into the world that you have to have a responsibility to that child.”
Billie Jean King
World-renowned tennis great King told Makers that she “was not in a good place,†while deciding to have an abortion. “I was just finding out about my sexuality. I was trying to figure my life out. I was trying to get the tour started. I just did not want to bring a baby into the world.â€Â
Chelsea Handler
“I was going through a very bad stage in my life,” Handler wrote in an essay published in Playboy. “I hated my parents and I was having unprotected sex with my boyfriend, who was not someone I should’ve been having sex with in the first place, nevermind unprotected sex. I wasn’t really playing with a full deck of cards. Getting unintentionally pregnant more than once is irresponsible, but it’s still necessary to make a thoughtful decision. We all make mistakes all the time. I happened to fuck up twice at the age of 16. I’m grateful that I came to my senses and was able to get an abortion legally without risking my health or bankrupting myself or my family. I’m 41 now. I don’t ever look back and think, God, I wish I’d had that baby.â€Â
Sanya Richards-Ross
Sanya Richards-Ross made headlines in the summer of 2017 when she admitted that she got an abortion right before the 2008 Olympic Games.