Things We Saw Today: Busy Philipps Told Congress the Story of Her Abortion & Why It’s None of Their Business

A civil liberties subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing today on threats to reproductive rights in America and Busy Phillips was among those present to give testimony on the issue. Philipps described her own experience with abortion on the taken-too-soon Busy Tonight, spawning the hashtag #YouKnowMe, a reminder that everyone knows someone who has had an abortion, even if it’s never been discussed. Now she’s shared her story with Congress in hopes of reminding them that the restrictive abortion laws being passed across the country affect real people in real ways.

Telling the Committee about the abortion she had in 1994 as a 15-year-old living in Arizona, she said “it was not a decision that I made lightly, but I have never for one moment doubted that it was the right decision for me.” But a lot has changed in Arizona and other states since then.

“If I were that same 15-year-old in Arizona today, legally, I would have to get parental consent,” she said. “I would be forced to undergo a medically unnecessary ultrasound, go to a state-mandated in-person counseling session designed solely to shame me into changing my mind and then take a state-mandated 24-hour time-out to make sure I really know what I wanted. And finally, I would be forced to give this state a reason why.”

“Well, here is mine,” she told the Committee. “It is my body, not the state’s. Women and their doctors are the ones that are in the best position to make informed decisions about what is best for them. No one else.”

You can watch her full testimony here:

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What did you all see out there today?

(image: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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