I have long believed that the central issue behind being pro-choice is the fundamental right to privacy. Every man and woman should be able to make their own reproductive choices without government intervention. However, I also believe that the key to making sure that every American woman has access to every reproductive choice is to put real faces on the issue. I think it genuinely helps when women in the public sphere talk about why they chose to have an abortion, or why they want insurance to cover birth control, or why shutting down Planned Parenthood led to an epidemic in HIV. So I think it’s good that Naya Rivera is talking openly about her choice to have an abortion back when she was on Glee. Naya has written a memoir (Sorry Not Sorry), and she describes what happened. People has some assorted quotes:

She feels older than her years: “I’ve done a lot of living. I’m a 79-year-old trapped in a 29-year-old’s body.”

Battling anorexia as a teen: “By the time I was a sophomore, I started feeling that what had begun as a game had maybe gone too far. I just avoided food at all costs. If my mom had packed a lunch for me, I’d either trash it or find some excuse to give it away.”

She didn’t understand her anorexia until she started writing about it: “I was so young and it just seemed to be the norm. Everyone was going through similar stuff. I had no way of knowing if I was going through it worse. I was juggling my feelings and it makes me sad that there are girls still going through that 15 years after I went through it.”

She found out she was pregnant in 2010: Rivera found out she was pregnant with actor Ryan Dorsey’s child in late 2010 – just weeks after breaking up with him to focus on her career. Rivera says she did not reveal the pregnancy to Dorsey, whom she wed in 2014 and is now the father of her 11-month-old son. Instead, she made the call to put her career first and terminated the pregnancy during her one day off from filming an episode of Glee. “It was very scary to open up about everything,” says Rivera. “It’s not something a lot of people talk about, but I think they should. I know some people might read it and say, ‘What the Hell?’ But I hope someone out there gets something out of it.”

Her son, Josey: “I hope Josey will read it one day. I hope it gives him a better perspective on the issues women face.”

[From People]

Wow, she had the abortion on her one day off from Glee? That’s tough. This also goes against many of the false narratives that so many anti-choice activists try to sell, that abortion “hurts” a woman’s chances of carrying a child to term later on (Naya gave birth to a healthy child in 2015), or that abortion “ruins” a relationship – when it’s clear that Naya did what was right for her at the time, and years later got back together with the man who became her husband.

Photos courtesy of WENN.