{"id":271724,"date":"2022-07-05T10:36:46","date_gmt":"2022-07-05T15:36:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=271724"},"modified":"2022-07-05T11:05:26","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T16:05:26","slug":"rita-moreno-forced-botched-abortion-brando","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/rita-moreno-forced-botched-abortion-brando\/","title":{"rendered":"Rita Moreno recalls being coerced into a botched abortion by Marlon Brando"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Legendary actress Rita Moreno, perhaps most well-known for her role as Anita in the classic film, “West Side Story,” responded to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that\u00a0overturned<\/a> Roe v. Wade<\/em> by sharing about the abortion she had as a young woman.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Variety<\/a>, Moreno said she was dating superstar actor Marlon Brando when she became pregnant. “Marlon found a doctor through some friends,\u201d she said. \u201cHe was a real doctor \u2014 Marlon paid him $500 \u2014 as opposed to something in a back alley.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreno had previously written about the abortion in her 2011 memoir<\/a>, in which she claimed to have been abused by Brando, stating that he forced her into the abortion. But the procedure failed.\u00a0\u201cMarlon took me to the hospital. I had what they told me was a \u2018disturbed pregnancy,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cThe doctor didn\u2019t do anything really, except make me bleed. In other words, he didn\u2019t do it right. I didn\u2019t know it then, but I could have died. What a mess. What a dreadful mess.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her book, she said that afterwards, the abortion \u2014 coupled with Brando’s infidelity \u2014 caused her to try to take her own life. “I could read him like a book, and that’s why he loved me, and that’s why he mistreated me in so many ways. I tried to end my life with pills in his house,” Moreno said. “That’s how I tried to do it. I didn’t understand that if I was going to kill this pathetic, sad, trod-upon Rita, the rest of Rita was also going to go with me. I really didn’t seem to understand that. But that’s what the attempt was. It was an attempt.”<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Three reasons Michelle Williams\u2019 Golden Globes abortion speech hurts women<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Moreno, now 90, said she now fears for the young women of today. \u201cI can see that thing happening now and going back to back alleys,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m really nervous and frightened and horrified that this is taking place.”<\/p>\n

Yet today, even with abortion allegedly being safe due to its legality, abortions are still botched<\/a> on a regular basis and many women have died from legal abortions<\/a>. Women are still being injured and killed from abortions; making them legal in Roe v. Wade<\/em> made no difference. And before Roe<\/em>, women were not dying by the thousands \u2014\u00a0something former Planned Parenthood medical director Mary Steichen Calderone even admitted<\/a>. Deaths had been declining for a long time before Roe<\/em>, as Calderone said 90% of abortions were committed by trained physicians, not random people in back alleys with coat hangers.<\/p>\n