Oscar-winning actor speaks about the ‘life-altering’ operation she underwent in Mexico with no anaesthetic in 1964: ‘How you can go back to that?’
Sally Field has spoken about the “hideous” and “traumatic” illegal abortion she underwent as a 17-year-old in 1964, as she called on voters to get behind Kamala Harris in the upcoming US presidential election.
The Oscar-winning actor first revealed her abortion in her 2018 memoir In Pieces, but wrote in the caption of her video, shared on Instagram, that she had “been so hesitant to do this, to tell my horrific story”.
“It was during a time even worse than now,” she wrote. “A time when contraception was not readily available and only if you were married. But I feel that so many women of my generation went through similar, traumatic events and I feel stronger when I think of them. I believe, like me, they must want to fight for their grandchildren and all the young women of this country.”
In the video, Field said she still feels “very shamed” about the abortion “because I was raised in the 50s, and it’s ingrained in me.” She was 17 when she underwent the procedure in 1964 – nine years before Roe v Wade introduced a constitutional right to abortion, which was upheld until the US supreme court overturned federal-level abortion rights in June 2022.
The actor said she had “no choices in my life” and little family support when she discovered she was pregnant. A family friend who was a doctor drove her, her mother and his wife to Tijuana, Mexico so she could undergo the abortion.
