I am one of those pro-choice people who say things that are so insensitive, so anti-natalist that I frequently make other pro-choicers cringe. Irene Vilar’s confession of having had fifteen abortions in as many years made me cringe. I cringed continuously as I made my way through her painfully honest story not because I stand in misconstrued judgment of her actions, but because the writing breathes such raw emotion that it becomes difficult to read it with the same air of necessary detachment with which Vilar has lived a great deal of her life. In many ways, Vilar’s propensity for physical and emotional disconnection—a trait with both saved and damned her—makes the conditions that allowed for repeated impregnation and termination somehow more disturbing than if she had penned every last brutal detail. The words are cutting yet so beautifully lyrical that I found myself enrapt in the writing to the point of forgetting about the next impending pregnancy until it arose again.

The past is written on our bodies, at times literally, and Vilar’s tragically happy story is plainly an amalgamation involving an overwhelming amount of self-destruction and conquest. Its melodic cadence lulls you to a state of empathy and understanding of the fluid dynamism of identity, the power of shame, and the absence of truth. An addiction can be all encompassing, and this memoir is as powerful as any drug. We are all fortunate to taste the “bitter-sweetness” of this terribly wonderful and devastating work, which to me feels like an odd sort of victory.

My goal in going public with my testimony was threefold: One was to understand and explain the complexities of my self-destructive actions. Next was to find the connecting vessels between my personal pathology—the terrifying ways I related with my reproductive body—and my historical relationship to my parents, culture, and country. The third was to use my extreme difficulty identifying my addiction to the drama of pregnancy and abortion to open up the field of psychohistory inquiry for women and cultural studies, especially for exploring the possible resistance some women have to their fecundity being controlled or robbed from them. Perhaps some of the repeat abortions of women supposedly on birth control are, in part, a rebellion and a resistance. It is not a rational behavior, but I think many women who unconsciously "forget" to take their pill might see in my story—no matter how extreme—the ways the fantasy of getting pregnant, the fantasy of potential motherhood, and the reassurance that one is fertile can be at war with the reality of having a baby.

In the prologue you address the tricky issue of the morality of having multiple abortions, which serves the book well since people’s snap judgments could easily interfere with their ability to hear your story.

I wanted to establish right from the start the complexities of my destructive actions by framing the story as one women’s attempt to grasp the meaning of her life by asking how conscious I had been of what I was doing to earn a feeling of worth, and by what lies I would tell myself. I wanted to show how elusive this examination can be as a result of the fluidity of the selves one sheds along the way and the questionable morality of one’s actions. How will my account withstand the merciless judgment that comes with reality? The prologue was my attempt at asking myself what my social responsibility was in writing this story about a personal experience anchored in what is one of the most controversial and inflammatory subjects in American society and politics.

What were your fears in writing this memoir?

My main concern was about the inevitable polarization the book was fated to encounter: the rigid resistance from both abortion foes and pro-choicers to encounter the testimony on “fair”, intellectual grounds. I knew people would politicize my book. Many see it as a pro-choice extreme, but in fact, it has little to do with the pro-choice movement. When one is looking for a strategy of survival one uses what makes sense, with whatever limited tools one has.

Abortion happened to be the effect of my neurotic behavior, but it is not the fact of it. Abortion happened to be the target of my addiction—or to be more precise, the target of my pathological adolescent rebellious strategy. It is very tragic that my illness involved a fetus, and this presses my condition against the polarized discussion on abortion in this country. But I wrote this book with a specific reader in mind. I am certain that eventually, once it frees itself from the tabloids, the testimony will find its right, fruitful place as an important document in cultural and postcolonial studies.

How did your cultural background shape your experience?

I believe my Puerto Rican experience informed the shape of my neurotic strategy, but I’m solely responsible for my actions. As a Puerto Rican woman brought up by a depressed mother who had been sterilized despite herself as part of an American-led experiment, who was betrayed by her husband, who had little opportunity to access education, and who eventually committed suicide, I had one desire: to escape to America and be free to do exactly what I wanted.

As a fifteen-year old freshman in college, this meant I did not have to submit to any rule or law when it came to my sexuality. I wanted control over my body and the way I chose to have control could not have been more terrible. I fell in love with my literature professor, a philosopher and self-proclaimed feminist who wanted no children and thought women should be sterile if they wanted a career and a true life of freedom. I "unconsciously" and systematically “forgot” to take my birth control pills, and I know today that with each pregnancy I defied him as much as I defied the politics of sterilization that took my mother away from me.

A central character in this book is your ex-husband, whom you never address by name. Why did you choose to keep him in a cloak of anonymity?

It was a way to protect and heighten my subjectivity, which was something crucial in pursuing greater self-accountability for my actions. It was also necessary to generate and maintain control over my story, which historically I had cloaked under his.

You said abortion became an addiction for you. How did it function as such?

Getting pregnant brought a strange feeling: I could bring it on with nobody's permission, and I could interrupt it with nobody's permission. Of course, this did not mean I wanted to do it again and again—a drug addict also wants to stop every time. I was a creature in suspended animation addicted to the high of agency in pregnancy and the shame of the down side. My blinding desire for control was at the core of my neurosis. The experiences I had can explain my “addiction” in part, but of course someone else with similar life experiences may have reacted differently. They may have become depressed, or manic, or anorexic, or masochistic, or they may simply have been lucky and come out unscathed. For my part, I think several elements contributed to my choice of behavior, if we can call this a choice.

You mention the chiding you received from the abortion practitioners who performed your repeat terminations. Was it important to you to express their disapproval?

Absolutely! Abortion doctors risk their lives assisting women in exercising their right to choose. Repeat abortions among women who supposedly are on birth control baffles them as much as it baffles many of us. It was important for me to give their account of their predicament in my quest for self-accountability.

There are many times throughout the book when you deny yourself sustenance in exchange for companionship, making hunger a recurring theme. What were you hungry for that was more important than nourishment?

I think I had a mild form of anorexia. Deprivation was another way of keeping control. The anorexic defies the world by refusing to eat; nobody can make them. Nobody could make me submit to contraception or to chastity or to motherhood and its responsibility. Of course, this is not rational; it’s unconscious. I relished in an in-between state, a rare condition to be sure. I didn't surrender to pain. I didn't want to be human because it was too dangerous. I fought my humanity where ever I could.

The pro-choice movement is framed as one that supports a woman having the freedom to choose whether or not to bring a child into the world. Ironically, your story is about having multiple abortions as a result of your lack of freedom in this regard. How did this contradiction play out in your experience?

Abortion happens to be the target of my addiction or, to be more precise, the target of my adolescent rebellious strategy. It is truly unfortunate that my “illness" involves a fetus—but how could it be otherwise since my psychic playing field was a struggle between my wanting to be an intellectual free of constraints and the thrill of feeling pregnant as the ultimate signature of womanhood? For one minute I could have my cake and eat it too. On some level this is a universal fantasy. Many women feel that way, but don't carry out this fantasy to the extreme that I have. My book could, to some extent, be a caricature of the plight of the modern woman: how to be two things at once.

I think the context in which I grew up makes this situation more blatant. There is an asymptotic relationship between my addiction to abortion and the controversial abortion debate. My story is about abortion and it is not about abortion. It is about abortion only in that I owe my life to the legalization of abortion and that my pathology involved a drama of pregnancy and abortion. It is not about abortion in the sense that what I really show is that my addiction is the reverse of the "freedom to choose." When I was finally in a position to choose, I had my first baby.