Grace Campbell recently shared her experience of undergoing an abortion last year in an article. She described the emotional and physical toll it took on her, including falling into severe depression afterward. Campbell talked about feeling unprepared for the pregnancy and agonizing over the decision to have the abortion.
“Confusion overwhelmed me,” she wrote. “I’d always imagined I wouldn’t think twice about getting an abortion.
“I have never thought about having a child. I have been too busy behaving like one. But now, at 29, in what felt like my last gasp of young adulthood, the words, ‘I’ll have an abortion’ didn’t slip off my tongue.
The prospect of making such a finite decision freaked me out. I wished I had the grace of time.”
Grace Campbell experienced depression after the abortion procedure, which took her by surprise as she hadn’t anticipated it.
The doctor said,
“I would have some cramps and that I would bleed for a few days and then everything would be over,” she said.
Grace Campbell mentioned that she was not warned about the extended bleeding she experienced after the abortion. She described seeing bloody tissue for weeks whenever she went to the toilet.
“He also didn’t warn me I might feel depression like I’ve never experienced before,” Campbell continued. “That I would have a hormonal crash that puts my historical comedown from Bestival 2014 to shame.”
She said the doctor showed her the foetus on the screen and gave her a pill but did not prepare her for what was to come.
“That I would feel a pervasive sense of guilt, for letting go of something that was mine. And that then I would feel shame, shame that feeling guilty was in some way a dishonour to the women who fought for my right to be able to have this choice,” she wrote.
Campbell, known for incorporating her life into her stand-up routines, also discussed her pro-choice stance in the article. She highlighted the increasing activism and legislative efforts against abortion.
“I am obviously pro-choice,” she said.
“I am lucky I live in a place where abortions are accessible and I won’t get arrested for having one. Especially, as we’re so acutely aware of the fact that in the US, a growing number of states are making abortions illegal, while in the UK, there has been an increase in the number of women being prosecuted for having abortions after 24 weeks, as well as a rise in far-right MPs unashamedly vocalising their anti-choice opinions.”
Campbell admitted feeling nervous about discussing the grief she felt regarding her abortion decision.
She also mentioned the conflicted emotions that arose from having easy access to abortion while knowing that many women elsewhere faced barriers to the procedure.
“I was nervous writing this. I’ve worried that in doing so I am letting women down. You only have to look at the upcoming American elections to see we are being confronted with loud, powerful men who are trying to occupy our basic right to choose,” she said.
Last year, Grace Campbell, whose father is the journalist and former Blair communications chief Alastair Campbell, spoke to The Independent about carving out her own identity distinct from her father’s and integrating that into her comedy routines.
“When I was starting out in comedy, for me it was like, ‘How can I establish myself completely distinctively and away from my dad?’” she said. “And talking about sex and relationships is a great way to do that, because it’s setting up my own audience.”
During the same interview, Campbell discussed her podcast “28 Dates Later,” where she embarked on 28 dates in two months. She then recorded and analyzed the outcomes for separate episodes.
“It made me really existential about dating,” Campbell said. “It kind of took the value of it away, because it made me see dates as material, which I already have a muddy relationship with because of how much I talk about it in my stand-up.”
