'I've never, not for one moment, regretted it': Actress and mother-of-two Amy Brenneman details the moment she had an abortion - saying the procedure 'gave me my life back'
- The 51-year-old is sharing her story to raise awareness for the upcoming Supreme Court case, Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt
- The case challenges a 2013 Texas law that would force more than three quarters of the state's clinic providing abortion to shutter
- Amy said she was in a loving relationship of nearly two years when her birth control failed and she found herself pregnant
- The mother-of-two, who wanted to finish college and start her career, said she knew immediately that she wanted to have an abortion
Amy Brenneman has penned a thought-provoking essay detailing the abortion she had as a 21-year-old college student as she reveals she never once regretted her decision.
The 51-year-old actress has shared her story in an essay published on Cosmopolitan.com to raise awareness for the upcoming Supreme Court case, Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. The case challenges a a 2013 Texas law that would force more than three quarters of the state's clinic providing abortion to shutter.
'If this law were allowed to stand, it would leave only 10 clinics remaining in a state with 5.4 million women of reproductive age, many of whom will find themselves in the same position that I was in at age 21,' she wrote.
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Fighting for reproductive justice: Amy Brenneman is sharing her abortion story raise awareness for the upcoming Supreme Court case, Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt
Amy, who shared her story along with eight other women in an amicus brief for the case, recalled being junior at Harvard when she realized that her period was late.
She said that she had been in a relationship with her 'loving and supportive boyfriend' for almost two years, and although they used birth control, it malfunctioned.
Amy's explained that mother Frederica S. Brenneman, who is a superior court judge, was in the first class of women at Harvard Law School and the third female to be put on the bench in the state of Connecticut.
Her progressive parents raised her to believe it is a woman's right to choose, and when Amy found herself pregnant just a year into her 20s, she knew 'immediately and without question' that she wanted an abortion as she looked to finish college and start her career.
Her choice: Amy was a 21-year-old student at Harvard and in a nearly two year relationship with her boyfriend when she learned she was pregnant. She recalled knowing immediately that she would have an abortion
Rising star: After graduating from Harvard in 1987, she went on to become a critically acclaimed actress, writer, and producer. She is pictured in 1993, seven years after she terminated her pregnancy
Together she and her boyfriend looked in the yellow pages for a clinic that performed abortions, and he was with her during the entire procedure, which he paid for.
'Afterward, I breathed huge sigh of relief and thought to myself, I get my life back!' she recalled.
'I was grateful that I lived in a country where forced birth was not the law of the land and where motherhood was not a lifelong consequence for a contraception slip.
'I have never, not for one moment, regretted my abortion.'
The writer and producer went on to have two children, a 14-year-old daughter Charlotte Tucker and a 10-year-old son Bodhi Russell, with her husband of 20 years, Brad Silberling.
Happy together: Amy and Brad Silberling, her husband of 20 years, have 14-year-old daughter Charlotte Tucker and a 10-year-old son Bodhi Russell. The family is pictured together in 2013
Starring role: Most recently, Amy appeared in the HBO sci-fi thriller The Leftovers (pictured)
And according to Amy, being a parent has only made her even more committed to reproductive rights. She explained that 'legal abortion allows children a fighting chance to be born into families that desire them and can support them'.
Amy went on to say that her abortion story is 'absolutely uneventful', but today women who choose to terminate their pregnancies face violent harassment by protesters or forced to drive hundreds of miles to even reach a clinic that performs the procedure.
The mother-of-two said part of the reason why she was inclined to share her story was because of a conversation she had with Nancy Keenan, former president of NARAL Pro-Choice Amerca.
Nancy once told her that the fight for marriage equality started to flourish while the the reproductive justice movement seemed to be moving in reverse because people in the former group were sharing their stories.
'I had an abortion,' she explained in her essay. '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 per cent of women who do not regret their choice.'
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