I am really at a loss for words. Given that I would have at least 1.5 million of them on my website alone, it is actually a bit hard to keep me speechless. But an article in today’s press has managed to do just that. What can I say?
I refer to a story about an American woman who claims to be an “abortion addict,” and has killed 15 of her own babies in 17 years. I kid you not. And she has even written a book about her experiences. I really am not sure where to begin in discussing this case.
Let me start by just providing a few more details from the press account: “American Irene Vilar said she ‘unconsciously’ forgot to take her birth control pills in rebellion against her husband, who didn’t want children, and then had abortions so he wouldn’t leave her. The 40-year-old’s confessions in her book, ‘Impossible Motherhood’, have angered pro-life groups.”
It continues, “Vilar’s cycle of pregnancies and abortions began when she was 16 and ended when she was 33, the Daily Mail said. She had married a Latin American literature professor, Pedro Cuperman, who she says told her having children killed sexual desire. Vilar wrote that she rebelled by forgetting to take her birth control pills.”
This seemed to give her a druggie’s high: “‘In the beginning I was taking pills and I’d skip a day or two or give up one month,’ she wrote. ‘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’.”
Of real interest is this line from the article: “Many pro-choice advocates had been silent since the revelations, ABC News said”. Yeah, I guess they would be. How in the world do you justify something like that? How can you even begin to try to defend it, or continue to carry on about a “woman’s right to choose” and all that other baloney?
Yet that is exactly what some of these pro-death zealots have sought to do: put a positive spin on this wretched story. Consider the words of feminist author Robin Morgan as told to the Los Angeles Times: “I can completely understand the discomfort that some feminists feel. There is a perfectly human tendency to say we can’t afford ambiguity, we can’t afford nuance. I am afraid it comes from years of being pummeled by the extreme, anti-choice right. The truth is that it’s a complicated issue.”
It’s a complicated issue? What exactly is so complicated about it? It seems completely clear cut to me. This woman has major problems – big time, and she has allowed the lies of the pro-death camp to entice her to become an abortion junkie.
Indeed, consider how the story ends: “Vilar now has two young daughters, Loretta, 5, and Lolita, 3, with her second husband. ‘Motherhood has made me feel accountable,’ the Mail quoted her as saying. ‘It hasn’t made me less pro-choice … it’s just that I understand and feel the weight of the privilege we have in exercising our right to choose.’
She’s still pro-choice. She still thinks it is fine to kill her own children. She still believes the lie that the most important thing in life is “in exercising our right to choose”. Sorry sister, I am not buying it. Is that how we absolve ourselves of every crime ever committed: I was just exercising my right to choose?
Hey, folks, let me clue you in on something: Hitler was exercising his right to choose. Stalin was exercising his right to choose. Pol Pot was exercising his right to choose. We have become so mentally disfigured and so morally obtuse, that we make absolutes out of something which was never intended to be an end in itself.
What we choose and why we choose is certainly important, but not the mere fact of choosing. If choice were an end in itself, then any old decision would do. I could either help an old lady across a busy thoroughfare, or push her in front of an oncoming truck. Hey, at least I exercised my right to choose.
And now she has written a book about all this. Clearly, if she makes one lousy penny from this book, it is nothing but blood money. No wonder that her book was rejected by 51 different editors before finally being published by Other Press. (Can I suggest that a boycott of Other Press should be a part of our response?)
As I said, this woman is obviously one very messed up person. As for believers, we can certainly pray for her. In one sense, no one is beyond the pale: even the most heinous of characters can still be brought up to the throne of grace.
But if this story does not serve as a warning for what a lot of absolute rubbish the whole pro-death position is, then nothing will. If this story does not greatly stun us and move us, then we have become morally and spiritually dead, in need of immediate resuscitation.
But the article which you link to only seems to say that the number of abortions may have been 16 instead of 17. If that is the only discrepancy, it still seems like this is a horrific story. But I guess we shall have to wait and see just how the story unfolds.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Dear Bill, i guess the world is more sick than everyone cares to admit. The sicknesses manifests in tales that leave us all speechless & crying. From this above to fathers hurting their own children & mothers too & teenagers & it never seems too end. Everyday there is a story….
Siti Khatijah.
Thanks Siti
Yes it all simply confirms the biblical doctrines of the Fall, sin, the Devil, and human rebellion against God.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Hi Bill,
I should’ve been more specific – the first post on the blog is from someone who has read the book and finds it a bit dubious:
I really doubt the story is truthful. There is not much detail in the book and I think the whole thing might be contrived for sensationalism.
Mark Rabich
Thanks Mark
Well yes, it does sound incredible, but that does not tell us whether it is true or not. So until we know otherwise, perhaps we should assume it is true and go from there.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
In Joseph H. Berke’s “The Tyranny of Malice” there are examples of mothers-to-be pathologically hostile to their foetuses. The author is a Freudian who spins some questionable explanations of behaviour but there is no reason to doubt the reliability of his descriptions. Psychopathology can also turn up in the behaviours of males towards pregnancy.
The truth is that children can be victims of parental personality disorder before birth as well as after. And there is the perennial problem of society institutionalising psychopathic ideas. In this case it is the obscene idea that an unborn human being is a mere object, a disposable blob whose value is to be determined by whether you subjectively want it or not. The weirdest reason I ever heard of for an abortion was the case of an American woman who aborted her child because the birth would have conflicted with a planned holiday. Unfortunately I never verified that story but it sounds about right for a culture that reduces morality to mere opinion, and for a culture whose intellectuals cook up relativist, subjectivist and emotivist reductionist accounts of moral truth.
John Snowden
I also read there were a number of suicide attempts in the years of the abortion.
She obviously wasn’t comfortable with what she was doing. Actually, she was dying inside I would say.
Her true feelings will come out in the future.
Jane Petridge
Bill
I was deeply saddened to read of this story in today’s newspaper. I wonder how Irene will explain all of this to Loretta and Lolita.
Geoff Peet, Many thanks for this. Doug Bandow said “Laurie Carlsson defended the secretary’s “nuanced view” on an issue that is “neither simple, nor clean-cut along lines of political beliefs or moral values.”
David Mixner the homosexual guru of America said, “And I think that in many ways that we are seeing that many in the heterosexual community are copying some of those alternative ways (homosexual) that people can be together, love each other in a healthy wonderful positive sense and the same time meet the needs of a very complex society in which we live in.”
Yes life in the 21st century is indeed nuanced and complex. How convenient.
So how about if homosexuality is genetic and identifiable why shouldn’t a mother, who simply doesn’t fancy having a homosexual baby, using her absolute human rights card, abort it?
Why also should a chymera or half human half animal embryo be aborted after 14 days on humanitarian and compassionate grounds and in recognition that it is indeed part human; whereas a fully human embryo, can be aborted up to 24 weeks, simply on the grounds that it is not human but merely the products of pregnancy?
David Skinner, UK
Abortion has some very wicked roots:
Massacre of Innocence (1 of 10) Abortion: The Religion of Witchcraft and Child Sacrifice
Having worked as a midwife I use to look after women who had a history of therapeuatic termination of pregnancy-abortion but I am just being euphemistic – and were now in hospital pregnant and were wanting a child, except that there was threat of miscarriage (spontaneous abortion), they had to rest to reduce the risk of this event occurring. I remembered what the Baptist preacher SIDLOW BAXTER said once that “God will forgive you but nature will not”, and although he said that in the context of smoking, it could also applies in other cases.
Wayne Pelling
“It hasn’t made me less pro-choice … it’s just that I understand and feel the weight of the privilege we have in exercising our right to choose.” -Irene Vilar
A comment that displays the true weight of the delegation of authority to legally kill. Humanity’s constant desire to be judge and jury and executioner is displayed in all its madness. Is this really the way we want to go as a community?”
Ashley Biermann
I formed the opinion that this woman is mentally ill – very seriously ill. Also I was pleased to read where you referred to our opponents as “pro death”. I usually refer to them as pro abortion and never use the euphemistic description of “pro choice”. The abortion legislation in Victoria proved beyond any shadow of doubt that our opponents are not “pro choice” and never were.
Frank Bellet, Petrie Qld
Bill,
There may actually be some doubt as to the veracity of her story:
http://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2009/10/drudge_spotligh.html
Mark Rabich
Thanks Mark
But the article which you link to only seems to say that the number of abortions may have been 16 instead of 17. If that is the only discrepancy, it still seems like this is a horrific story. But I guess we shall have to wait and see just how the story unfolds.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Dear Bill, i guess the world is more sick than everyone cares to admit. The sicknesses manifests in tales that leave us all speechless & crying. From this above to fathers hurting their own children & mothers too & teenagers & it never seems too end. Everyday there is a story….
Siti Khatijah.
Thanks Siti
Yes it all simply confirms the biblical doctrines of the Fall, sin, the Devil, and human rebellion against God.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
Hi Bill,
I should’ve been more specific – the first post on the blog is from someone who has read the book and finds it a bit dubious:
Mark Rabich
Thanks Mark
Well yes, it does sound incredible, but that does not tell us whether it is true or not. So until we know otherwise, perhaps we should assume it is true and go from there.
Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch
In Joseph H. Berke’s “The Tyranny of Malice” there are examples of mothers-to-be pathologically hostile to their foetuses. The author is a Freudian who spins some questionable explanations of behaviour but there is no reason to doubt the reliability of his descriptions. Psychopathology can also turn up in the behaviours of males towards pregnancy.
The truth is that children can be victims of parental personality disorder before birth as well as after. And there is the perennial problem of society institutionalising psychopathic ideas. In this case it is the obscene idea that an unborn human being is a mere object, a disposable blob whose value is to be determined by whether you subjectively want it or not. The weirdest reason I ever heard of for an abortion was the case of an American woman who aborted her child because the birth would have conflicted with a planned holiday. Unfortunately I never verified that story but it sounds about right for a culture that reduces morality to mere opinion, and for a culture whose intellectuals cook up relativist, subjectivist and emotivist reductionist accounts of moral truth.
John Snowden
I also read there were a number of suicide attempts in the years of the abortion.
She obviously wasn’t comfortable with what she was doing. Actually, she was dying inside I would say.
Her true feelings will come out in the future.
Jane Petridge
Bill
I was deeply saddened to read of this story in today’s newspaper. I wonder how Irene will explain all of this to Loretta and Lolita.
Another dilemma in regards to abortion can be found in Doug Bandow’s commentary here (http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10537 or http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2009/09/137_51725.html). Hilary Clinton is apparently disturbed at the disproportional rates of girls being aborted in some countries (It would be great to see her concerned about the even more disturbing number of abortions world wide rather than one small segment).
Geoff Peet
Geoff Peet, Many thanks for this. Doug Bandow said “Laurie Carlsson defended the secretary’s “nuanced view” on an issue that is “neither simple, nor clean-cut along lines of political beliefs or moral values.”
David Mixner the homosexual guru of America said, “And I think that in many ways that we are seeing that many in the heterosexual community are copying some of those alternative ways (homosexual) that people can be together, love each other in a healthy wonderful positive sense and the same time meet the needs of a very complex society in which we live in.”
Yes life in the 21st century is indeed nuanced and complex. How convenient.
So how about if homosexuality is genetic and identifiable why shouldn’t a mother, who simply doesn’t fancy having a homosexual baby, using her absolute human rights card, abort it?
Why also should a chymera or half human half animal embryo be aborted after 14 days on humanitarian and compassionate grounds and in recognition that it is indeed part human; whereas a fully human embryo, can be aborted up to 24 weeks, simply on the grounds that it is not human but merely the products of pregnancy?
David Skinner, UK
Abortion has some very wicked roots:
Massacre of Innocence (1 of 10) Abortion: The Religion of Witchcraft and Child Sacrifice
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMCk-L_V8oA
Donna Opie
Having worked as a midwife I use to look after women who had a history of therapeuatic termination of pregnancy-abortion but I am just being euphemistic – and were now in hospital pregnant and were wanting a child, except that there was threat of miscarriage (spontaneous abortion), they had to rest to reduce the risk of this event occurring. I remembered what the Baptist preacher SIDLOW BAXTER said once that “God will forgive you but nature will not”, and although he said that in the context of smoking, it could also applies in other cases.
Wayne Pelling
“It hasn’t made me less pro-choice … it’s just that I understand and feel the weight of the privilege we have in exercising our right to choose.” -Irene Vilar
A comment that displays the true weight of the delegation of authority to legally kill. Humanity’s constant desire to be judge and jury and executioner is displayed in all its madness. Is this really the way we want to go as a community?”
Ashley Biermann
I formed the opinion that this woman is mentally ill – very seriously ill. Also I was pleased to read where you referred to our opponents as “pro death”. I usually refer to them as pro abortion and never use the euphemistic description of “pro choice”. The abortion legislation in Victoria proved beyond any shadow of doubt that our opponents are not “pro choice” and never were.
Frank Bellet, Petrie Qld