‘I happened to f*ck up twice’: Chelsea Handler opens up about having two abortions at 16

CHELSEA Handler has opened up about the two abortions she had at 16 in a powerful essay to illustrate the importance of freedom of choice.

Chelsea Handler attends Netflix's Rebels and Rule Breakers Luncheon in 2016.

CHELSEA Handler uses experiences from her life to illustrate the importance of access to abortion in a new essay.

In the piece, published by Playboy, the comedian details how the two abortions she got as a teenager through Planned Parenthood kept her life on track.

“I happened to f*ck up twice at the age of 16,” she wrote in the essay. “I’m grateful that I came to my senses and was able to get an abortion legally without risking my health or bankrupting myself or my family. I’m 41 now. I don’t ever look back and think, ‘God, I wish I’d had that baby’.”

It’s because she was able to survive her mistakes that she is thankful for Roe v. Wade, and why it angers her when politicians attack it in an attempt to pander to the conservative right. But she’s not worried about the decision’s future, because in her mind we’ve come too far to see it overturned.

“I doubt this is something America will ever agree on. Again, it’s like racism and sexism: People will be racist if they’re innately built that way, but whether they can act on their racism or not is a separate issue. There are people who think women shouldn’t hold high-powered positions, or who think Obama is Muslim, and it’s okay for them to have those thoughts; they just can’t act on them in a civilised society,” she wrote. “It’s okay if you think it’s not right for women to have abortions — but it’s not your problem, because we decide.”

Regardless, the comedian also thinks that people should stop and accept that deciding to not be a parent is the right move for some.

“We have 7.3 billion people on this planet,” she wrote. “Anybody who carefully decides not to become a parent — let alone a bad parent, which is what I would have become — should be applauded for making a smart and sustainable decision.”

The essay was published ahead of the Supreme Court’s decision on Monday to strike down Texas’ abortion clinic law, which would have caused the majority of the state’s clinics to close.

This article first appeared in theNew York Post.

Originally published as ‘I happened to f*ck up twice’: Chelsea Handler opens up about having two abortions at 16