Ever since the US Supreme Court overturned national abortion laws, many women have taken to social media to share their own abortion experiences. So does Ireland Baldwin. The model reveals that she was once raped.
The US Supreme Court’s abortion ruling has drastic consequences. Since then, abortions have been illegal in many US states. Women who still have an abortion face severe penalties. Even pregnancy after rape is no exception. A circumstance that prompted model Ireland Baldwin, daughter of Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, to take a bold step.
Via her official Tiktok account, the 26-year-old revealed that she was raped as a teenager. At the same time, she imagines the horror scenario if she had become pregnant as a result of this crime.
“I was completely unconscious when it happened and it changed the course of my entire life,” says Baldwin. She numbed herself with alcohol and drugs for years, “got into other toxic relationships and friendships. I literally did everything to distract myself.”
It was almost unimaginable for her “what my life would have been like if I had gotten pregnant and had had to raise a child during all the things I was going through at the time”. She immediately adds: “Mind you, I have medical options, money and support that many women don’t have access to. It would have been simply traumatizing and impossible.”
She later became pregnant from her then boyfriend, with whom she was “very unhappy”. “I chose to have an abortion because I knew exactly what it felt like to be born between two people who hate each other. (…) I chose myself and I would choose myself again. It’s your life, it’s your decision.”
The fact that the US Supreme Court overturned the almost 50-year-old “Roe versus Wade” ruling last week in a landmark decision on abortion rights caused global outrage. Conservative southern states in particular immediately tightened the laws in this regard, and countless abortion clinics have already been closed. In order to legally have an abortion, the women concerned now have to travel to one of the states in which this is still permitted – which involves high costs that socially disadvantaged families often cannot afford.
