Actress Minka Kelly (“Friday Night Lights”) has penned a memoir to be released on May 2. In the book, she details a “chaotic, unstable” childhood and discusses the abortion she had at age 17, as well as how she sometimes thinks her mother should have aborted her.
Childhood abuse and teenage abortion
PageSix obtained pages from Kelly’s memoir, which shared heartbreaking details of her childhood — including that her mother, Maureen Dumont Kelly (a stripper), had taken her to strip clubs and subjected her to abuse and homelessness before she left town without her daughter to avoid a potential drug bust. During Kelly’s childhood, she and her mother had lived in the storage room of an apartment complex and a friend’s garage. Her mother’s boyfriend would beat Kelly.
Kelly’s father, a onetime Aerosmith guitarist Rick Dufay, was not in her life until she was in her late teens. When her mother left, Kelly moved in with her abusive boyfriend who took graphic photos and video of them together. He later attempted to sell the video to tabloids when Kelly became famous.
During that abusive relationship, at age 17, Kelly became pregnant. Her mother then returned home and they went to Planned Parenthood together for an abortion. But Kelly wrote that she began to cry while on the exam table, saying, “This isn’t what I want.”
They left Planned Parenthood and her mother suggested they raise the baby together. For Kelly, the idea of having her own child raised in the same way that she had been was too much to bear.
“Raise this baby together, how?” she wrote. “With what money? What home? What insurance? I couldn’t imagine bringing a baby into what my mother brought me into. Absolutely not.” She continued, “That was it. In that moment, I knew the right choice. Raising a child with my mother would only continue this family trauma, another cycle added to so many generations of pain. Hadn’t there been enough damage already?”
Ultimately, Kelly went through with the abortion.
Kelly didn’t have to abort her preborn baby in order to break the cycle of abuse. At the time, at such a young age with no real support, it’s obvious why she believed abortion was the best option.
The abortion industry has been telling women for decades that abortion is their only option in situations like the one Kelly was in. But pro-life pregnancy centers exist to help girls and women in such circumstances. They can provide material goods such as clothing and baby gear, but they can also help the expectant mothers find safe housing, access health insurance, and build a plan for the future so that they can build a better life for their children.
Kelly knew she didn’t want her child to grow up like she did, and she had the power within her to ensure that that didn’t happen. She needed encouragement and support, and a better living situation.
Abortion advocates claim that abortion is a solution to issues like child abuse and poverty — but this claim has been shown to be unfounded.
My mother ‘should have aborted me’
According to the Daily Mail, Kelly also noted that she sometimes thinks that her mom ‘should have aborted her’ because she was not ready to be a mother.
Clearly, Kelly had a difficult childhood and endured many horrible abuses — which may have contributed to her inability to see her own instrinsic dignity and value, as well as the intrinsic dignity and value of her own baby. Abortion — the intentional and direct killing of a preborn human being — was not the solution to the abuse she endured and to the failures of her parents.
Both Kelly and her baby deserved respect and love as human beings, but neither received it. Kelly suffered years of abuse and continues to deal with the results of the psychological harm it caused her. Her innocent baby died as a result of a number of poor choices from the adults involved in the situation.
Failed IVF
Kelly’s memoir also reveals that she and an unnamed boyfriend later underwent IVF, but lost a baby to miscarriage, which occurs frequently in IVF. Miscarriage can also result following damage to the uterus or cervix following an abortion. Research has shown that abortion can negatively affect future pregnancies — resulting at times in infertility and/or miscarriage.
Now age 42, Kelly has had an apparent series of serious relationships and does not have any living children — though it is clear she wanted children at one point.
Abortion is not a solution
Kelly once called the abortion “the smartest decision I could’ve made.” She said, “For a baby to’ve been born to two people — too young and completely ill equipped — with no means or help from family, would have resulted in a child born into an unnecessary world of struggle. Having a baby at that time would have only perpetuated the cycle of poverty, chaos and dysfunction I was born into.”
Her message is clear: If a child is going to be born into a difficult situation, the only solution is to kill the child before birth.
Women deserve to know that they have the strength and capability to escape abusive situations and save their children from abuse without feeling that they must kill their preborn children in order to overcome trauma and abuse. Help is available for women to escape abuse and poverty — and to raise healthy children in a safe environment.
