Sharing her story. Joy Behar spoke out about abortion laws and revealed that women’s rights to proper healthcare saved her life after suffering an ectopic pregnancy.
The View cohost, 79, detailed her own experience during the Wednesday, August 3, episode of the talk show. She explained that in 1979 she suffered an ectopic pregnancy, telling her fellow hosts, “I almost died.”
The New York native clarified that an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion nor a miscarriage, but it is something that can happen to any woman.
“The [embryo] is growing in the fallopian tube,” she said of how the life-threatening incident occurs. “It’ll grow just enough to make the tube burst, which what happens then is you bleed internally, and then you die.”
In her case, Behar remembered being rushed to the hospital to receive emergency medical care. “The doctor the next day said, ‘We almost lost you,’” the comedian explained, pointing out, “I was in the situation where I could go to Beth Israel Hospital, and they took care of it there.”
The TV personality decided to share her story on Wednesday as the group discussed Georgia State candidate Herschel Walker’s desire to completely ban abortion.
Behar argued that women need full access to healthcare no matter what their life circumstances. She took issue with the fact that Walker, 60, “supports abortion bans without any exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of the mother.” The Joy Behar: Say Anything alum further explained that the former NFL player’s mindset doesn’t account for women’s health.
“What are these people thinking about when they talk about the health of the mother?” she asked. “Herschel Walker, people like that, they cannot be in positions of power.”
The Great Gasbag author is one of many celebrities who has publicly spoken out following the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which protected a woman’s right to get an abortion and protect her own body for nearly 50 years.
“I’m absolutely terrified that this is where we are — that after so many decades of people fighting for women’s rights to their own bodies, today’s decision has stripped us of that,” Taylor Swift tweeted on June 24.
Other women chose to share their stories of abortions — no matter what the reason for undergoing the procedure — to highlight why it should be an individual choice and not one dictated by the government.
“One of the worst days of my life was when I made the choice to terminate a pregnancy in the second trimester,” Laura Prepon wrote via Instagram on June 27. “The devastating truth is that we found out the fetus would not survive to full term, and that my life was at risk as well. At the time — I had the choice.”
