Former tennis star Billie Jean King has recently reflected on the difficulties while obtaining an abortion in 1971, according to PEOPLE.
The 78-year-old first shared that she had an abortion in 2018. King was 27 when she realized she was pregnant after nearly vomiting on the court during a match. At the time, she was married to her college sweetheart Larry King, but their “marriage had been shaky for years,” she wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post.
Still, the couple “agreed that a woman had the right to decide if and when she wanted to be pregnant. He said he would support whatever choice I made.”
King said that she did not decide to get an abortion because of her tennis career, but because “our lives were so complicated and unpredictable that I couldn’t imagine bringing up a child in such chaos.”
She was fortunate to live in California at the time, where abortion was already legal, two years before the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, according to King.
She said, “Anyone seeking an abortion had to obtain approval from a hospital committee — that is, tell a panel of strangers why they believed their pregnancy would ‘gravely impair’ their physical and mental health. Arguing to a dozen or so people I had never met why I qualified for an abortion remains one of the most degrading experiences of my life.”
In addition, King said, the law required the “indignity” of having her husband sign a consent form, approving her abortion. “Men remained in charge of not just financial matters but even the right to govern my own body,” she said.
King recalled, “Those less fortunate than me were forced either to continue an unplanned pregnancy or to risk their health obtaining an illegal abortion — if they could find a provider. If we lose the ability to control our bodies and our futures, so many of the gains women have made will be undone.”
