Maya Hawke Praises Uma Thurman’s ‘Beautiful’ Abortion Essay on ‘Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’
Stranger Things actor Maya Hawke spoke with Jimmy Fallon about an essay her mother, Uma Thurman, wrote in detailing her abortion. Find out what Hawke had to say about the Supreme Court’s ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and read Thurman’s abortion essay from 2021.
Maya Hawke celebrates Uma Thurman’s abortion essay after Supreme Court ruling
During her appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Hawke spoke about her mother’s essay from September 2021. “[My mom and I] just got into talking about the Supreme Court ruling,” Hawke said, adding:
“This essay that my mom wrote a couple months ago when they were putting these further restrictions on abortion access … it was sort of preceding this whole thing. My mom wrote this really beautiful essay about her abortion that she got when she was really young.”
Maya Hawke, ‘The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon’
As Hawke explained, Thurman’s essay details how if she hadn’t have had her abortion, she “wouldn’t have become the person she’d become,” nor would Hawke exist. “Both my parents lives would have been derailed if she [didn’t have] access to safe and legal healthcare — fundamental healthcare.”
Hawke concluded: “I just wanted to say … you know, f*** the Supreme Court.”
Uma Thurman’s Washington Post essay summarizes the abortion she had in her late teens
“In my late teens, I was accidentally impregnated by a much older man,” Thurman writes in her Washington Post essay. Titled “Uma Thurman: The Texas abortion law is a human rights crisis for American women,” the actor highlights her abortion experience. When the essay was published, Texas recently passed an act banning abortions after detecting embryonic or fetal cardiac activity (about six weeks).
Thurman’s essay also mentions how her career was just beginning. As such, she didn’t have the means to provide a stable home for a baby, let alone herself.
Furthermore, Thurman’s essay details the pain and shame she felt going through the abortion. “There is so much pain in this story,” she wrote.
“It has been my darkest secret until now. I am 51-years-old, and I am sharing it with you from the home where I have raised my three children, who are my pride and joy.” Thurman is the mother of Hawke, Levon Roan Thurman-Hawke, and Luna Thurman-Busson.
She concludes her essay: “To all of you — to women and girls of Texas, afraid of being traumatized and hounded by predatory bounty hunters; to all women outraged by having our bodies’ rights taken by the state; and to all of you who are made vulnerable and subjected to shame because you have a uterus — I say: I see you. Have courage. You are beautiful. You remind me of my daughters.”
Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022
On Friday, June 24, the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling, which formerly protected pregnant women’s rights to an abortion. According to NPR, Justice Samuel Alito said the “1973 Roe ruling and repeated subsequent high court decisions reaffirming Roe ‘must be overruled’ because they were ‘egregiously wrong.'”
Alito also said “the arguments’ exceptionally weak’ and so ‘damaging’ that they amounted to ‘an abuse of judicial authority.'” This decision means abortion rights are rolling back in many states in the U.S.. Future restrictions are likely to come.
