In wake of Alabama Abortion law, women are sharing their abortion stories with #YouKnowMe

Many celebrities have been using their platform to protest harsher abortion regulations in quite a few southern states.

Jameela Jamil, The Good Place actress, along with Busy Phillips of Busy Tonight, have shared their abortion stories in response to Georgia’s newest law with the hashtag #YouKnowMe.

Phillips has been very pro-choice and decided to first share the story of her abortion on her show after Georgia signed the “fetal heartbeat” bill into law.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

“The statistic is that one in four women will have an abortion before age 45. That statistic sometimes surprises people,” she shared with her audience. “and maybe you’re sitting there thinking, ‘I don’t know a woman who would have an abortion,’ well, you know me I had an abortion when I was 15 years old and I’m telling you this because I’m genuinely really scared for women and girls all over the country.”

“She said, ‘I think you hit on something, which is you know me,'” but later admitted how she felt “overwhelmed” about it right after her story dropped, Phillips shared with The New York Times.

And after the Alabama Senate passed another abortion law — effectively banning it (which has since been signed into law) Phillips encouraged women to use the hashtag and share their own abortion stories to “end the same” that surround the procedure. And as you can imagine, it quickly went viral.

The Supreme Court in 1973 passed Roe v Wade to legalize abortion but in 1992 were faced with Casey v Planned Parenthood which gave individual states more control over how they regulated said abortions.



The first quarter of 2019 saw at least 28 state legislatures introduce some type of abortion ban according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Gov. Kay Ivey signed the controversial abortion bill passed by The Alabama Senate 25-6 that would punish doctors who perform abortions with a 99-year or lifetime prison sentence.

The law does not allow exceptions for rape and incest, only allowing exceptions that pose a serious health risk to the unborn child’s mother.

Brian Kemp, Georgia’s governor signed a “heartbeat bill,” that bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat has been detected — which may be as early as six weeks.

Heartbeats can also be detected before many women even know they are pregnant.

And unlike Alabama, there are exceptions in the case of rape and incest if a police report has been filed. Other exceptions include if an abortion is vital to saving a mother’s life or if the fetus is not viable due to a serious medical issue.

The ACLU has plans to challenge this.

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