Source: New York Daily News / Getty
Last week’s shocking overturn of Roe v. Wade by the United States Supreme Court saw that a woman’s legal access to abortion was no longer a constitutional right. So that same night, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stood before a crowd of pro-choice protesters at NYC’s Union Square. She shared a personal story as to why she feels the right to abortion belongs to a woman, not the state.
AOC reflected on her younger days as a waitress before becoming known as the fiery congresswoman she is today. “I myself, when I was about 22 or 23 years old, was raped when I was living here in New York City,” she revealed. “I was completely alone. In fact, I felt so alone that I had to take a pregnancy test in a public bathroom in midtown Manhattan.”
In the wake of the reversal, more stories have been surfacing of famous women who dealt with unwanted or unplanned pregnancies and the value they hold for personal choice. Cheryl Burke, Ireland Baldwin, and Whoopi Goldberg are just a few of those.
AOC proceeded to tell Friday’s crowd that, although she wasn’t pregnant, it was important to know she had a choice as to whether she would have kept that baby. “When I sat there waiting for what the result would be, all I could think was: Thank God I have, at least, a choice,” she said. “Thank God I could, at least, have the freedom to choose my destiny. I didn’t know then, as I was waiting, that it would come up negative. But it doesn’t matter … This is for all of us. This is not a women’s rights issue. This is an issue for all of us.”
And she appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press two days later, suggesting that Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh should be impeached for possibly perjuring about their stances on abortion in order to secure their seats. “If we allow Supreme Court nominees to lie under oath and secure lifetime appointments to the highest court of the land and then issue, without basis… rulings that deeply undermine the human and civil rights of the majority of Americans, we must see that through,” said AOC.
