Chelsea Handler has revealed that she had two abortions when she was sixteen, and admitted that she’s glad that she was allowed do it legally.
In an essay for Playboy magazine, the talk show host wrote about how America’s reproductive laws helped her in the early years of her life, and why the laws should stay in place.
Speaking about falling pregnant at 16 after having unprotected sex, Chelsea said, “I just thought, ‘I can have a baby. Maybe I’ll have twins and give them rhyming names’.”
“Of course, the idea that I would have a child and raise it by myself at that age, when I couldn’t even find my way home at night, was ridiculous. My parents recognised that, so they acted like parents for one of the very first times in my life and took me to Planned Parenthood.”
Honest: Chelsea wrote an essay about abortion | INSTAGRAM
“Getting unintentionally pregnant more than once is irresponsible, but it’s still necessary to make a thoughtful decision.
“We all make mistakes all the time. I happened to f**k up twice at the age of 16. I’m grateful that I came to my senses and was able to get an abortion legally without risking my health or bankrupting myself or my family,” she wrote.
The news comes after the US Supreme Court struck down a Texas law placing a raft of restrictions on abortion clinics yesterday – which is a huge victory for pro-choice supporters in the USA’s most important abortion case in decades.
Chelsea also wrote that any effort to change the abortion laws in the US is “infuriating” – and she dared anybody to tell her what to do with her body.
Candid: Chelsea admitted that she would have been a bad parent at sixteen | INSTAGRAM
“Once you go forward in history, you don’t go backward,” Chelsea adds. “That would be like the government saying, ‘OK, we’re taking away your right to vote too’… We have 7.3 billion people on this planet.
“Anybody who carefully decides not to become a parent – let alone a bad parent, which is what I would have become – should be applauded for making a smart and sustainable decision.
“I’d love for somebody to try to tell me what to do with my body. I dare them,” she added.
