Julia Holcomb was a 16-year-old when she moved in with Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler — eight years her senior — in the 1970s, and he became her legal guardian. Months after she became pregnant, she was forced into an abortion she didn’t want — an abortion Tyler himself later came to regret.
Holcomb recently appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News to discuss her experience with abortion, the struggle to recover from it, and what she thinks of the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
“I was thrilled that she was there as a candidate for the Supreme Court,” Holcomb said of Barrett’s hearings. “I thought that she was a great potential justice and I’m happy that she was nominated. I think that the left likes to portray abortion as pro-woman, and my story is a very personal example of how abortion damages women and how coercive it is.”
Tyler had told her that he wanted to have children with her, and according to Jezebel, threw her birth control pills off the balcony of their hotel one night. As a young girl, she thought that must mean he really loved her. But when Tyler learned about the pregnancy, he forbade Holcomb from seeing a doctor because she was still a teenager and he believed the doctor would ask questions about who the father was. But Tyler told her not to worry and promised to marry her and take care of her and the baby.
Warning: Graphic image below
“Along the way, Steven had a change of heart and he made the decision that he wanted me to have an abortion,” explained Holcomb. “He came to me, he told me that his lawyers had set up a doctor. This was very early after Roe v. Wade had been decided so there hadn’t been many abortions and I was pretty far along.”
She explained that because she wasn’t allowed to go to a doctor, she didn’t know exactly how far along she was, but she estimated it was about five months. She had dropped out of high school, couldn’t drive, didn’t have a car or money, and was “completely dependent upon Steven in every way.” He told her if she didn’t abort she would be kicked to the curb. So she gave in.
“I went through a horrific late-term saline abortion that was just traumatizing. It took years to recover from that experience,” she said. “You know, sometimes, we can think that coerced abortions only happen somewhere like China, where women are forced to undergo abortions against their will. But the truth is that coerced abortions happen everywhere abortion is legal and a woman can become pregnant. And the first thing she has to do is defend her baby’s right to be born.”
READ: Former Planned Parenthood worker: We ‘coerced’ and ‘lied to’ women so they would abort
Tyler has also spoken about the trauma he experienced from Holcomb’s abortion and how he immediately regretted it. In an autobiography, he said, “It was a big crisis. It’s a major thing when you’re growing something with a woman, but they convinced us that it would never work out and would ruin our lives. . . . You go to the doctor and they put the needle in her belly and they squeeze the stuff in and you watch. And it comes out dead. I was pretty devastated. In my mind, I’m going, Jesus, what have I done?”
Saline abortion victims.
He told Holcomb that he was “racked with guilt” and that he “dreaded what God would do to him because of [the] abortion.”
Their relationship quickly deteriorated and he began an affair. Holcomb was devastated by the abortion and became suicidal. She returned home to her family with a “broken and wounded spirit.”
“I had terrible nightmares,” she said, “I would wake up in the night reliving that horrible abortion.”
Holcomb later converted to Catholicism, attended a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat for women who have undergone abortions, and received the sacrament of reconciliation. She now speaks at pro-life events, has been married for 30 years, and has seven children.
“I know that I can’t go back and save my baby,” she once said. “But I can choose life now. I can be a mother who guards and protects her children now. I would encourage you, any woman out there who’s had an abortion and regrets it, do everything you can to end abortion. I feel that giving life to my children is the greatest gift that God has ever given to me.”
A larger percentage of women who have undergone abortions report feeling pressured into it. The Elliot Institute’s “Forced Abortion Report” cited a study saying 64% of aborting women were coerced into their abortions, usually by the baby’s father. In addition, a study published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, found 73.8% of women who have undergone abortions report feeling pressured to abort.
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to include research on the percentage of women pressured into abortion as well as a photo of two children killed by saline abortions.
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