Moving Beyond the Prevailing Idea -- Part One of Two

Editor's note. Hope you had a great weekend. Please send any thoughts on this column to daveandrusko@hotmail.com.

By Dave Andrusko, editor
National Right to Life News

You always take a chance encouraging people to watch something you haven't seen yourself. But there is enough intriguing in what's already been written about "High School Confidential" (HSC) to suggest we might benefit from watching at least the first episode which airs tonight at 10:00 on the WEtv network.

On the surface--and, of course, we may find the eight-part series has limited depth--the documentary holds a lot of promise. Series' creator Sharon Liese, a first-time filmmaker, shot the HSC at her daughter's school in Overland Park, Kansas.

According to the Union Tribune, "As Sharon Liese readied her daughter – and herself – for Justine's transition to high school, the single mother looked unsuccessfully for resources to help them both through this passage. When she couldn't find what she needed, she decided to make her own."

What makes the series potentially so fascinating is that Ms. Liese follows 12 girls from their freshman year through graduation. Although affluent and solidly middle class (two years ago Money magazine dubbed the suburb as one of country's most livable), the girls experienced the full gamut of heartbreak.

"By graduation three had become pregnant, one of those had lost her father, a fourth had faced a life-threatening illness, another had endured her best friend's death, one had begun having panic attacks and two had suffered bouts of self-mutilation," according to Ginia Bellafante, writing in the New York Times.

The Times piece was by far the shrewdest and most thoughtful of the dozen or so I read. Let me offer this paragraph. ("Juno," of course, is the award winning film we've talked about twice in this space and twice in National Right to Life News.)

"'High School Confidential' has the good fortune to arrive in the aftermath of 'Juno,' but is substantial enough that we can imagine it having ignited new conversations about teenage pregnancy on its own," Bellafante writes. "It shares with 'Juno' an interest in moving beyond the prevailing idea, a liberal piety, that sex education is its own prophylactic. Which, if that were true, would mean that no 29-year-old liberal-arts graduate would ever find herself suddenly requiring an abortion."

On a far less edifying note, today is the "National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers." I probably wouldn't mention it but, in looking at a couple of references to the "celebration," I ran into several sites which advertise and sell "pro-choice" teeshirts.

I come from Minnesota, and the Minnesota affiliate of NARAL had a  mother and her young daughter modeling "Reproductive Freedom Fighter" and "I love pro-choice boys" teeshirts.

You have to wonder, don't you?

Please send your thoughts to daveandrusko@hotmail.com.

Part Two