Author was an 'abortion addict'

ABORTION ADDICT: Irene Vilar terminated 15 pregnancies in 17 years.

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A woman has admitted to being an "abortion addict", likening her 15 terminations in 17 years to the actions of "a druggie".

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, and Vilar has reportedly received hate mail and death threats, ABC News in the US said.

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.

"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."

Vilar did not say whether her husband knew of the abortions. He has not commented.

"Of course, this did not mean I wanted to do it again and again," Vilar wrote.

"A druggie also wants to stop every time.

"Women have written memoirs about their anorexia or their bulimia, and they explain the best that they can what motivated their addiction or their behaviour. I try to do the same in this book."

But she feared the consequences of her confessions, and the reactions of pro-life supporters.

"I am worried about my safety and the hate mail ... No book like this has ever been written," she told ABC.

"I just imagine the 'baby killer' and I could be a poster child for that kind of fundamentalism."

Americans United for Life president Charmaine Yoest said Vilar's case underscored that abortion was "part of a very sad story for women".

"The really important thing about her story is how dramatically it illustrates abortion as the tragedy of her life."

On her website, Vilar describes her book as "the story of the most harrowing events in my personal life: the cowardice, the repeat abortions, the moral confusion, the duplicity, the addiction, the self-mutilation, the relentless need to cloak myself in someone else's power".

Many pro-choice advocates had been silent since the revelations, ABC News said.

"I can completely understand the discomfort that some feminists feel," feminist author Robin Morgan told the Los Angeles Times. Morgan wrote an introduction to Vilar's book.

"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 pummelled by the extreme, anti-choice right.

"The truth is that it's a complicated issue."

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."

Impossible Motherhood was rejected 51 times by editors before being published by Other Press, ABC said.

- © Fairfax NZ News