Cynthia Nixon Shared the Story of Her Mother's Illegal Abortion, All While Holding Up a Coat Hanger

From ELLE

The day after President Trump announced his nominee for the Supreme Court, Cynthia Nixon, a gubernatorial candidate for New York, immediately took a stand, attending a pro-choice rally in Union Square and sharing the story of her mother's own illegal abortion-all while holding up a wire coat hanger.

On Monday evening, Trump declared he would be nominating Brett Kavanaugh to fill the seat left open by Justice Kennedy, who was often a swing vote on issues such as abortion. Trump's decision has left many pro-choice advocates worried about the future of Roe v. Wade due to Kavanaugh's personal record on the issue (he once attempted to block an undocumented teenager in government custody from receiving an abortion).

As Broadly reported, Nixon has shared her mother's story before, once as early as 2009 during an interview with CNN. At the time, Nixon was speaking out against a proposed amendment called the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which would have limited funding for abortions. During the interview, Nixon said, "My mother had an illegal abortion pre-1973, and it's something that I would never want to face or want my daughter to be facing or any of her friends. Abortion is a right I feel must not go away, and I feel like people aren't mobilizing so much because it's so complicated and it's difficult to understand."

She also wrote about it for TIME in 2016, saying her mother mostly kept the abortion private from her, except to say it was "awful and scary." She wrote, "We must never go back to the days when women like my mother were forced to put their lives at risk in order to plan their families, pursue their dreams, and chart the course of their own lives."

Nixon has also recently criticized Andrew Cuomo, the current governor of New York, for not passing the Reproductive Health Act and the Comprehensive Contraceptive Coverage Act. She breaks it down in one carefully edited video:

These pieces of legislation would protect abortion rights in New York state, in the event that it were overturned at the federal level, and give New Yorkers comprehensive contraceptive coverage, respectively. While Cuomo seems to also be pushing for state senators to pass the Reproductive Health Act, time will tell what will happen in terms of New York's state laws and the country's new Supreme Court Justice.

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