July 9, 2010

By Dave Andrusko

Good evening. Be sure to read all of TN&V today. Part Two is an overview of items we didn't get to this week. Part Three is a trenchant look at the unintended consequences of China's brutal one-child policy. Part Four is a fun look at an article written by Our Sunday Visitor about young people at NRLC 2010. Over at National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), you'll read Rev. Paul Stallsworth's inspiration story about his trip to the Capitol; a first amendment freedom of speech challenge; and evidence President Obama's support is slipping. Please send all of your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are now following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha.

Why, you ask, would I headline TN&V this way? Well, for starters I'd like to grab your attention so that you watch tonight's episode of "Friday Night Lights" on NBC and be in the corner of Becky, who (as you would expect) the usual pro-abortion suspects are "rooting" will have an abortion.

A friend clued me in that viewers found out in last week's episode that 16-year-old Becky is pregnant and is considering an abortion. I made up my mind to watch the show before tonight, but, alas, until I read Maya Dusenbery's post on the pro-abortion site www.rhrealitycheck.org today, I had clean forgotten.

My friend said she had no idea how this would turn out but strongly recommended that I take a look. Having just watched the episode, titled "The Lights of Carroll Park," I was wowed.

So why is Dusenbery invested in a fictional character? For the same reason I am. More and more characters on television and in movies, confronted with a crisis pregnancy, are choosing the admittedly difficult route of life. That sends a message, a message that drives pro-abortionists nuts.

You can almost hear Dusenbery screaming: Don't these producers and directors realize that there are 1.3 million abortions a year? Don't they realize that portraying them as carrying their babies to term is to consign them to a kind of living purgatory? Don't these realize that abortion can never be "normalized" until it happens routinely, with no psychological aftermath, and carries the same emotional freight as having braces?

For Dusenbery, it's about having Becky kill her baby "without the world crashing down around her." Dusenbery also wants "someone in her life to tell her she shouldn't be ashamed of making the decision that's right for her." Further, since 1/3rd of the 750,000 young women 15-19 who become pregnant will abort, they "deserve to see their choice acknowledged and validated onscreen," Dusenbery insists.

What makes the episode so powerful is that it flash-forwards through the range of powerful emotions, starting with Becky's desperate hope she is not pregnant, through the angry insistence that she IS going to have an abortion, to the tearful admission to the baby's father that she is SO scared.

There are twists and subplots, but the lesson for the viewer is that the men in Becky's life try to help her calm down, to assist her in understanding that her decision will have lifelong consequences first for her, of course, but not just for her.

And besides, you should watch the show anyway. It's tremendous. Just yesterday "Friday Night Lights" secured four Emmy nominations.

Part Two
Part Three
Part Four