High School Presentation Compared Abortion To The Holocaust

A day after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer made insensitive remarks about the Holocaust at a press briefing, yet another story about the Holocaust being referenced in an offensive way emerged. This time it's in the form of a presentation in a Canadian school's religion class. Students at École Secondaire Notre Dame, a Catholic high school in Red Deer, Alberta, were given a presentation in their mandatory religion class in which the presenter showed a video comparing abortion to the Holocaust.

Abortion has been legalized in Canada since 1988, but it seems that anti-abortion groups are still spreading their opposition throughout the country, much like in America.

So how does the anti-abortion presentation relate the act to the Holocaust? The video, titled The Case Against Abortion: Personhood, focuses on a comparison of Hitler's genocide of disabled people and others who were deemed unfit as similar to aborting a pregnancy. The video explains that in 1939, Hitler allowed severely disabled children to be murdered. After that, it was expanded to include disabled adults, then other "unwanted" people. The video makes the argument that this is similar to abortion, meaning that when pro-choice activists argue for the right to abort a child under certain conditions, that eventually any child could be aborted.

At best, it's a terribly misguided argument. At worst, it's a scare tactic that doesn't even make sense.

According to BuzzFeed, the school presenter was from Area Pro Life, and she expressed opinions that abortion should be banned in any situation, including rape, to which the students in the classroom questioned her view.

After the presentation, a student came forward with a cellphone-recorded video of the entire thing, including the students questioning the presenter about the video and abortion rights. The student sent the recording anonymously to a sexual health organization in Alberta called Accessing Information, Not Myths (AIM).

AIM then contacted Alberta's education minister, Dave Eggen, who said the presentation was inappropriate, according to BuzzFeed. Eggen contacted the school, which is now investigating the situation.

It sounds like people are taking steps and groups are intervening to help prevent this type of misinformation from spreading, especially in a high school. But it's always scary when anti-abortion groups try to push their agenda in a school setting. The fact that the presentation used scare tactics and made references to a horrible, tragic event that affected so many people is even worse.