Alyssa Milano opens up about having two abortions: ‘I knew I was not ready to be a parent’

Actress and women’s rights activist Alyssa Milano opened up about having two abortions in 1993 because she was not “ready to be a parent” after becoming pregnant while taking birth control pills.

Milano spoke of her experience on the latest episode of her podcast entitled “Sorry Not Sorry” released Monday.

“I’m Alyssa Milano and I’ve had an abortion. I control my own body,” she said.

.@Alyssa_Milano shares her abortion story on the latest episode of #SorryNotSorry. Listen here: https://t.co/2sQHffMpz4 pic.twitter.com/CL2BjkfCV8

— Sorry Not Sorry (@sorrynotsorry) August 20, 2019

She spoke of becoming pregnant for the first time in 1993.

“I was in love for the first time in the breathless way you can only be in love when you are young. It was huge — overwhelming even. It filled every part of living and it was a joyful and exciting and powerful time in my life,” she said.

The actress said that in addition, she was taking an acne-fighting medication called Accutane which is known to cause birth defects during pregnancy.

“I still got pregnant,” she said. “It was devastating. I was raised Catholic and was suddenly put in conflict with my faith — a faith I was coming to realize empowered only men to make every single decision of what was allowed and what was not allowed,” Milano said.

The “Who’s the Boss” star said she wanted to focus on her budding film career.

“I knew at that time I was not equipped to be a mother and so I chose to have an abortion. I chose,” Milano said, adding that she faced “crippling anxiety” during that time period. “It was my choice and it was absolutely the right choice for me. It was not an easy choice. It was not something I wanted, but it was something that I needed, like most health care is.”

After terminating her first pregnancy, Milano said on the podcast that she continued with her previous sexual relationship and use of birth control pills.

“A few months later, I found out I was pregnant again. I had done what I knew to do to prevent pregnancy and was still pregnant, so once again I made the right decision to end that pregnancy,” she said.

Milano told her audience that she would not have her acting career or her activist platform had she not made the decision to get abortions.

“Fifteen years after that first love had fizzled, my life would be completely lacking all its great joys,” she said. “I would never had been free to be myself — and that’s what this fight is all about: freedom.”

She went on to say that she would not have been able to have her two “beautiful, perfect, loving, kind and inquisitive children” with husband David Bugliari.

Milano has spearheaded efforts to push back against strict abortion bans passed by several Republican-majority state legislatures in recent months, including a bill that banned abortions once a fetus has a detectable heartbeat in Georgia.

The actress, who previously filmed her Netflix show “Insatiable” in Georgia, created a state-by-state abortion bill guide for Hollywood in response to many production companies claiming they will no longer film in states that have passed restrictive bans. 

Milano also called for a sex strike in response to the Republican Party’s “undeniable war on women.” 

“I refuse to let anyone else’s bullshit morality force me into a life of premarital celibacy. I refuse to live in the narrative that sexual pleasure is for men and that women exist to deliver that pleasure,” she said on her abortions on the podcast. “Nobody will say that he was at fault for enjoying sex with me, but you can be damned sure that the men enacting these laws think less of me for deriving the same pleasure from him.”