Sally Field is revealing her abortion experience as the 2024 presidential election approaches.

Before the famous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which upheld the right to abortion in the United States, the two-time Oscar winner recounted her own “traumatic” illegal abortion 60 years ago. In 2022, approximately 50 years after its implementation, the Supreme Court reversed the verdict.

Field, 77, reminisced in a video uploaded to her Instagram account on Sunday, Oct. 6, that she was 17 years old when she discovered she was pregnant. She starts the video by saying, “I still feel very ashamed about it because I was raised in the ’50s, and it’s ingrained in me.”

“I had no options in my life; I didn’t have much family support or money. I graduated high school, but no one ever said, ‘How about college?’ Nothing. “I didn’t know what I was going to be,” the actress admitted. “And then I found out I was pregnant.”

Upon my arrival, Field arranged for a family doctor, a friend of the family, to drive me, his wife, and my mother in their brand-new Cadillac to Tijuana.

“We parked on a shady-looking street; it was frightening. He parked about three blocks away and said, ‘See that building down there?'” He handed me an envelope filled with cash, instructing me to enter the building, hand over the money, and then return to him, she explained.

The Forrest Gump actor described the event as “beyond hideous and life-altering,” adding that she “had no anesthetic” during the treatment. anyway.  “A technician was administering a few puffs of ether to me, but he would then remove it, causing my arms and legs to feel numb and strange. Despite this, I was aware of the intense pain I was experiencing,” she said to me.

“Then the situation worsened,” Field added. “When I realized the technician was abusing me, I had to learn how to move my arms and push him away.” It was an extremely embarrassing situation. And then, when everything was completed, they shouted, ‘Go go, go!’ as if the building were on fire. They didn’t want me there because it was illegal.

Field went on to commend her doctor’s “generosity” and “bravery,” stating that “he would’ve lost his license if anyone had found out” what he had done for her.

“And more likely, it was because I was too naive to know anything,” she told me. “I’d never been out of the state; I’d never been on an airplane.”

“And fate, you know, something glorious outside of ourselves—whatever you believe—reached in,” Field told me. “A few months after that, I started auditioning. I didn’t have an agency, and I wasn’t really an actor. During my high school years, I was actively involved in acting. And I started auditioning. By the end of the year, I was Gidget. I was the classic American girl next door.”

In her video, Field referenced information from her 2018 novel In Pieces, stating, “In reality, I was the quintessential, all-American girl next door, because so many young women, my generation of women, were going through this.”

“And these are the things that women are going through now—when they’re trying to get to another state, they don’t have the money, they don’t have the means, and they don’t know where they’re going,” she told me. “It’s beyond how you can go back to that and do that to our little girls and young women without respecting their health and their own decisions about whether they can give birth and when.”

“We can’t go back.” We must all rise up and fight. “And that was the lovely story,” she said.

The Steel Magnolias actress accompanied the film with a lengthy statement, in which she admitted she had “been so hesitant… to tell my horrific story.”

Field recalled a time when contraception was not readily available and was only available to married women. “But I feel like so many women in my generation have gone through similar, horrible circumstances, and thinking about them makes me feel stronger,” Field said. I believe they, like me, want to fight for their granddaughters and all of our country’s young women.

Field went on to state that the problem is “one of the reasons why so many of us are supporting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz” in the forthcoming race.

“Please pay attention to this election, up and down the ballot, in every state—especially those with ballot proposals that might defend reproductive freedom. PLEASE. “WE CAN’T GO BACK!” she exclaimed, encouraging her followers to share their stories with her if they were willing.

One of the many comments on her post came from Busy Philipps, who had previously recounted her own tale of having an abortion as a teenager in her 2018 memoir This Will Only Hurt a Little.

“I simply love you and your wonderful family. Philipps, 45, responded, “Thank you ❤️.”

Thank you. “You are a courageous beacon of light and hope for all of us. 💕,” Elizabeth Perkins remarked, while Marcia Cross also added, “Thank you.”