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- Stevie Nicks says that going through with her unplanned pregnancy would have broken up Fleetwood Mac.
- Nicks was inspired to write her latest song, “The Lighthouse,” after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
- An online poll found that 76% of women were concerned that the overturn of Roe v. Wade would impact their career advancement.
With the presidential election less than two weeks away, Stevie Nicks, 76, is speaking out about abortion rights.
In an interview with CBS News Sunday Morning, Nicks said that at the beginning of her career, in 1979, she had an unplanned pregnancy despite having an IUD and being “totally protected.”
“I’m like, ‘This can’t be happening.’ Fleetwood Mac is three years in. And it’s big. And we’re going into our third album. It was like, ‘Oh no, no, no, no, no, no,'” she said, adding, “It would have destroyed Fleetwood Mac.”
“It would’ve been a nightmare scenario for me to live through,” she said.
Nicks also addressed her abortion in an interview with Rolling Stone, published on Thursday.
“I am not the kind of woman who would hand my baby over to a nanny, not in a million years. So we would be dragging a baby around the world on tour, and I wouldn’t do that to my baby,” she said.
She wouldn’t have needed nine months but a couple of years to care for her baby. But doing so would have broken up the band, she said.
“So my decision was to have an abortion,” she said. “If people want to be mad at me about that, I don’t really care, because my life was my life, and my plan was my plan and had been since I was in the fourth grade.”
Nicks, who is not married and has no children, added that she has never looked back on her decision to abort. “Not only did it allow me to follow my dream of being this rock ‘n’ roll woman, but it allowed me to be this person that just wrote this song.”
Nicks was the first woman to be inducted twice into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In September, she released her new song, “The Lighthouse.” She said she was inspired to write the song after hearing that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade.
“It’s not just about not being careful and having an abortion. It’s everything. It’s all the healthcare. It’s an ectopic pregnancy. It’s all the procedures that need to be done in our bodies that half of us don’t ever have, and half of us have a whole lot more than other people,” she told Rolling Stone.
A representative for Nicks did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.
Abortion politics have come to the fore in the latest presidential elections following the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Kamala Harris’ stance on reproductive rights has drawn a higher proportion of voters who are single women.
“When Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom, I will proudly sign it into law as president of the United States,” she said during her rally in Houston on Friday.
While Donald Trump previously said he was considering a 16-week ban on abortion, his public opinion on the topic has shifted over the years.
The impact of abortion rights on career advancement
In an online poll of 3,196 US workers aged 18 and older conducted in July 2022 by LeanIn.Org, 76% of women were concerned that the overturn of Roe v. Wade would negatively impact their ability to advance in the workforce.
After Roe v. Wade was overturned, several women spoke to BI about how access to abortion rights had helped them in their careers.
Favianna Rodriguez, an artist, underwent abortions when she was 21 and 34 years old.
“I knew I didn’t wanna have a baby. The additional financial hardship that I faced just made my decision very clear,” she previously told BI.
Forgoing both pregnancies allowed her to pursue a career in the arts and achieve financial well-being, she added.
Similarly, Tracy Young, the CEO of two startups, recently told BI about the importance of having reproductive rights for her career.
“Birth control helped me time pregnancy for when I was ready,” said Young, who had her first child once she had “matured as a CEO and as a leader.”
“When I was building a startup for the first time and leading it as CEO for the first time, doing the biggest job I’ve ever done before, it was just not the right time for me.”