Actress Jemima Kirke has revealed that she had an abortion as a college student.
The Girls star spoke candidly about her experience as part of a new campaign for access to reproductive healthcare in the US and confirmed that she fell pregnant in 2007 while studying in Rhode Island.
While in a relationship at the time, Kirke said that she felt her life “was not conducive to raising a healthy, happy child” and decided to proceed with an abortion.
“Because I couldn’t tell my mother that I was pregnant, I had to pay for it out of pocket. I had to empty my checking account and get some from my boyfriend. I realized that if I didn’t take the anesthesia, I would be able to afford to do this. The anesthesia wasn’t that much more, but when you’re scrounging for however many hundreds of dollars, it’s a lot.”
The star, who now has a family with husband Michael Mosberg, filmed the video for the Draw The Line campaign and said that while abortion is legal in the US, there are still many obstacles facing women who choose to take this route.
“I’ve always felt that reproductive issues should be something that women especially should be able to talk about, especially amongst each other and I still see that today, that shame and embarrassment around terminating pregnancy and getting pregnant. I still see it.
“I’m already anticipating [my daughters] issues with self-esteem, their issues with their body, the whole luggage that comes with being a woman so I would love if when they are older, when they are in their teens or twenties, that the political issues surrounding their bodies were not there anymore. That they have one less thing to battle.”
