Jemima Kirke, a 29-year-old British actress and proud mother, has opened up to share a personal story about when she had an abortion during her college years.
Kirke plays Jessa Johansson on HBO's hit series "Girls," who is the rebellious one out of the group of friends. Her character also had a past addiction to heroin.
She chose to voice the events of her past with hopes that it will empower other women to speak up about their own struggles.
"I've always felt that reproductive issues should be something that women especially should be able to talk about freely, especially amongst each other," she said in a video for the Center for Reproductive Rights' Draw the Line Campaign, according to People. "I still see shame and embarrassment around terminating pregnancies, getting pregnant, so I have always been open about my stories, always shared them, especially with other women."
"We think we do have free choice, and we are able to do whatever we want, but then there are these little hoops we have to jump through to get them," she added.
While Kirke was attending college in Rhode Island in 2007 she chose to have an abortion at age 21, ABC News reported.
"I wasn't sure that I wanted to be attached to this person for the rest of my life. My life was just not conducive to raising a happy, healthy child," she explained in the video. "I just didn't feel it was fair. So I decided to get an abortion."
Since funds were limited at the time, she opted not to use anesthesia during the procedure and paid for the surgery out of her own pocket. She didn't tell her mother about it, either.
"When you're scrounging for however many hundreds of dollars, it is a lot. I just didn't have it," she said in regards to the anesthesia.
Now, the artist/painter is a mother of two daughters, 8 and 4 years old. She married Michael Mosberg in 2009.
"I would love if when they (her kids) are older and in their teens or twenties, that the political issues surrounding their bodies were not there anymore," she said.
Season 5 of "Girls" is now in the works.
