*Kerry Washington reveals in her new memoir, “Thicker Than Water,” that she had an abortion when she was in her 20s.
“I struggled a lot in the beginning with whether or not to include my abortion story,” Washington tells People in a new interview. “At first I wasn’t really sure how it fit into this story of my life. But I started to feel like it was really important for me to share this.”
In an excerpt from the book via Time.com, Washington writes: “In my late 20s, I made the difficult and very private decision to have an abortion. About a decade later, I played a character that was the first woman to be shown undergoing an abortion procedure on network television. As women, it is our right to choose what happens to our bodies, our lives, and our futures. It is also up to us to decide when, how, and with whom we share our stories.”
She continued, “While, as an actor, I was proud to portray a woman exercising her right to choose, in real life I never talked about my own abortion publicly. My shame and embarrassment inspired a private silence that hid my personal truth and made me complicit in a culture of secrecy that shames women, our bodies, our choices, and our power.”
Washington added: “As I was writing my memoir, however, I realized how important it is to speak openly about experiences that have been kept in the dark, because when we do so we liberate ourselves and each other. The reality is that abortion is a very real and normal part of women’s lives. I share the story of my abortion procedure here because our right to make choices about our bodies and our lives is under attack both culturally and legislatively. This is my story. I am one of many. And we will not be silenced.”
As People reports, Washington is speaking out about her experience now because: “It’s just so important to me that abortion is not a bad word, and that my abortion is not another thing on the list of things that I’m ashamed of.”
She adds, “We’re at a moment where it’s really important to be telling the truth about our reproductive choices because some of those choices are being stripped away from us.”
Washington’s memoir is available Sept. 26 wherever books are sold.
READ MORE: Kerry Washington, Delroy Lindo Talk New Series ‘UnPrisoned’ | EUR Video Exclusive
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