After the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, an interview with the late actress Debbie Reynolds in which she claims an abortion saved her life has resurfaced. While many individuals supported the Supreme Court’s judgement, others voiced regret and alarm.
Some opponents of the decision have recently revived footage from a 1989 interview with late television presenter Joan Rivers and Reynolds, in which the star describes being forced to carry a lifeless fetus for nearly six weeks decades previously.
She already had her son Todd and daughter Carrie (who rose to fame as Princess Leia in the “Star Wars” trilogy) from her previous marriage at the time, and she fell pregnant while with her second husband, Harry Karl.
Reynolds explained in the interview that she was seven months pregnant and the baby died inside of her.
A stillbirth is described in the United States as happening at or after 20 weeks of pregnancy, as opposed to a miscarriage, which is described as happening before the 20th week of pregnancy. According to the CDC, about 24,000 pregnancies are stillborn in the United States each year, with stillbirths accounting for almost one in every 160 births.
Reynolds told Rivers that one clue that her pregnancy had ended in a stillbirth was that her tummy had “shrunk down.”
She said that it was a really difficult thing to get over as there were no abortions permitted back then, if you were sick, raped, or the kid died. It’s revolting to know that those laws exist.
Reynolds said that since her pregnancy was stillborn before Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, her medical provider refused her an abortion, forcing her to continue her pregnancy to full term.
She stated, it didn’t make a difference. It had to abort itself. It could never be taken away from me.
Friends and acquaintances who were uninformed of the situation might inquire about the pregnancy’s outcome.
“How is the baby doing?” “What are you planning to call the baby?” Reynolds recalled what her friends would ask her.
She said it’s simply something she’ll never forget, and the anguish of it, adding that when she became unwell from carrying the dead embryo, it was accepted that an abortion would be necessary to preserve her life.
She continued that all the toxins and everything would have killed her after so long a time. So they eventually agreed — some board, suppose — that they would attempt to pull this kid out, but it was more perilous than ever at this time.
Reynolds was almost compelled to relive the same scenario months later, after becoming pregnant and suffering a similar ending.
This time, she told Congress, she does not want to know. She doesn’t want to hear anything from any of them. “You are taking this baby now,” she remarked, noting that regardless of the fact that anti-abortion laws were still in effect in the United States, she was given the life-saving treatment by physicians who seen what she had gone through before.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, individuals across social media platforms have re-shared Reynold’s interview.
“I can’t even start to express how I think about the recent inhumane decision to repeal Roe v. Wade in the Dystopian States of America,” one Twitter user said in a description accompanying the interview. “This is Debbie Reynolds telling about her personal 1960s experience… It’s difficult to hear, yet this is what will occur again.”
I can’t begin to put into words my feelings about the recent barbaric decision to overturn Roe vs Wade in the Dystopian States of America. This is Debbie Reynolds speaking about her own experience in the 60’s… it’s hard to listen to but this is what’s going to happen again. pic.twitter.com/8AAOPrHeIW
— Vintage Los Angeles (@alisonmartino) June 28, 2022
“What she’s saying occurred to me in 1986,” a Twitter user said. “I was pregnant at the time, and the foetus died at 12 weeks.” My body will ultimately discharge the deceased foetus, I was informed. I finally went into labour at 20 weeks. I was forced to endure the entire ordeal without pain medicine.”
“People need to understand that it’s not just undesired pregnancies that need to be safeguarded,” another TikTok user responded to the interview. “There are also terrible instances like this.”
