Simone Biles, the winningest female gymnast of all time, took to Twitter Tuesday morning to defend her unapologetic support for abortion, arguing her initial comments on Instagram were “misconstrued.”
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Biles, who won four gold medals during the Rio Olympics in 2016 and brought home silver and bronze in this year’s Tokyo Games, first shared her thoughts when she solicited “unpopular opinions” from her Instagram followers, one of whom claimed “abortion is wrong.”
In response, the 24-year-old athlete wrote, “I already know this is going to start the biggest argument [and] may even lose followers, but I’m very much pro-choice. Your body, your choice.”
“Also, for everyone gonna say, ‘Just put it up for adoption,’ it’s not that easy [and], coming from someone who was in the foster care system, trust me, [the] foster care system is broken [and] it’s tough, especially on the kids [and] young adults who age out [and] adoption is expensive,” Biles continued. “I’m just saying.”
After garnering attention for her comments on Instagram, Biles doubled down on Twitter, singling out one since-deleted tweet she said misrepresented her thoughts.
She clarified she does not support abortion as an alternative to the foster care and adoption systems.
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“Do not misconstrue my words,” the Olympian wrote. “That is not at all what I implied. I did not say I support to abort rather than to put them through the foster care system. What I did imply is that you should not control someone else’s body/decision. Let’s be real, what you care about is control.”
She went on to say she has always and “will continue to support foster kids,” noting she was in the foster care system herself.
“I’ve been an advocate for foster kids and the system,” Biles explained, “but you wouldn’t know that, because you don’t follow me. You just like to open your mouth.”
On her own Twitter profile, pro-life advocate Lila Rose described Biles’ support for abortion as “incredibly sad and awful.”
“To have overcome a broken system as triumphantly as she has — yet wish death for other kids [because] they may face foster care is beyond fathoming,” she wrote.
Biles and her sister, Adria, were placed in the foster care system as children before they were ultimately adopted by their maternal grandfather, Ron, and his wife, Nellie, in 2003. The gymnast’s two older siblings were adopted by another family member.
In 2016, Biles told Time she has pursued an open adoption and speaks with her birth mother on her birthdays and holidays and has met her on a handful of occasions with her mother, Nellie, by her side.
“I wonder what my life would be like if none of this happened,” Biles told the magazine. “I want to know why my [birth] mother did what she did. But those aren’t questions for me, because that was her lifestyle when I wasn’t even born. I have everything I need, so there are no blanks left infilled. I never felt I had questions or needed answers or had a part of me that was missing.”
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