Respect Life Day, which was attended by barely more than half the student body who didn’t attend the March for Life, was supposed to be a day for celebrating life and learning about abortion. Obviously, there wasn’t the option of having a regular school day with 160 students on the March, along with several teachers. However, it turned out to be a disappointing way of starting off the second semester.
The day itself was made up of students watching a feature film “Bella,” a Mass for Life, various speakers from Birthright and Rachel’s Vineyard, and discussions in advisories. While “Bella” was much better than anticipated and started the day off well, it quickly went downhill from there.
The homily, given by guest Deacon Frank Zeiler, was extremely judgmental and off-putting. He started off by comparing abortion to both child labor and child abuse and went on to say that “abortion has decreased the amount of love in society. It has decreased the amount of love that parents have for their child…each other…and their own parents.”
These allegations didn’t seem fair, given that there cannot physically be proof of them. They hardly seemed appropriate in a Mass as well, given that life was supposed to be celebrated. There seemed to be a theme, starting with the homily and ending with the guest speakers, of judgment towards those of differing opinions.
While Carol Maglov, the speaker from Birthright, was certainly the better of the speakers, her arguments would have been much stronger had she backed them up with facts. Her personal stories and experiences served her purpose very well and got her point across, but there were a couple of places in which her proof was lacking. For example, at one point she said that Planned Parenthood didn’t offer counseling for pregnant women and instead “hurried them along to get an abortion.”
This is not at all based in fact. While Planned Parenthood offers abortion as an option, they have counseling and consider adoption and keeping the child equally valid options. Whether or not she knew about this, her emotional appeal, instead of factual, made her argument seem more flawed than perhaps it really was.
Denise Douglas, from Rachel’s Vineyard, also had a problem backing up facts. They had statistics that were read straight off of a PowerPoint with little to no explanation. They were attributed to something fleetingly referred to as “the Iliad study,” a study which I have yet to find after fairly extensive searching.
They attacked Planned Parenthood with claims similar to Maglov. In the question and answer after their talk, Zeiler, who also works with Rachel’s Vineyard, said that “birth control is physically bad for you.” He didn’t offer up any examples of what kind of birth control was harmful and how, allowing easy counterarguments to be made for condoms and safe birth control pills.
Telling teenage girls that birth control isn’t safe is downright irresponsible. That is certainly one of many statements that they need to check their facts. The combination of these mysterious facts and their flawed attacks made their argument seem much less credible.
All of these problems with the day could have been avoided if there had been some sort of opposing viewpoint present. Instead of creating a discussion, the deck was stacked in the favor of the pro-life argument, simply because it was the only viewpoint that was represented.
If someone from, for example, Planned Parenthood had been there, they could have corrected any mistakes made about themselves and allowed a completely factual debate to take place. This could have led to meaningful discussions between the pro-choice, the pro-life that didn’t go to the March, and the undecided.
In instances where pro-choice stances have been represented, the administration has said that they “must insist that a balanced viewpoint always be given where both the viewpoints of the Church and an opposing side are ‘expressed and respected.’” This should be applied to a monopolizing pro-life viewpoint as well.
Instead of telling students what to believe, the administration should educate them in the facts as well as the Church’s morals. That way, they can make an educated decision themselves. In order for that to happen, a balanced viewpoint must be given.
Martha Schick is a Managing Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.