Gloria Steinem and the Doctor’s Promise That Changed Her Life
Long before Gloria Steinem became one of the most recognizable figures in the American women’s movement, she was a 22-year-old woman facing a deeply personal crisis in London.
In 1957, Steinem discovered that she was pregnant while preparing to travel to India. At the time, abortion was illegal in Britain except under very limited circumstances. The experience would become one of the most important personal stories in Steinem’s life.
It was during that difficult period that a London doctor, John Sharpe, gave her two instructions that she would remember for decades.
“You must promise me two things,” Sharpe told her. First, she could not reveal his name. Second, she should do what she wanted with her life.
Those words would eventually become part of Steinem’s public story and a powerful explanation of why reproductive freedom became so important to her.
Steinem Was 22 When She Met Dr. Sharpe
Steinem had recently graduated from Smith College and was preparing to spend time in India when she learned she was pregnant.
She later described being frightened and uncertain about what would happen to her life.
At that point, there was no organized women’s movement comparable to the one that would emerge in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. Steinem said abortion was treated as something women were expected to keep secret.
She eventually found Dr. Sharpe in London.
Sharpe referred her for an abortion despite the legal restrictions of the time. Steinem later described his decision as an act that allowed her to continue with the life she wanted.
The Two Promises
Sharpe’s request was simple but profound.
He asked Steinem not to reveal his name. He also told her to do what she wanted with her life.
For years, Steinem kept the first promise.
She did, however, spend the rest of her life reflecting on the second.
Rather than returning to the conventional life that she felt was expected of her, Steinem became a journalist, writer and activist. She eventually became one of the leading figures of second-wave feminism.
The doctor’s words became more meaningful as her career developed.
Why She Dedicated Her Memoir to Him
Steinem finally revealed Sharpe’s name decades later.
In her 2015 memoir, My Life on the Road, she dedicated the book to the doctor who had helped her in 1957.
The dedication explained that Sharpe had taken a considerable risk by referring a 22-year-old American for an abortion when the procedure was still heavily restricted.
Steinem wrote that she believed Sharpe, who understood that the law was unjust, would not object to her revealing his identity so many years after his death.
She ended the dedication by saying she had done the best she could with her life.
That sentence became a striking summary of the promise she believed she had made.
The Experience Shaped Her Views on Reproductive Rights
Steinem’s experience did not immediately turn her into an activist.
It took years before she began speaking publicly about her abortion.
She later explained that, before the women’s movement, women generally did not share such experiences openly. Abortion was surrounded by secrecy and shame.
Her perspective changed after she encountered women who were willing to tell their own stories.
In 1969, Steinem covered an abortion speak-out in New York’s Greenwich Village for New York magazine. Women publicly described their experiences of ending pregnancies.
The event helped convince her that abortion was not simply a private matter. It was also a political and social issue affecting women’s freedom and equality.
From Personal Experience to a National Movement
Steinem went on to become a central figure in the American feminist movement.
She co-founded Ms. magazine and became an influential advocate for women’s equality, reproductive rights and economic independence.
Her personal experience with abortion became part of a larger argument about women’s ability to control their own futures.
For Steinem, the issue was closely connected to freedom.
If a woman could not make fundamental decisions about pregnancy and motherhood, she argued, her ability to determine the direction of her own life was limited.
That belief became a recurring theme throughout her activism and writing.
The Promise Became Part of Her Legacy
The story of Dr. Sharpe remained private for many years.
But when Steinem finally told it publicly, she presented it not simply as a story about an abortion. She presented it as a story about compassion, personal freedom and the power of one person’s decision to change another person’s future.
The New York Public Library later highlighted the dedication and Steinem’s explanation of why the experience remained so important to her.
Sharpe’s two requests were made to a frightened young woman in 1957.
Decades later, one of those requests had become a defining part of her legacy.
Steinem became a journalist, author and feminist leader who spent much of her life encouraging women to determine their own paths.
In that sense, the second promise — to do what she wanted with her life — was one she believed she kept.
And the story of that promise helps explain why reproductive freedom remained such a deeply personal issue for Gloria Steinem throughout her public life.
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