I noticed this video from the Center for Reproductive Rights on YouTube today, after seeing it posted by a few different people on Facebook and Google+:
What were they thinking?
There are so many things wrong with this video, it's hard to pick just a few to comment on:
A recent study supports the popular opinion (used to justify the HHS birth control mandate, among other things) that providing free contraceptives to women reduces the rate of abortion:
Free birth control led to greatly lower rates of abortions and births to teenagers, a large study concludes, offering strong evidence for how a bitterly contested Obama administration policy could benefit women’s health. The two-year project tracked more than 9,000 women in St. Louis, many of them poor or uninsured, who were given their choice of a range of free contraceptives.
– Quote from NYT, based on findings in this study.
People infer that the Catholic Church is 'wrong about contraception' and should accept contraception because free contraceptives are proven to reduce abortions and unwanted pregnancies.
After receiving the typical deluge of 'new faith-based movie coming soon!' marketing emails from The Maximus Group, my wife and I decided to go watch October Baby last night.
I'll just offer a few observations here, as I don't want to get into a full-on review, especially since there are hundreds of more-detailed reviews online. To preface this review, I'm going mostly on techincal/production quality merit... the story was compelling, and the movie is worth watching, but I don't feel this movie was worth a full $10+ ticket price at a movie theater.
Steve Jobs, reflecting on a visit to his biological mother, who gave him up for adoption after having him in a non- married relationship with a man who didn't want a baby:
[Steve] wanted to reassure Joanne that what she'd had done was all right. "I wanted to meet my biological mother mostly to see if she was okay and to thank her, because I'm glad I didn't end up as an abortion. She was twenty-three and she went through a lot to have me" (Steve Jobs, p. 254).
Salient thoughts on the topic, coming from a guy who was simply grateful his mother gave him a shot at life; out of every difficult situation, a good thing may come.
Recently someone emailed me (in good spirit), encouraging me to outline the Church's response to abortions in case of rape, incest, grave danger to the mother's life, etc., and so I shall oblige.
One must understand, as I have come to understand, that abortion is evil. Abortion causes the death of a human being—a living person (that I believe is endowed with a soul given by God at the moment of conception, although that is debatable). Even though the person may not be completely able to live on his own yet, he is living, with his own cell structures, DNA, genetic code, etc., and should be given all the God-given rights any other human person has. Abortion, the immoral killing of a human being in a mother's womb (and sometimes outside the womb), is wrong. Our society seems to be stuck on saying 'NO' to life; why can we not begin to accept the great gift of life God has given to us?
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (2270):