Rep. Cori Bush opens up about getting an abortion after being sexually assaulted as a teenager: 'You don't know my story'

• Rep. Cori Bush shared her experience of being sexually assaulted and getting an abortion when she was a teenager.
• Bush spoke publicly about her story during a congressional hearing on Thursday.
• She also told Vanity Fair what happened for an interview that was published earlier this week.

Rep. Cori Bush opened up about her personal experiences of being sexually assaulted and getting an abortion when she was a teenager during a congressional hearing on abortion rights on Thursday.

Bush, a Missouri Democrat, told the House Oversight Committee that choosing to have an abortion was the "hardest decision" she ever made.

"At 18 years old, I knew it was the right decision for me," she said, adding that it was "freeing knowing I had options."

Prior to the hearing, Bush spoke about the experience in an interview with Vanity Fair that was published on Wednesday.

The Missouri Democrat was 17 years old when she learned that she became pregnant with a man who assaulted her, and turned 18 before she had the abortion, she told Vanity Fair.

"I just remember I was laying there and I just didn't know what was happening…I couldn't make it make sense," Bush told the magazine about her assault that took place in 1994 at an annual church trip in Jackson, Mississippi.

When a mutual friend informed the man about the pregnancy, he laughed, the lawmaker said.

"So then I realized, Okay, I'm on my own with this thing," she told the magazine, adding that she then had to book multiple appointments at a local clinic to get an abortion.

"It was a very, very cold situation," Bush said of her interactions with the clinic's staff. Before the procedure, she said she was required to attend a counseling session, in which the counselor spoke "very belittling and degrading" to her and encouraged her to terminate her pregnancy.

Upon arriving and leaving the clinic, Bush was also bombarded by anti-abortion protestors, she said.

"I remember thinking…You're yelling at me, but you don't know my story. You're not going to help me with this baby if I had the baby. I felt like there was no mercy, coming from people that didn't even know me," Bush told Vanity Fair.

Beyond protecting abortion rights, Bush highlighted the need to address the different treatment that Black women face in the healthcare system compared to their white counterparts.

"To all the Black women and girls who have had abortions or will have abortions, we have nothing to be ashamed of. We live in a society that has failed to legislate love and justice for us. So we deserve better. We demand better. We are worthy of better," Bush said at Thursday's hearing. "So that's why I'm here to tell my story."

The congresswoman's comments come as Republican-led states across the country are trying to pass restrictions on abortion. Democrats have sharply criticized a recently enacted Texas law that bans the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, a time when many women do not yet know they are pregnant.

Starting December 1, the Supreme Court will review a major abortion case that could threaten Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark ruling that legalized the procedure nationwide.