jillio
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Can you say pathological behavior?
And to answer your question: "Yes, you are in an alternate universe."
abortion addict
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Can you say pathological behavior?
And to answer your question: "Yes, you are in an alternate universe."
rockin'robin
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Actually, this is a repost....I posted the story on Sept. 22.Abortion Addict Admits to Multiple Abortions, Suicide Attempts
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Repeat Abortions Baffle Experts, as Author Irene Vilar Explores Her 'Impossible Motherhood'
Irene Vilar worries that her self-described "abortion addiction" will be misunderstood, twisted by the pro-life movement to deny women the right to choose.
Her book, "Impossible Motherhood," which will be released by Other Press on Oct. 6, chronicles her own dark choices: 15 abortions in 16 years, much of it as a married woman.
As press on the book has begun to leak out, Vilar -- a literary agent and editor --- says she has already sensed "an inkling of hatred."
Vilar has scheduled only closed-door interviews and will not do a book tour. At the urging of her husband, they have made sure all public property records do not reflect her name, so she cannot be targeted at their home.
.
"I am worried about my safety and the hate mail," she told ABCNews.com in a telephone interview as her home-schooled children were at work on a painting project.
"No book like this has ever been written," she told ABCNews.com. "I just imagine the 'baby killer' and I could be a poster child for that kind of fundamentalism. And there are my little kids in all of that."
Read an excerpt from "Impossible Motherhood."
Today, at 40, the Latina author has two young children, but her troubled past continues to haunt her well into motherhood.
She grew up in the shadow of her notorious grandmother Puerto Rican nationalist Lolita Lebron, who stormed the Capitol steps with a gun in 1954. Lebron served 25 years in jail for the crime until receiving a pardon from President Carter in 1979.
Her mother committed suicide by throwing herself from a moving car when Vilar was 8 and two of her brothers were heroin addicts.
Mass Sterilization in Puerto Rico
Vilar's story is set against the backdrop of the American-led mass sterilization program in her native Puerto Rico from 1955 to 1969, a fitting symbol for her struggle with her own reproduction.
By 1974, 37 percent of all Puerto Rican women of childbearing age had been permanently sterilized in that experiment.
"Women tend to repeat behaviors," Vilar said of herself. Her mother's forced hysterectomy without hormone treatment at the age of 33, led to depression and a Valium addition.
Vilar attended boarding school in New Hampshire and was just 15 when she left for Syracuse University, where she fell in love and later married her first husband, a tyrannical 50-year-old professor.
With a predilection for young women, he bragged that his relationships had never lasted more than five years and that having children killed sexual desire.
She says their emotionally dependent relationship was riddled with shame, self-mutilation and several suicide attempts.
1 in 2 Who Have First Abortion, Have Repeat
Although her personal history is unique, Vilar hopes through her painful memoir to trigger a public discussion on abortion and what leads women -- even after the feminist movement -- to use "procreation as power."
"Everybody is having babies, Hollywood has even developed some sort of motherhood fetish," said Vilar. "Yet, women are repeatedly told that they must be everything but mothers, everything but someone weighed down by motherhood."
About half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended, and 40 percent of these are terminated by abortion -- 854,122 in 2002, the latest year for which data is available, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
An estimated 50 percent of women who seek one abortion, will have a repeat one, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which promotes sexual and reproductive health. About 10 percent of those women will have three or more.
Its 2006 report found that most of these women were over age 30 and using contraception at the time of conception.
Little is known about these women, although they may be "perceived as having difficulty practicing contraception," or using abortion as a method of family planning, according to the report.
Mental Problems Not Tied to Abortion
"A lot of times the circumstances are unusual and complicated," said Rachel K. Jones, a senior research associate who co-authored the report. "There's always a lot more going on than someone who does not want to use contraception."
An American Psychological Association task force concluded that mental health problems are "not a direct result" of choosing to have one abortion.
But the 2008 report did note that many "confounding factors might indicate mental problems" in women who have repeat abortions.
"The research is not really great," said APA spokesman Kim Mills. "It's very hard to tease out."
Vilar's pregnancies became compulsively self-destructive: After her 9th and 10th abortions, she "needed another self-injury to get the high."
"In the beginning I was taking pills and I'd skip a day or two or give up one month," she said. "I'd think I'll be better next time. But slowly, my days took on a balancing act and there was a specific high. I would get my period and be sad, then discover I was pregnant, being afraid, yet also so excited."
Vilar said many women who have repeat abortions show a certain "recklessness."
Such was the case with Mary, a Florida college student who did not want to use her real name, who had her first abortion in 2006 when she was 21.
"It didn't seem like the right choice to have a baby then," she told ABCNews.com. But she got pregnant again with the same boyfriend a month later and without telling him, aborted.
"I felt it wasn't something I wanted to go through again, that I wanted to be more careful," said Mary. "It's a physically painful thing to do -- not something I'd ever want to use as a form of birth control. Who wants to go through that pain to end the lives of potential children?"
But at 24 with a new boyfriend, she got pregnant again and fantasized about motherhood, but he didn't want the baby.
"I felt like we were committing murder, that I was killing something that I wanted," said Mary. "I felt like I should feel the pain. I wanted to physically suffer."
After three abortions, she was left with lingering health problems and her doctor suggested she might not have a child again.
"When I was 21, it seemed easier," she said. "It was. It has a lot to do with my mental state about the situation. It feels like there is no healing for this."
(From Sept. 22)...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Repeat Abortions Baffle Experts, as Author Irene Vilar Explores Her 'Impossible Motherhood'
Irene Vilar worries that her self-described "abortion addiction" will be misunderstood, twisted by the pro-life movement to deny women the right to choose.
Her book, "Impossible Motherhood," which will be released by Other Press on Oct. 6, chronicles her own dark choices: 15 abortions in 16 years, much of it as a married woman.
As press on the book has begun to leak out, Vilar -- a literary agent and editor --- says she has already sensed "an inkling of hatred."
Vilar has scheduled only closed-door interviews and will not do a book tour. At the urging of her husband, they have made sure all public property records do not reflect her name, so she cannot be targeted at their home.
.
"I am worried about my safety and the hate mail," she told ABCNews.com in a telephone interview as her home-schooled children were at work on a painting project.
"No book like this has ever been written," she told ABCNews.com. "I just imagine the 'baby killer' and I could be a poster child for that kind of fundamentalism. And there are my little kids in all of that."
Read an excerpt from "Impossible Motherhood."
Today, at 40, the Latina author has two young children, but her troubled past continues to haunt her well into motherhood.
She grew up in the shadow of her notorious grandmother Puerto Rican nationalist Lolita Lebron, who stormed the Capitol steps with a gun in 1954. Lebron served 25 years in jail for the crime until receiving a pardon from President Carter in 1979.
Her mother committed suicide by throwing herself from a moving car when Vilar was 8 and two of her brothers were heroin addicts.
Mass Sterilization in Puerto Rico
Vilar's story is set against the backdrop of the American-led mass sterilization program in her native Puerto Rico from 1955 to 1969, a fitting symbol for her struggle with her own reproduction.
By 1974, 37 percent of all Puerto Rican women of childbearing age had been permanently sterilized in that experiment.
"Women tend to repeat behaviors," Vilar said of herself. Her mother's forced hysterectomy without hormone treatment at the age of 33, led to depression and a Valium addition.
Vilar attended boarding school in New Hampshire and was just 15 when she left for Syracuse University, where she fell in love and later married her first husband, a tyrannical 50-year-old professor.
With a predilection for young women, he bragged that his relationships had never lasted more than five years and that having children killed sexual desire.
She says their emotionally dependent relationship was riddled with shame, self-mutilation and several suicide attempts.
1 in 2 Who Have First Abortion, Have Repeat
Although her personal history is unique, Vilar hopes through her painful memoir to trigger a public discussion on abortion and what leads women -- even after the feminist movement -- to use "procreation as power."
"Everybody is having babies, Hollywood has even developed some sort of motherhood fetish," said Vilar. "Yet, women are repeatedly told that they must be everything but mothers, everything but someone weighed down by motherhood."
About half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended, and 40 percent of these are terminated by abortion -- 854,122 in 2002, the latest year for which data is available, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
An estimated 50 percent of women who seek one abortion, will have a repeat one, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which promotes sexual and reproductive health. About 10 percent of those women will have three or more.
Its 2006 report found that most of these women were over age 30 and using contraception at the time of conception.
Little is known about these women, although they may be "perceived as having difficulty practicing contraception," or using abortion as a method of family planning, according to the report.
Mental Problems Not Tied to Abortion
"A lot of times the circumstances are unusual and complicated," said Rachel K. Jones, a senior research associate who co-authored the report. "There's always a lot more going on than someone who does not want to use contraception."
An American Psychological Association task force concluded that mental health problems are "not a direct result" of choosing to have one abortion.
But the 2008 report did note that many "confounding factors might indicate mental problems" in women who have repeat abortions.
"The research is not really great," said APA spokesman Kim Mills. "It's very hard to tease out."
Vilar's pregnancies became compulsively self-destructive: After her 9th and 10th abortions, she "needed another self-injury to get the high."
"In the beginning I was taking pills and I'd skip a day or two or give up one month," she said. "I'd think I'll be better next time. But slowly, my days took on a balancing act and there was a specific high. I would get my period and be sad, then discover I was pregnant, being afraid, yet also so excited."
Vilar said many women who have repeat abortions show a certain "recklessness."
Such was the case with Mary, a Florida college student who did not want to use her real name, who had her first abortion in 2006 when she was 21.
"It didn't seem like the right choice to have a baby then," she told ABCNews.com. But she got pregnant again with the same boyfriend a month later and without telling him, aborted.
"I felt it wasn't something I wanted to go through again, that I wanted to be more careful," said Mary. "It's a physically painful thing to do -- not something I'd ever want to use as a form of birth control. Who wants to go through that pain to end the lives of potential children?"
But at 24 with a new boyfriend, she got pregnant again and fantasized about motherhood, but he didn't want the baby.
"I felt like we were committing murder, that I was killing something that I wanted," said Mary. "I felt like I should feel the pain. I wanted to physically suffer."
After three abortions, she was left with lingering health problems and her doctor suggested she might not have a child again.
"When I was 21, it seemed easier," she said. "It was. It has a lot to do with my mental state about the situation. It feels like there is no healing for this."
(From Sept. 22)...
melissa
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It's sad to read, that she feels the need to use abortion as a method of self-injury. I agree with Jillio, it's not about contraception or access to abortion but mental health.
I've had my own mental health issues and eating problems for a long time, and this part really speaks to me:
"I'd think I'll be better next time. But slowly, my days took on a balancing act and there was a specific high."
I hope she realises she needs mental health help, and asks for it.
I've had my own mental health issues and eating problems for a long time, and this part really speaks to me:
"I'd think I'll be better next time. But slowly, my days took on a balancing act and there was a specific high."
I hope she realises she needs mental health help, and asks for it.
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Abortion itself is not the underlying issue in this case.
Berry
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I am told back alley abortions do still happen. When a woman I know accidently carried the baby past the time she could legally abort (evidently she did not realize how far along she was) she says she was told "It can still be done."
She told me she chose to keep the baby rather than risk an unlicensed person using unsanitary tools doing who knew what to her innards.
I guess abortions, like drugs and other illegal things: As long as there is a buyer there will be a seller.
I wondered if that's the same deaf person we both know? I also know a deaf woman who had several abortions, and she says she'll do it again if she gets pregnant again. :roll:
kokonut
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So, having multiple abortions aren't a problem then?
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Her mental state is the underlying problem so it wouldnt matter if abortion was made illegal because of what she did..she would still have her problems.
Drugs are illegal but does that stop addicts from abusing them?
Berry
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I agree.
In this particular case abortion is not the issue.
In this particular case legal is not the issue.
In this particular case her mental state caused her to become a serial abortionist. But being a serial abortionist did not help her mental state.
Are we then to believe that someone with serious mental/emotional conditions does not need our help, understanding, or concern, simply because what they are doing is legal?
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I just can see some pro-lifers capitalizing this sad situation to further their agenda. I do not agree with women getting multiple abortions but I would rather focus on the underlying issue to why they are engaging in these self-destruction behaviors. That'sthe only way they can get the help they need.
kokonut
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So, she abuse herself by having multiple abortions? Having an abortion or abortions in this case whatever the reason, the outcome is still the same.
Berry
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Again I agree.
jillio
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Yep, and according to the woman herself, she did not want her story twisted by the pro-lifers to suit their agenda.
Truly a shame that some are so superficial that they can't see the real meaning behind this woman's story. They see the word abortion, and all thought processes come to a halt. They can't see further than that one word.:roll:
jillio
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The reasons behind anyone's determination to have an abortion are for them and their physician to decide.
What a shame that you are so lacking in empathy and understanding for this woman's mental health issues.
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Some people think that ONE is too many. Some people think TWO is too many. The whole debate could just as easily center on repeated plastic surgeries, which is legal; yet the results of too many of these procedures become disfigurement, and are a symptom of underlying mental health and self esteem problems. In this particular case, her womb and other related organs are certainly being damaged by all these abortions.
Again, I refuse to debate abortion. Let the women have this issue for themselves, since they are the ones having it done. Would be similar to women debating penis enlargement surgeries.
Again, I refuse to debate abortion. Let the women have this issue for themselves, since they are the ones having it done. Would be similar to women debating penis enlargement surgeries.
jillio
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Agreed. I will have to admit that those who are "addicted" to plastic surgery procedures came to mind with this article, as well.
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