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.
http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/abortion-addict-the-woman-who-terminated-15-pregnancies-in-17-years-20091015-gy46.html
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