(CNN) Democratic Rep. Katie Hill said the "shame" and the "emotional turmoil" she felt while deciding as a teenager whether to terminate her pregnancy helped shape her views "forever" on abortion and the role of government, an issue now dominating the spotlight as multiple states take steps to enact tighter restrictions.

In an interview with CNN, the freshman congresswoman from California opened up in deeply personal terms about the agony she experienced dealing with an unplanned pregnancy at 18 years old and unveiled for the first time publicly that she can no longer have children.

"In this particular situation, there's a shame involved, right?" Hill said, recalling the pregnancy and her decision process, "There's this piece of 'What did I do wrong?' I felt like I was playing by the rules. How are people going to judge me and what does this mean for my life if I decide to do what I felt like I might just need to do. And how would that change things forever?"

"It's all you can think about and knowing how much that was going to change your life," she added, "And ... what it would mean if I did have an abortion and how I might regret it forever."

Hill said states like Alabama -- which passed a near-total abortion ban this week -- are "criminalizing something that is already so, so difficult for somebody to have to go through."

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