Halsey opens up about having 3 miscarriages: 'My abortion saved my life and gave way for my son to have his'
Halsey has opened up about their three miscarriages — one of which necessitated medical intervention to help terminate the pregnancy — in an emotional new essay for Vogue responding to the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade and legally protected abortion rights.
In the essay, titled "My Abortion Saved My Life," the singer-songwriter, who uses she/they pronouns, shares their difficulties in carrying a pregnancy to term. Now 27 and mom to a nearly 1-year-old son named Ender, Halsey had lost three pregnancies by the time she turned 24, she writes.
"It seemed a cruel irony that I could get pregnant with ease but struggled to maintain a pregnancy," Halsey, who has endometriosis, says. "One of my miscarriages required 'aftercare,' a gentle way of saying that I would need an abortion, because my body could not terminate the pregnancy completely on its own and I would risk going into sepsis without medical intervention. During this procedure, I cried. I was afraid for myself and I was helpless. I was desperate to end the pregnancy that was threatening my life."
The Grammy-nominated star reveals that during their third trimester with Ender, who turns 1 on July 17, she rewrote her will in anticipation of more health complications.
"After my past experiences, I was prepared for the worst," she writes. "I gave detailed instructions regarding the donation of my organs should I die or be declared brain-dead, meaning if my heart beat on but my brain wasn’t functioning, the state would have permission to cut into my warm and still flush flesh and take my organs to save other lives. How funny that while my own heart would amount to nothing more than a series of involuntary movements on an operating table, a beating heart in my womb could mean I couldn’t consent to saving my own life."
Giving birth to Ender marked a triumph for both Halsey and the body she had "loathed for years for routinely 'failing.'"
"My life’s long chapter of miscarriages and abortions was reduced to a page in that moment," she writes. "It was simply divided into 'before' this moment and all things that would come after it. Years of blood and pain and misery from near-perilous and unwanted pregnancies, then the euphoria of chosen motherhood."
But Halsey says she has "never felt more strongly" about abortion rights since becoming a mother, despite people's assumption otherwise.
"Many people have asked me if, since carrying a child to term after years of struggling to do so, I have reconsidered my stance on abortion," they write. "The answer is firmly no. In fact, I have never felt more strongly about it.
"My abortion saved my life and gave way for my son to have his. Every person deserves the right to choose when, if, and how they have this dangerous and life-altering experience. I will hold my son in one arm, and fight with all my might with the other."
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