At a rally Tuesday, New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon urged activists to “fight like hell” for reproductive rights—and shared the story of her mother’s illegal abortion while holding up a wire coat hanger.
A wire hanger is something that women in this country were driven to use out of fear and desperation, performing abortions on themselves, often with devastating effects. We must never go back to a time when any women feels that she has to make this kind of a choice. #OneInFour pic.twitter.com/wu1qQ85elj
— Cynthia Nixon (@CynthiaNixon) July 11, 2018
In her remarks, Nixon recounted what she knew of her mother’s abortion experience.
Abortion rights and reproductive rights is a very personal issue for me. My mother had an abortion here in New York State before it was legal. And when I was old enough, she made sure to tell me about it.
It was very hard for her to speak about. She didn’t give a lot of details but it was very important for her to tell me that she had had an abortion, that it had been illegal and that it had been a tremendously awful experience.
She had wanted me to make sure that I knew her history so I can fully value how crucial reproductive freedom is.
Then, she pulled out a wire hanger.
For those of you too young to remember, this is something that women in this state and this country were driven to use out of fear and desperation—performing abortions on themselves often with devastating effects to their health and sometimes their life.
We must never, ever, ever go back to a time where any woman feels she has to make this kind of a choice… So that no woman will ever feel compelled to use something like this on her again.
