'I Thanked God:' Five Members of Congress Share Their Abortion Stories

With reproductive freedom more imperiled than ever following the leak of an initial majority draft opinion that would strike down Roe v. Wade, Americans are speaking out about how access to safe and legal abortions has shaped their lives. In a new video roundtable at ELLE, five members of Congress opened up about their personal experiences with abortion: Representatives Cori Bush, Pramila Jayapal, Barbara Lee, and Jackie Speier, as well as Senator Gary Peters.

Of the 536 members of Congress, these five are the only ones to go on the record with their abortion stories. But given recent estimates that nearly one in four American women will have an abortion in her lifetime, it’s highly likely that more members of Congress have been touched by abortion.

Speaking about the abortion she had at seventeen years old, Representative Bush said, “It changed my life, because it gave me the space to be able to take care of Cori first.” Meanwhile, Representatives Speier and Jayapal highlighted how the majority of women who have abortion are already mothers; speaking about the abortion she had when her first child was just a few years old, Jayapal said, “I realized there was just no way that I could possibly take care of Janak and take care of myself.” Senator Peters shared the story of how an abortion saved his wife’s life when she faced a lethal infection at the end of her second trimester, while Representative Lee highlighted the danger of back-alley abortions, remembering the one she had in eleventh grade. “I knew what was happening to women who had these back-alley abortions, because then, for Black girls and women, that was a cause of death for so many of us,” she said. “Afterward, I thanked God that I survived, because I knew so many women hadn’t.”

As ELLE reminds us in the video streaming above, “Abortion patients are your neighbors, your friends, your colleagues, and, yes, even your elected officials.” Wondering what you can do to fight for reproductive rights? You can start by donating to an abortion fund in any of the 26 states expected to enact a ban, should Roe v. Wade be struck down. Check out our guide to where to donate here at Esquire.

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