Jennifer Grey.Photo: Rob Kim/Getty
Jennifer Greyis among countless women who are sharing their abortion stories following theSupreme Court’s reversal ofRoe v. Wade, which eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion.
“I feel so emotional,” theDirty Dancingstar, 62, told theLos Angeles Timesof the ruling, which reversed nearly 50 years of precedent. “Even though I’ve seen it coming, even though we’ve been hearing what’s coming, it doesn’t feel real.”
The actress alludes to her own experience with abortion in her memoir,Out of the Corner, where she discusses her rebellious moments as a teenager.
“When I try to imagine my own daughter at 16, playing house, essentially living with a grown-ass man, doing tons of blow, popping Quaaludes, and going to Studio [54] — not to mention being lied to, cheated on, then gifted with various and sundry STDs and unwanted pregnancies, it makes me feel physically ill,” she wrote. “No teenager should be swimming in waters that dark.”
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“It’s such a grave decision. And it stays with you,” she admitted before assuring it was the right decision for herself.
“I wouldn’t have my life. I wouldn’t have had the career I had, I wouldn’t have had anything,” Grey added. “And it wasn’t for lack of taking it seriously. I’d always wanted a child. I just didn’t want a child as a teenager. I didn’t want a child where I was [at] in my life.”
It wasn’t until the star was 41 that she gave birth to her daughter Stella, now 20, with ex-husband Clark Gregg.
“This is just so fundamentally wrong,” she added, “and it is sounding a bell for all women to rise up and use their voice now because we have assumed, since 1973, that our choice was safe and that it was never going to be overturned.”
The actress then detailed how appreciative she was thatDirty Dancingportrayed a pro-choice message.
In the beloved 1987 film, which was set in 1963 before Roe, Penny (Cynthia Rhodes) grapples with an unplanned pregnancy and undergoes an illegal abortion which leads to a botched procedure and difficult recovery.
“We saw someone who was hemorrhaging,” Grey said of the film. “We saw what happens to people without means — the haves and the have nots. I love that part of the storyline because it was really a feminist movie in a rom-com. It was a perfect use of history.”
source: people.com
