Carrie Fischer’s story is one like no other. No, this isn’t Princess Leia Carrie Fisher, but she has overcome her own sort of Death Star to be the person she is today, a “wonderfully beautiful” walking miracle. She has survived something that very few live to tell about – an abortion.
In an interview on Tuesday with street minister JJ Simmons in Houston, Texas, Carrie began her incredible story with these words: “I am an abortion survivor. What that means is I survived my mother’s attempted abortion on my life.”
From a very young age, she experienced recurrent dreams of a baby fighting for her life. In the dreams, Carrie says that she could literally hear the baby’s screams and cries, in the womb, as the baby struggled to survive. The nightmares were very confusing to young Carrie, and she had no idea what the dreams meant. She had no clue that the baby in her dreams was, in fact, her.
Carrie was born in 1969, still four years before Roe v Wade would become the law of the land. Though her story began several decades ago, her mother’s story is all too familiar to women of today. Indeed, the words read almost like a Facebook post of today, but these words are found on the Abortion Survivors Network. Carrie writes:
“My mother already had my two older siblings when she dated my birth father. One day she realized she was pregnant and told him. He told her he wanted nothing to do with the baby and walked out of the relationship. My mother was devastated and didn’t know what to do. She felt hopeless and abandoned and thought abortion was her only option.”
Her mother found a clinic in the Houston area that would perform abortions. She drove herself to the clinic and had the abortion procedure performed, with tiny Carrie in her womb.
Somehow, the abortion that was meant to end her life somehow didn’t, and miraculously Carrie survived. It wasn’t until a number of weeks later that her mother discovered that the abortion was not successful, and that she was, indeed, still pregnant.
Her mother’s pregnancy continued, and miracle baby Carrie was born on June 10, 1969.
But the abortion had taken a toll on the baby. Carrie was born with some disfigurement and facial paralysis on one side that the doctors attributed to the abortion procedure.
They also told her mother that the baby wasn’t normal and would likely be mentally retarded. They were wrong about her mental faculties, as evidenced by the fact that she now holds a degree in marketing.
It was not until Carrie was a teenager that she learned the truth, and finally learned where her nightmares came from. A relative told her that her mother had tried to kill her and that her father didn’t want her. Carrie later confronted her mother with what she had been told. She told JJ Simmons that her mother broke down and cried and told her about the abortion attempt.
For many years, Carrie Fischer felt that she was a nobody. Schoolkids and even teachers made fun of her . She keenly felt society’s perception of her as ugly and unacceptable. Her life was a struggle for many years. She confesses that she was angry at God for letting her survive the abortion.
In her early thirties, Carrie decided to end her life, one that she believed at the time was not worth living. So many people had told her that, and she believed them. She swallowed an entire bottle of pills with a bottle of wine, and lay down to sleep, never planning to wake up. But she did. She says now that God had another plan for her, and death was not it. Not in the abortion nor in the suicide attempt.
When she woke up the next morning with no ill effects from her suicide attempt, Carrie says that was the turning point for her life. She says that God told her, “You’re alive for a reason.”
She began to find purpose in her life “when the suicide didn’t work.” That was her “light-bulb moment.” She began to search for her reason to live, after miraculously surviving both an abortion and a suicide attempt. The message had come through loud and clear that she was meant to be.
Today, her heart is to minister to hurting women. She has shared that the abortion left her mother with “unspeakable guilt and pain” that has taken many years to come to terms with, forgiving herself and receiving God’s forgiveness .
Like most other abortion survivors who have shared their stories publicly, Carrie experienced years of hurt and pain, but has been able to forgive her mother. She now is blessed with a wonderful relationship with her mom.
Claire Culwell is another abortion survivor who shares that same message of forgiveness. The Inquisitr reported Claire’s incredible letter in which she wrote to the abortion doctor who performed the abortion that not only hurt her, but also took the life of her twin brother. The letter contains a similar message of forgiveness and mercy, traits that are readily apparent in Carrie Fischer’s life.
Carrie now wants to communicate the truth that took her decades to embrace, that, like her, we are all “wonderfully beautiful.”
Simmons asked her what her message is that she would like to communicate to people. This is it:
“There is hope and healing from abortion, that if you’ve had an abortion, there is forgiveness in God. There is healing for the wounded heart. And I would like to say that, for those that are struggling, that don’t feel that God can use them: if you feel ugly and you feel worthless, that you are WONDERFULLY BEAUTIFUL. God created you for a plan and a purpose. You are not an accident or a happenstance. You were created for a reason.”
Carrie Fischer has the voice to say those things. She is a shining testament to the reality that every life can have purpose. Her voice was almost taken from her more than forty years ago through an abortion, but now she has found her voice. She and her husband Richard now share her story wherever they can.
Simmons noted that they were “not looking for sympathy,” but that they “just want to share their story.” Carrie Fischer’s abortion survival story is a unique and powerful story, an inspirational story of a life that is “wonderfully beautiful.”
[images via Priests for Life and Facebook]