Sally Field: 'My illegal abortion in Mexico was traumatic - we can't go back'

Sally Field won two Academy awards for Best Actress - for Norma Rae in 1979 and Places in the Heart in 1984. Now the 77-year-old has told the story of what she went through 60 years ago.

Field said she had just graduated from high school when she found she was pregnant. In an Instagram video she related how she didn’t have the money or the family support to go through with the pregnancy, and so via a family doctor arranged to go to Mexico for an abortion.

She drove across the border to Tijuana with the doctor, his wife and her mother in the doctor’s “brand new Cadillac”, and parked “on a really scrungy-looking street”.

Field, who grew up in Los Angeles, said “it was scary” as the doctor pointed out a building three blocks away from where they had parked, gave her an envelope containing cash, and told her to into the building and return as soon as the procedure was finished.

She was not given a proper anaesthetic - just a few puffs of ether by a technician, and she said that it was “beyond hideous” and “life-altering”. To make matters worse, she said she realised that the technician was molesting her. As she continued, Sally detailed a harrowing experience, where she received "no anesthetic” during what she called the "hideous and life-altering" abortion.

At the end of the procedure the after-care involved the doctor saying “go, go, go, go” and she was rushed out of the building like it "was on fire."

A written post on Instagram explained her reasoning behind relating her experience in the post. She wrote: “I’ve been so hesitant to do this, to tell my horrific story. It was during a time even worse than now. A time when contraception was not readily available and only if you were married.

“But I feel that so many women of my generation went through similar, traumatic events and I feel stronger when I think of them. I believe, like me, they must want to fight for their grandchildren and all the young women of this country. It’s one of the reasons why so many of us are supporting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

“Everyone, please, pay attention to this election, up and down the ballot, in every state – especially those with ballot initiatives that could protect reproductive freedom. PLEASE. WE CAN’T GO BACK!! So here is my story. I’d be honored if you’d tell me yours, if you can.”