Like many people, Whoopi Goldberg was shocked and disgusted when she caught wind of the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe vs. Wade in the United States.
If confirmed, the decision would effectively end federal protections of abortion rights and leave it up to individual states to decide whether or not these procedures would remain legal and accessible for their citizens. With states like Texas, Tennessee, Michigan, Georgia, and several more already fighting against access to abortion in their home territories, it’s an issue that would affect millions.
While addressing the situation on Tuesday’s episode of The View, Goldberg was near tears, angrily declaring that the matter of abortion is a personal decision, and not a call for the Supreme Court or an other official to make.
“This is my body,” Goldberg began. “You’ve got people telling me I’ve got to wear a mask or don’t wear a mask – everybody wants to tell me what to do. But you won’t let me make my [own] decision about my body. You are not the person to make that decision.”
“Women in this country lived forever with it being illegal, okay?” she continued, pointing out the reason that legal abortions came about in the first place. “Women, when they decide that something is not right for them, they’re going to take it into their own hands. Well, we got tired of tripping over women in bathrooms, public bathrooms, who were giving themselves abortions because there was nowhere safe, nowhere clean, nowhere to go.”
“This law came about because people wanted people to have somewhere safe and somewhere clean. It has nothing to do with your religion. This is not a religious issue, this is a human issue.”
Goldberg has previously been open about the fact that she had an abortion of her own at the age of 14.
“If you care about me as a human being, you should know three things: Getting an abortion is not easy. Making that decision is not easy. It’s not something people do lightly, it’s not something you can just do. It is a hard, awful decision that people make. And if you don’t have the wherewithal to understand that, to start this conversation with ‘I know how hard this must be for you,’ if you’re starting it by telling me I’m gonna burn in hell, then you’re not looking out for me as a human being, whether I subscribe to your religion or not.”
Watch the full discussion below: