Uma Thurman has penned a powerful and deeply personal essay in protest to Texas’ restrictive abortion law, which bans the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy.

In the column, published in The Washington Post, Thurman called the Texas law a “discriminatory tool against those who are economically disadvantaged,” sharing that she had an abortion at 15-years-old.

“I have followed the course of Texas’s radical antiabortion law with great sadness, and something akin to horror,” she wrote. “Now, in the hope of drawing the flames of controversy away from the vulnerable women on whom this law will have an immediate effect, I am sharing my own experience.”

Thurman went on to share that when she began her acting career at 15, noting that she was “often the only kid in the room,” she was “accidentally impregnated by a much older man.”

“I was living out of a suitcase in Europe, far from my family, and about to start a job,” she revealed. “I struggled to figure out what to do. I wanted to keep the baby, but how?”

Thurman said that she called her parents for advice despite never having spoken to them about being sexually active before, noting that her mother was gravely ill and in the hospital at the time.

Her parents warned her of the difficulties she would face if she attempted to raise a child as a single, teenage mother who was taking the steps to launch an acting career.

“We decided as a family that I couldn’t go through with the pregnancy, and agreed that termination was the right choice,” she wrote. “My heart was broken nonetheless.”

Thurman went on to detail her experience, sharing that an older female friend in Germany helped by bringing her to a doctor’s office in Cologne, where she was “given a local anesthetic and had an abortion.”

“It hurt terribly, but I didn’t complain,” Thurman wrote. “I had internalized so much shame that I felt I deserved the pain.”

“My fingers were tightly locked across my chest, and when the procedure was done the doctor looked down at me said, ‘You have beautiful hands — you remind me of my daughter.’ That single gesture of humanity is seared in my mind as one of the most compassionate moments I have ever experienced,” she shared. “In his eyes, I was a person, I was a daughter, I was still a girl.”

The Kill Bill star revealed that “there is so much pain in this story,” which she called her “darkest secret until now,” adding that the abortion she had as a teenager continues to cause her “anguish” as the “hardest decision” of her life.

“But it was the path to the life full of joy and love that I have experienced,” she continued. “Choosing not to keep that early pregnancy allowed me to grow up and become the mother I wanted and needed to be.”

Thurman, who stressed that “no one finds herself on that table on purpose,” also highlighted that she does not regret her decision.

“I am 51 years old, and I am sharing it with you from the home where I have raised my three children, who are my pride and joy. My life has been extraordinary, at times filled with heartbreak, challenge, loss and fear — just like so many women’s lives — but also marked, like theirs, by courage and compassion,” she wrote. “I conceived my beautiful, magical children with men whom I loved and trusted enough to dare to bring a child into this world. I have no regrets for the path I have traveled. I applaud and support women who make a different choice.”

The post Uma Thurman Reveals She Had an Abortion at 15 in Emotional Column Against Texas Law: ‘My Darkest Secret Until Now’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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