Uma Thurman: Dark secret of my abortion after getting pregnant in teens by older man
UMA Thurman has revealed that she had an abortion as a teenager after she was ‘accidentally impregnated by a much older man’.
The Kill Bill star, 51, spoke of her ‘darkest secret’ as she attacked a controversial new law in Texas which bans most abortions from six weeks’ pregnancy when a heartbeat can be detected.
Miss Thurman said she was sharing her experience ‘in the hope of drawing the flames of controversy away from the vulnerable women on whom this law will have an immediate effect’. The US actress said: ‘I started my acting career at 15, working in an environment where I was often the only kid in the room. In my late teens, I 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. I struggled to figure out what to do. I wanted to keep the baby, but how?’
Miss Thurman, now a mother-ofthree, said she called her parents and together they ‘decided as a family that I couldn’t go through with the pregnancy and agreed that termination was the right choice’. She said her ‘heart was broken’ by the decision. In an article in the Washington Post, she revealed a female friend accompanied her to get the abortion carried out in Germany.
Miss Thurman, who also starred in Pulp Fiction and Batman & Robin, said: ‘It hurt terribly, but I didn’t complain. I had internalised so much shame that I felt I deserved the pain... When the procedure was done the doctor looked down at me and 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. In his eyes, I was a person, I was a daughter, I was still a girl.’
The actress, who was previously married to British actor Gary Oldman and US star Ethan Hawke, stressed: ‘Choosing not to keep that early pregnancy allowed me to grow up and become the mother I wanted and needed to be.’ She called the Texas law a ‘human rights crisis for American women’.
However, pro-life campaigners have hailed the legislation as an historic victory in protecting the rights of unborn babies.
‘Decision broke my heart’