Ashley Judd took aim at the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade in an Op-Ed honoring her late mother Naomi as she celebrates her first Mothers Day without her.
Judd, 54, penned the Op-Ed for USA Today in which she remembered her late mother Naomi Judd, who reportedly killed herself last month a day before she was set to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
‘This Sunday is abruptly, shockingly, my first Mother’s Day without my mama,’ the actress wrote. ‘She died just days before my sister and I could show her again how much we love and honor her.
‘It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was supposed to visit her on Sunday, to give her a box of old-fashioned candy, our family tradition,’ Judd added. ‘Instead, I am unmoored. But my heart is not empty. It is replete with gratitude for what she left behind. Her nurture and tenderness, her music and memory.’
Judd, known for her roles in such movies as ‘Kiss the Girls,’ ‘Double Jeopardy’ and ‘Heat’ also wrote about her mother’s journey with mental illness and how despite having motherhood forced on to her, she still did her best.
Judd wrote that her mother ‘had to fight like hell to overcome the hand she was dealt, to earn her place in history,’
Ashley and her sister Wynonna – (pictured together) who performed with Naomi for years in ‘The Judds’ – revealed she had succumbed to the ‘disease of mental illness’
Judd described her ‘incandescent rage’ at the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned, citing maternal death rates, and the high murder and suicide rates of pregnant women
‘Motherhood happened to her without her consent,’ Judd wrote. ‘She experienced an unintended pregnancy at age 17, and that led her down a road familiar to so many adolescent mothers, including poverty and gender-based violence.’
Judd wrote that her mother ‘had to fight like hell to overcome the hand she was dealt, to earn her place in history,’ adding: ‘She shouldn’t have had to fight that hard to share her gifts with the world.’
The actress then describes her ‘incandescent rage’ at the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned, citing maternal death rates, and the high murder and suicide rates of pregnant women.
‘Motherhood should always be a choice. Does that sound radical to you? Does that sound like I wish my sister and I hadn’t been born? If that’s what you think, I will gladly direct my incandescent rage at you,’ she wrote.
‘How much could we, as a society, possibly value motherhood when it is assumed to be an inevitability? When we accept as normal that women and girls will drop out of school and the workforce because they are expected to take on the unpaid labor of child care? When we fail to protect girls from poverty and violence?’ she continued.
Ahead of Mother’s Day Ashley Judd, 54, (left) penned an Op-Ed for USA Today where she remembered her late mother Naomi Judd. Naomi (right) reportedly killed herself last month a day before she was set to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame
Judd then pleaded people honor their mothers by ‘demanding a world where motherhood, everywhere, is safe, healthy – and chosen’
Her Op-Ed comes days after the US Supreme Court looks set to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that effectively legalized abortions across America.
A draft legal opinion, which was leaked to Politico, reveals five Republican-nominated judges – a majority of the court’s nine judges – are in agreement on the issue which would be enough to force a change in the law — though their decision is not final until the ruling is officially published.
In the leaked document, conservative Justice Samuel Alito writes that Roe v Wade – the 1973 Supreme Court ruling which found that excessive state regulation of abortion is unconstitutional – was ‘egregiously wrong from the start’ and ‘must be overruled’
Days earlier Judd lost her mother after the legendary singer took her own life, leaving her family devastated.
Ashley and her sister Wynonna – who performed with her for years in ‘The Judds’ – revealed she had succumbed to the ‘disease of mental illness.’
Naomi Judd had written extensively about her struggles with depression, and even referenced suicide in an open letter published in People magazine in 2018.
In her 2018 essay, Naomi Judd advocated for more research into the nature of suicide.
Judd’s Op-Ed comes days after the US Supreme Court looks set to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that effectively legalized abortions across America
‘To understand this issue better, we have to bring the study of suicide into mainstream neuroscience and treat the condition like every other brain disorder,’ she wrote.
‘People who commit suicide are experiencing problems with mood, impulse control and aggression, all of which involve discrete circuits in the brain that regulate these aspects of human experience, but we still don’t understand how these circuits go haywire in the brains of suicide victims.’
She described what depression feels like to her in an interview with People magazine in 2016.
‘Nobody can understand it unless you’ve been there,’ she said.
‘Think of your very worst day of your whole life – someone passed away, you lost your job, you found out you were being betrayed, that your child had a rare disease – you can take all of those at once and put them together and that’s what depression feels like.’
In her book ‘River of Time: My Descent into Depression and How I Emerged with Hope’ she writes about struggles a single mother and a survivor of domestic abuse and sexual assault.
At the height of their popularity, Naomi lived through the previously incurable Hepatitis C virus, having been pronounced cured five years after the diagnosis.
The mother-daughter performers scored 14 No. 1 songs in a career that spanned nearly three decades. After rising to the top of country music, they called it quits in 1991 after doctors diagnosed Naomi with hepatitis.
The Judds’ hits included Love Can Build a Bridge in 1990, Mama He’s Crazy in 1984, Why Not Me in 1984, Turn It Loose in 1988, Girls Night Out in 1985, Rockin’ With the Rhythm of the Rain in 1986 and Grandpa in 1986.