Chelsea Handler reveals she had two abortions in the same year at the age of 16

I
was going through a very bad stage in my life. I hated my parents and I
was having unprotected sex with my boyfriend, who was not someone I
should’ve been having sex with in the first place, never mind
unprotected sex. I wasn’t really playing with a full deck of cards, and
when I got pregnant I just thought, Why not? 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 recognized
that, so they acted like parents for one of the very first times in my
life and took me to Planned Parenthood. I felt parented, ironically,
while I was getting an abortion. And when it was over, I was relieved in
every possible way.

And I didn’t have just one abortion; I had
two in the same year, impregnated by the same guy. I didn’t have the
money the second time. I had to scrape together the $230 to pay Planned
Parenthood, but it was a safe abortion. 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
fuck 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. I’m 41 now. I don’t ever look back and
think, God, I wish I’d had that baby.

Like millions of women, I
can live my life without an unplanned child born out of an unhealthy
relationship because of Roe v. Wade. It’s infuriating to hear
politicians make bogus promises about overturning this ruling that has
protected us for more than 40 years. It’s infuriating to hear them
pander to the Christian right with promises they have no chance of
keeping. (By the way: Even if there is a God, I highly doubt he wants
everybody to go through with their pregnancies.) And it’s even more
infuriating to watch politicians find ways to subvert Roe v. Wade,
passing lesser laws that close clinics or restrict abortion access for
women. At least five states—Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South
Dakota and Wyoming—currently have only one clinic left within their
borders.

But despite all that, I don’t buy that Roe v. Wade is in
danger. We’re too far ahead of the game. Once you go forward in
history, you don’t go backward. That would be like the government
saying, “Okay, we’re taking away your right to vote too.” You can’t
introduce a black person and be like, “Oh, I just got a slave!” That era
is over. It’s similar to what’s happening in Mississippi and some other
states with gay-marriage discrimination—marriage equality is going to
take. You can’t stop that. We’ve already made the decision, and now
we’re moving on to transgender rights. And it’s a wrap on men deciding
what women can do with their bodies.

I doubt this is something
America will ever agree on. Again, it’s like racism and sexism: People
will be racist if they’re innately built that way, but whether they can
act on their racism or not is a separate issue. There are people who
think women shouldn’t hold high-powered positions, or who think Obama is
Muslim, and it’s okay for them to have those thoughts; they just can’t
act on them in a civilized society. It’s okay if you think it’s not
right for women to have abortions—but it’s not your problem, because we
decide.

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.