I know that situations like this are
not typical of abortions in the U.S.--but it just makes me shake my head in horror, revulsion, and confusion. From the
October 14, 2009 Daily Mail:
A woman has admitted to being 'an abortion addict' after having 15 terminations over 17 years.
Irene Vilar said she had the abortions not from poverty or fear but as an extraordinary act of rebellion against her 'controlling' husband who did not want children.
The 40-year-old's confession has unleashed a torrent of attacks from anti-abortion activists on the internet, including death threats and demands for her to be jailed.
The cycle of pregnancies and abortions, which began when she was 16 and ended when she was 33, was also punctuated by several suicide attempts.
Now a successful literary agent with two young daughters, Loretta, five, and Lolita, three, Mrs Vilar has written about her experiences in a memoir, called Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict.
Even pro-choice advocates admit that it raises "troubling" questions about using abortion as birth control. Ya think? I've pointed out before this
November 29, 2005 Los Angeles Times article that I think finally pushed me over the edge from weakly pro-choice to reluctantly pro-life--not because either of the cases were typical of abortions in the U.S.--but because I fear that they aren't spectacularly unusual (unlike Ms. Vilar):
His first patient of the day, Sarah, 23, says it never occurred to her to use birth control, though she has been sexually active for six years. When she became pregnant this fall, Sarah, who works in real estate, was in the midst of planning her wedding. "I don't think my dress would have fit with a baby in there," she says.
The last patient of the day, a 32-year-old college student named Stephanie, has had four abortions in the last 12 years. She keeps forgetting to take her birth control pills. Abortion "is a bummer," she says, "but no big stress."
