Alyssa Milano Recalls Thinking Miscarriage Was 'Karmic' Punishment for Abortions in Her 20s
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Alyssa Milano is getting candid about complicated feelings she encountered after experiencing a miscarriage.
The Sorry Not Sorry author, 48, recalls suffering a miscarriage and feeling as if it was punishment for past abortions. Milano says on PEOPLE's new podcast Me Becoming Mom, "I definitely had this moment of, 'Well, I'm being punished, basically, for abortions in my 20s.' I didn't realize that at the time. It took a while in therapy to realize that that was something that I was putting on myself."
She says that feeling also carried over into her role as a parent. Milano shares son Milo Thomas, 10, and daughter Elizabella Dylan, 7, with husband David Bugliari.
"The way I interacted or was with my children — and I think this is common — but I always felt like, 'What if something happens to these two little beings that I love so much? And is there a world in which they're taken away from me for whatever karmic resolution needed to happen?' " says Milano.
Milano tells host Zoë Ruderman, Head of Digital at PEOPLE, that she had miscarriages before her pregnancies with Milo and Elizabella.
"It was a bummer, but it felt like I got the two pregnancies I was supposed to get. And that's how I kind of looked at it the entire time," she says. "I know that a lot of women take miscarriages very hard, but for me, it was part of the process, I guess. Both miscarriages were, I think I was maybe 7 or 8 weeks pregnant, so if it wasn't viable, my body did what it was supposed to do. I still look at it like that."
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Back in 2019, the actress opened up about her personal experience with abortion on an episode of her podcast, Alyssa Milano: Sorry Not Sorry. She said it happened twice in 1993, within months of one another, when she was in her early 20s.
"I knew at that time, I was not equipped to be a mother, and so I chose to have an abortion. I chose. It was my choice. And it was absolutely the right choice for me," Milano explained at the time, adding, "It was not an easy choice. It was not something I wanted, but it was something that I needed, like most health care is."
"It was devastating," Milano added. "I was raised Catholic and was suddenly put in conflict with my faith. A faith I was coming to realize empowered only men to make every single decision about what was allowed and what was not allowed."
Jamie McCarthy/Getty David Bugliari and Alyssa Milano with their son Milo in 2018
Though she continued to use birth control, she learned a few months after the procedure that she was pregnant again. Once more, Milano had her pregnancy terminated. "I had done what I knew to do to prevent pregnancy and was still pregnant, so once again I made the right decision to end that pregnancy," she said at the time.
Milano said of not regretting her decisions, "I would not have my children — my beautiful, perfect, loving, kind and inquisitive children who have a mother who was so very, very ready for them. I would not have my career. I would not have the ability or platform I use to fight against oppression with all my heart. I would never have met my amazing husband David, whose steadfast and immeasurable love for me sustains me through these terrifying times."
