No matter where you stand on the abortion issue, I think we all can agree that this story is very, very sad...
In her book, Impossible Motherhood, Irene Vilar writes, writes about her "addiction" to abortion. Over the course of 15 years (she's married), she's had 15 abortions.
While the details of Vilar's life are both sad and shocking, it's clear that her repeated trips to abortion clinics gave her sense of "control" that she couldn't find elsewhere.
"I would take my pills and skip a day, a few, and often give up on the whole month, promising myself I would do better the next time," she writes. "Not knowing how a pill or a handful of them would affect my fertility, my days took on a balancing act, and a high of sorts accompanied the days before my period was due. [...] At times the high took place before pregnancy, waiting for a missed period, my body basking in the promise of being in control. At other times it was the pregnancy itself, the control I embodied if only for a couple of months, and still other times it was leaving the abortion clinic, feeling that once again I had succeeded in a narrow escape. The time of my drama was my time, no one could interrupt it, and what was more important, I could not interrupt it to meet other's needs."
She continues that she blames her mom's death, allegedly after a surgical procedure, on her "addiction":
"I had no control over my mother's decision to abandon me," she says. "But I had control over my body. I could impregnate myself and abort; no one else could control my fate..."
Until this, I've never heard of abortion referred to as an "addiction." My reaction is with sadness, of course, and with annoyance (maybe that's too light of a word?) toward her husband. Did he not notice what was happening, that his wife was unwell? Did he not want to just wear a condom for crying out loud? (For an interesting review of this woman's book, check out this piece over on Jezebel.)
Let's discuss.
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