15 Abortions

If you talk to any pro-choice person, at some point in the conversation you will here this line:

"It's a very difficult choice. No woman WANTS to get an abortion. No woman LIKES abortion."

Unfortunately, if you look at the case of Irene Vilar, the above statement is absolutely false.

In one of the most tragic news stories that I stumbled upon today (thanks, again, to YouTube), this woman I named above has suffered through 15 - yes 15 - separate abortions. Although statistics show that once a woman does have one abortion she is more likely to have another one (I think that number is about 45%), it is still hard to believe that a woman could actually go through that torturous ordeal more than once. Why did she do it? According to her autobiography:

She "needed another self-injury to get high."

Yes, because of this woman's disturbing childhood (a suicidal mother and two heroin addicted brothers) and abusive relationship, she was forced into this manic abortion state. Her husband was very stern when it came to having children by stating repeatedly that children ruined his sexual desire. Self-centered much? Of course she was forced to take birth control pills but as she became more and more addicted to abortion, she intentionally started skipping months. All of this occurred in the past 16 years, meaning this woman had abortions scheduled annually. Yikes.

I believe that instead of judging her or praising her (depending on what side of the abortion debate you stand), we should all just pray for her. It seems like she is far beyond any human intervention on the matter and given the troubling history of mental and social problems in her family, she may be unreachable for a very long time. It certainly is a shame that no one had reached out to help her sooner.

I have not read her book and I am not going to. Why? It's not because I am intolerant. It's not because I am judging her. I would love to get to know more of her story. However, this statement on her official website is why I cannot:

" 'Impossible Motherhood' is committed to eliminating the stigma of abortion by creating new ways to talk about abortion honestly and publicly."

All I can say is, may God help her and her family. I am going to the Tomb of the Unborn here at Franciscan tomorrow to pray for the 15 children that have lost their lives.