Athletes unite in US abortion fight

Threat to women’s right to choose could end careers and has produced a storm of anger write Ben Bloom and Molly Mcelwee

‘Our time as female athletes is finite. It is just that our peak coincides with a good time to be a mum’

‘I literally do not know another female athlete who has not had an abortion’

Crissy Perham was 19 when she made the decision that may have helped her to become a two-time Olympic champion.

Without access to an abortion in her second year of university, she believes she might never have made it on to the US swimming team who dominated in the pool at the 1992 Barcelona Games three years later.

“My chances were maybe better than others,” says the now 52-yearold, citing her close-knit family and fiance at the time. “But I also was very immature. I might not have been able to stay focused at college. I might not have wanted to come back and swim as a parent. I’m glad I didn’t have to face that decision.”

The sad reality is that many athletes in the US may have to. According to a leaked US Supreme Court document earlier this month, the 1973 landmark Roe v Wade decision is hanging in the balance and on its way to being overturned. If that happens, abortion will be in individual state lawmakers’ hands, and women’s rights to the procedure are likely to be restricted.

In response, sportswomen have voiced their outrage. Last August, 514 female athletes – including Perham and football World Cup winner Megan Rapinoe – signed a brief to the Supreme Court arguing against abortion restrictions. “If women were to be deprived of these constitutional guarantees, the consequences for women’s athletics – and for society as whole – would be devastating,” it read.

Perham decided to share her abortion story 30 years after it happened precisely because of the threat to women’s rights. Last summer, Billie Jean King did the same, citing her own abortion in 1971 – at the height of her playing career – and the indignity of a process that, back then, required her husband to sign a consent form.

The protests have kept coming. The Women’s National Basketball Association released a statement condemning the news and backing its players’ union, which has taken out a full-page advertorial in The New York Times in response to Texan abortion restrictions. And swimmer Erica Sullivan, a Tokyo silver medallist, tweeted ahead of a visit to the White House this month: “Since I’m meeting the president tomorrow, do I ask why he didn’t pack the court so Roe v Wade couldn’t get overturned?”

The widespread outpouring of noise shows female athletes are not afraid to tackle one of the most divisive issues in American society, which holds specific relevance to their careers.

When former Olympic sprint champion Sanya Richards-ross wrote in her autobiography, “I literally don’t know another female track athlete who hasn’t had an abortion,” on revealing that she had undergone the procedure ahead of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, there were shock waves.

Olympic hurdles champion Brianna Rollins-mcneal’s experience echoes Richards-ross’s claims. Rollins-mcneal is serving a five-year ban for “tampering with the results management process” connected with her missing a doping test two days after she had an abortion in January 2020.

The 30-year-old, who faced a previous ban for missing three whereabouts tests, claims she changed the date on letters provided to anti-doping officials by her doctor because she thought they had made a clerical error.

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Athletics questioned whether she was as traumatised as she claimed given that she continued to post on social media and compete not long after the procedure. Like Richardsross, Rollins-mcneal had the abortion to ensure her availability for the Olympics. But as the Tokyo Games were postponed during the pandemic, she was heartbroken.

The tensions at play for athletes considering an abortion go beyond being pro-choice or pro-life. Olympic medals and major titles are on the line. There are, of course, significant examples of mothers being successful in sport, including Pakistan cricket captain Bismah Maroof, and Olympic champions Allyson Felix and Dame Jessica Ennis-hill, but it is not a choice everyone feels able to make.

“Our time as female athletes is finite,” Perham says. “It’s a very small window. It just so happens that the time of being at our peak as an athlete coincides with a really good time to be a mum.”

Kate Seary, co-founder of Kyniska Advocacy which campaigns for women’s rights in sport, says: “Many sportswomen don’t get maternity cover in their contracts, athletes don’t have the same job security, people are on one-year contracts, there are sports brands that have wage deductions if you don’t compete enough, national governing body funding can be withdrawn.”

If abortion law takes a backwards step in the US, Perham fears some women in sport will be lost for good. “There will be people who don’t have the financial means, support system or resources, and they will have to drop out of college or stop doing sport,” she says. “This is about body autonomy and reproductive health, and being able to choose what is best for me.”