15 and counting

Like many of you, I have just become aware of a book about to be released entitled Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict. It involves a New York woman of Puerto Rican heritage named Irene Vilar who had fifteen abortions in fifteen years before finally getting help for her addiction, as well as ridding herself of a husband who didn't want children, and giving birth to two live children
(See http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2060984).

I don't want to go into the details of the book. They are complicated and very, very sad. A few salient points are these:
1. She seemed like a prime candidate to be addicted to something. Her mother, who was depressed, was addicted to Valium. While still a young woman with small children, she jumped out of a moving car and died. Her father was an alcoholic and addicted to gambling. Two of her brothers are heroin addicts.
2. She married a 50 year old man who didn't want children. She did want them, however, and found herself between the proverbial rock (maternal instinct) and a hard place (potential loss of her husband). It led her to allowing herself to becoming pregnant again and again and then aborting. She said that getting pregnant, despite the inevitable result, was an attempt to retain some control in her relationship.
3. All but one of her abortions were performed in New York state, sometimes by the same doctors.
4. She remains ardently pro-choice.

I suppose that in pro-life circles this woman will be labeled as a monster, or else some pathetic soul duped by the abortion industry into murdering fifteen real persons. Some pro-choicers will turn her into a kind of hero for recognizing that her aberrant behaviour does not take away from her strong belief in the rightness of their position. I'll leave them to slug it out.

What strikes me about this horror story is this:

1. Whatever obsessions and compulsions Ms Vilar had, her first husband did not. He was a professor. Presumably he loved her. He didn't know about all the abortions, but he was aware of some of them. What is it about our culture that made him comfortable with these serial abortions, at least for a while? Was he just another psycho, or did he view abortion as that trivial an activity?
2. Who were these doctors performing multiple abortions? I believe even the most committed pro-abortionists admit that the likelihood of physical and emotional damage from abortions increases with each such surgery. Are abortions not tracked? Is the mother's health of such little consequence? I know that there is big money in the abortion business (just look at Planned Parenthood U.S.'s financial statements), but doctors also take the Hippocratic Oath. Are medical ethics that corrupted in some circles?
3. The article reviewing the book quoted studies of woman who have multiple abortions as considerably more likely to have experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, or coercion. We also know that most abortions (and I got this from pro-choice literature) are done for someone else--an unwilling partner, embarrassed family, inflexible school authorities, hardhearted boss, etc. Does an abortion really solve such problems? Did they for Ms Vilar?

What do I take from this book? First of all, woman are still being taken advantage of in ways that I can hardly imagine as an educated white male. Secondly, women pay a big price, and take huge personal risks, in availing themselves of the most recommended option--to abort. Finally, how often does an abortion solve the problems that led women to securing one in the first place? I suggest seldom if ever.

There must be a better way. Not that our present provincial and federal governments are interested.