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Uma Thurman airs anger at Texas abortion law, reveals own trauma

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Uma Thurman has hit out at the new abortion law in Texas, opening up about her “darkest secret”.

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In an op-ed for the Washington Post, the Kill Bill actor criticised the “horror” of the new legislation, Senate Bill 8, prohibits the abortion of a foetus once cardiac activity can be detected, which is generally around six weeks, before most women even know they are pregnant.

The law makes no exception for victims of rape or incest, and authorises citizens to sue abortion providers or anyone involved in facilitating an abortion.

The US Supreme Court refused to block the bill before its enactment earlier this month (September 1), which, according to the New York Times, now makes Texas the most restrictive US state in terms of access to abortion services.

Thurman wrote that she had observed the passing of the new law with “great sadness”, and explained how she fell pregnant as a teenager with an older man and chose to have an abortion.

Uma Thurman
Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu in ‘Kill Bill’ (2003). CREDIT: AF archive / Alamy Stock Photo

The actor spoke of her internalised “shame”, and said: “There is so much pain in this story. It has been my darkest secret until now.”

“The abortion I had as a teenager was the hardest decision of my life, one that caused me anguish then and that saddens me even now, but it was the path to the life full of joy and love that I have experienced,” she added.

Thurman went on to say that she had chosen to speak out in the hope that “some light will shine through, reaching women and girls who might feel a shame that they can’t protect themselves from and have no agency over”.

This comes after The Wire creator David Simon had said he would not shoot his new HBO project in Texas due to the new rule. 







“I’m turning in scripts next month on an HBO non-fiction miniseries based on events in Texas, but I can’t and won’t ask female cast/crew to forgo civil liberties to film there,” he wrote on Twitter.

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