Music legend Stevie Nicks has spoken about her strong support for abortion rights, saying that without the abortion she had in the 1970s, the renowned band Fleetwood Mac may not have continued.
In a Rolling Stone interview, Nicks, 76, said she decided to terminate her pregnancy around 1977, as Fleetwood Mac sat on top of the world music charts for its album Rumours, which won the band a Grammy for album of the year in 1978.
Three of the album’s singles Go Your Own Way, Don’t Stop and You Make Loving Fun reached the top 10 on the charts, and Dreams, with Nick’s vocals, went to No 1.
At the time of Nicks’ abortion, she said that she became pregnant with singer Don Henley, despite having a contraceptive intrauterine device.
“Now what the hell am I going to do?” Nicks said to Rolling Stone about her thought process right before her abortion. “I cannot have a child. I am not the kind of woman who would hand my baby over to a nanny, not in a million years.”
“So we would be dragging a baby around the world on tour, and I wouldn’t do that to my baby. I wouldn’t say I just need nine months. I would say I need a couple of years, and that would break up the band period.”
Following the reversal of Roe v Wade in the US, Nicks decided to become involved in the fight for abortion rights by sharing her story as well as releasing a powerful rock song on the issue.
Her single, ‘The Lighthouse’, was released in September, with lyrics such as ‘I have my scars, you have yours. Don’t let them, take your power’. Nicks has said the ballad was inspired by progressives’ battle to reinstate federal abortion rights in the US.
The single casts Nicks and other women from her generation as a symbolic ‘lighthouse’, guiding the next generation of women to campaign for their reproductive rights, ahead of the US election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump (the man who appointed the three US supreme court justices that took away abortion rights).
“I have a platform. I tell a good story, so maybe I should try to do something. I was also there” Nicks said in an interview with CBS News Sunday Morning, on her reasoning for writing the song, and choosing to step into the abortion debate.
Nicks is joined by a number of other high profile women in the US who have chosen to share their abortion stories publicly.
Earlier this month, Sally Field, known for her acting role in Forrest Gump, opened up about an illegal abortion she had gotten 60 years ago, noting it was “illegal” because it was before the landmark Roe v. Wade decision passed to give the right to abortion in the US.
“I still feel very shamed about it because I was raised in the ‘50s, and it’s ingrained in me,” Fields said in an honest and emotional video posted to Instagram.
“I had no choices in my life, I didn’t have a lot of family support or finances. I graduated high school but no one ever said, ‘How about college? Nothing. I didn’t know what I was gonna be’. And then I found out I was pregnant,” said Field, who was 17 years old at the time.
Field was able to get the abortion because she had a family doctor who was willing to help. The doctor gave her an envelope of cash and told her to go see a technician in an old, abandoned looking building, where unfortunately, Field recalls being abused.
“There was a technician giving me a few puffs of ether but he would then take it away, so it just made my arms and legs feel numb weird, but I felt everything — how much pain I was in,” she said.
“Then the situation turned darker. I realized that the technician was actually molesting me, so I had to figure out, how can I make my arms move to push him away? So it was just this absolute pit of shame. And then, when it was finished, they said, ‘Go go go go go!’, like the building was on fire. And they didn’t want me there, you know, it was illegal!”
A few months after the incident, Field began auditions as an actress, and she landed her first major role as Frances Elizabeth ‘Gidget’ Lawrence in Gidget (1965).
“We can’t go back. We have to all stand up and fight. And that was that lovely story,” Field said.
Many other celebrities have spoken out to share their abortion stories, including Kelly Bishop, Kerry Washington, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Chrissy Teigen, Halsey, Rita Moreno, Phoebe Bridgers and Uma Thurman.