Lifetime Movie Makes You Think?

January 25, 2010

This evening I decided to take a break from the beginning of the semester craziness that has been overwhelming my life lately and settle in to watch the new Lifetime movie The Pregnancy Pact. For anyone who was wondering, the movie was great, totally trashy and fun to watch, complete with awful acting to seal the deal.  However, the movie made me start to think (surprising for lifetime) about the issues of teen pregnancy and more largely abortion as a whole.

What was most horrifying for me while watching the movie, was the fact that none of these girls were given access to condoms and were never taught about anything except abstinence.  If this movie is proof of anything, it is that abstinence only sex education does NOT work.  In this high school 18 girls got pregnant in a single year! (For those unaware, this movie is based on true events that happened in Massachusetts 2008).

Moreover, once the girls got pregnant, no other options besides having the child were discussed between them, their families and friends.  While I understand that teen pregnancy is a very personal and private matter, it does not mean that women, especially fifteen year old girls, do not deserve options when faced with such a life altering situation.  Most of the families in this movie were devout Christians, which I suppose explains why contraceptives and abortions were not made available to, or even discussed with the girls.

However, there is a problem with this.  Just because a person is Christian and therefore does not believe in abortions does not mean that he should have the power to prevent someone else from having one.  Being pro-life is an opinion, just as being pro-choice is an equally valid one.  The difference is that my pro-choice opinion will not force someone who does not want to have an abortion to have one, while another’s pro-life opinion will force me to be unable to make my own choices about my own body.

If someone has a different opinion than me on the war in Iraq, for example, he is not able to force this opinion on me.  We are simply able to disagree with each other.  Why should the issue of abortion be any different?  Since when are opinions, especially those grounded in religion, allowed to be imposed on the rest of society?

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Posted by Maggie Bahrmasel

Supreme Court’s campaign finance ruling and us

January 22, 2010

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision yesterday on allowing corporate dollars to be considered free speech was a giant step backward in the quest for campaign finance reform. This article outlines some of the ramifications of this decision that we will have to face in Wisconsin this election cycle. Really Supreme Court? Really?

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wirestory?id=9627173&page=1

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Posted by Sondra Milkie sondra.milkie@gmail.com

We lost an election, but we can’t lose hope

January 20, 2010

Democrats lost an important Senate seat in the Massachusetts race Tuesday. Indeed, it was painful to watch the seat of the great progressive Ted Kennedy go to a Republican who will oppose our efforts towards a health care system that benefits all Americans. This loss will surely add more obstacles to our struggle and delay legislation.

But we must not lose sight of the bigger picture. We lost a critical election, but that does not mean the fight for progressive issues ends there. It is just an election after all. Issues, ideals, values and the hope for universal health care extend beyond that. Elections come and go, we win and lose. That is just how it is. We cannot win every election and we should be prepared to lose many important ones. And then we have to be prepared to move on.

We can’t let the media characterize this loss as a loss for health care. The support for change remains with many, even perhaps a majority, of Americans. We will carry out the work of Ted Kennedy, even with a Republican in his seat.

1 Comment | Health Care, Senate | Permalink
Posted by Molly Rivera