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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez

Source: Bill Clark / Getty

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently opened up about how grateful she is that she could have had an abortion after being sexually assaulted in her young 20s. 

The congresswoman reflected on her past and evoking the freedom to choose abortion during a pro-choice rally on June 24 in New York City’s Union Square Park.

“I myself, when I was about 22 or 23 years old, was raped while I was living here in New York City,” AOC shared with the crowd. “I was completely alone. I felt completely alone. In fact, I felt so alone that I had to take a pregnancy test in a public bathroom in midtown Manhattan.”

“When I sat there waiting for what the result would be, all I could think was thank God I have, at least, a choice,” the congresswoman recalled. “Thank God I could, at least, have the freedom to choose my destiny.”

“I didn’t know then, as I was waiting, that it would come up negative,” the representative continued. “But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, and this is for all of us. This is not a women’s rights issue. This is an issue for all of us.”

“We must start right now to be relentless to restore and guarantee all of our rights here in the United States of America. Period,” Ocasio-Cortez said as she addressed the crowd.

The representative’s choice to share her experience at the rally followed The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn their previous rulings on Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, both of which upheld women’s rights to abortions.

“The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the Supreme Court’s Justice Samuel Alito argued in an opinion.

With its recent overturn of abortion rights at the federal level, the court transferred the decision of whether abortions will be legal to government officials at the state level. 

Read more about the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade below.

RELATED CONTENT: “Supreme Court Overturns Roe v. Wade, Ending Almost 50 Years Of Constitutional Access To Safe Abortion”

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