Sofia Franklyn Wants To Normalize Abortion. Her Own Words Reveal Its Darker Side

Sofia Franklyn wants women to know they aren’t alone in having abortions. But her own account raises a harder question: What happens when knowing other women have done it doesn’t make the experience easier to live with? In an excerpt from her memoir, Daddy Issues , shared by Vanity Fair, Franklyn discusses her abortion in 2023. “When you have an abortion, the take-home packet gives you explicit instructions on what to do if you bleed through two pads per hour. But nowhere does it include guidance on the emotional clusterf–k that’s to come.” “I can usually reconcile the dark corners of my past, but my feelings around my abortion are, in many ways, still pending,” she writes. She hopes speaking publicly will free her from “self-imposed exile and shame.” In the accompanying caption, she explains that she wants women to know others are having abortions, even if they aren’t discussing them. Yet the passage reveals the limits of normalization. Public acceptance cannot promise private peace. A decision can be common, legal, and publicly defended while remaining deeply troubling to the person who made it. The Pain Doesn’t Follow A Publicity Script Other famous women have described that weight in unmistakable terms. Public acceptance cannot promise private peace. In her 2023 memoir The Woman in Me , Britney Spears described having an abortion during her relationship with Justin Timberlake. She said she would not have chosen it on her own. “To this day, it’s one of the most agonizing things I have ever experienced in my life,” she wrote. Nicki Minaj told Rolling Stone in 2014 that her teenage abortion had “haunted me all my life.” In the same interview, she affirmed her pro-choice position and explained, “I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have anything to offer a child.” The Women Who Explicitly Say They Regret It In Evie’s “I Regret My Abortion—What I Wish I Knew Before I Did It,” Elise Jager describes finding an ultrasound picture while cleaning her bedroom. Years after her abortion, the emotions came flooding back. “It’s a decision that I’m going to carry for the rest of my life,” she writes. “The sadness still comes in waves.” Jager had believed abortion was the responsible decision. Later, she wished she could undo it. In Gwen Farrell’s “Abortion Regret Is Real—Here Are 4 Stories From Women Who Have Experienced It Firsthand,” a woman identified as Sasha describes still thinking about her abortion nearly a decade later. Any conversation claiming to make room for women’s experiences must include those women’s experiences, too. Another woman, Nichole, puts it starkly: “I expected abortion to be a footnote in my life, but instead, it derailed the entire plot.” Any conversation claiming to make room for women’s experiences must include those women’s experiences, too. The answer to a woman’s regret cannot simply be more reassurance that she made an acceptable choice, because, regardless, it’s still a haunting experience for a reason.