As a longtime host of The View – in fact the only original host left since starting in 1997 – Joy Behar is accustomed to sharing her views and bits of her personal life with the world.
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Filter-free as the star might be, she opened up like never before during a recent episode of the hit talk show, revealing a devastating health battle she faced.
As Joy and her co-stars were discussing Kansas' recent vote to keep abortion rights protected, as well as the ongoing debate since the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court, the host insisted on the importance of access to a safe abortion, revealing her own need to terminate a pregnancy when hers was identified as ectopic.
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"In 1979 I had an ectopic pregnancy," she said, before shockingly revealing: "I almost died."
Explaining what an ectopic pregnancy is and its risks, she said: "The fetus is growing in the fallopian tube." An ectopic pregnancy is never viable, and can lead to death, therefore terminating the pregnancy is crucial for the mother's wellbeing.
Maintaining how terrifying it is to go through one, she said: "You can't give birth from your fallopian tube and the fetus will not grow. It grows, but not to full term. So it will grow just enough to make the tube burst. What happens then, you bleed internally and then you die."
The difficult yet candid conversation
"There's nowhere to go from that," she said, before recalling her visit to the hospital, and acknowledging what a privilege it was to be able to do so.
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Joy remembered being "rushed to the hospital" and how the following day, her doctor shockingly admitted to her: "We almost lost you."
The star's first and only daughter, Eve Behar, was born in 1970
She noted: "I was in a situation where I could go to Beth Israel Hospital and they took care of it there."
As her hosts supported her opening up, Joy concluded her story by urging her fellow co-stars and viewers to think of how the situation she was in continues to impact women.
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