Life
An Anti-Abortion Lesson Compared It To The Holocaust
A Catholic high school in Alberta has sparked controversy for allowing a pro-life organization to give students an anti-abortion presentation that compared abortion to the Holocaust. The presentation, which was recorded by an anonymous student, once again illustrates a vital truth: People should not compare things to the Holocaust that are not, in fact, the Holocaust. Period. The End. (You’d think that would be obvious, but here we are.) UPDATE: In a statement given to Bustle, Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools said of the incident,
The intended outcome of this presentation was to teach our students that “human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception,” as explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It has come to our attention that the presentation by Red Deer & Area Pro-Life contained controversial resources that did not achieve the intended teaching outcome in a suitable manner.
The school system says that additional processes have been put in place to screen presentation materials. (More on that below.)
EARLIER: In March, students in a mandatory 10th to 12th-grade religion class at École Secondaire Notre Dame High School in Red Deer, Alberta, were given a presentation by a woman associated with Red Deer and Area Pro Life. In video of the event, the woman claims to be “in school for social work.” During the presentation, the students were shown a video, titled, “The Case Against Abortion, Personhood.” (You can view it here.) Discussing the concept of “personhood,” the video compares abortion to Adolf Hitler’s “scheme by which severely disabled children could be murdered.” The subtitles describe the Nazi “euthanasia" program being extended to disabled adults and “all ‘unwanted’ persons,” presumably in reference to Nazi death camps. (Imagery in the video also references Auschwitz.)
Video also shows the presenter talking to students about abortion in the case of rape, arguing, “I don’t think there’s ever a good reason to have an abortion.”
The student who recorded the presentation told Global News, “I just want facts, not opinion. I just want accurate information from an expert and both sides presented.”
The student passed the video along to Accessing Information, Not Myths (AIM), an Alberta organization that advocates for sex education. “Certainly for a Catholic school, abortion is an important topic for them, but we don’t talk about abortion by lying and exaggerating and comparing it to the Holocaust,” Cristina Stasia, the founder and chair of AIM, told Global News.
Stasia argued that, in addition to inappropriately comparing abortion to the Holocaust, the presentation gave students “astounding medically inaccurate information.” “We know they’re happening in our schools,” she explained. “We know that groups are coming in, they are politically motivated groups, they are not experts in their field. They are being allowed to disseminate all this inaccurate information to students.”
On April 10, Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools released a statement responding to the controversy:
The intended outcome of this presentation was to teach our students that “human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception,” as explained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It has come to our attention that the presentation by Red Deer & Area Pro-Life contained controversial resources that did not achieve the intended teaching outcome in a suitable manner.
Although the statement suggests that the school system may continue to work with Red Deer and Area Pro Life in the future, Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools has also vowed to “[implement] additional steps in our screening process for outside agencies” and promised that “[p]resenters and their materials will be more thoroughly reviewed by school staff and administration.”
David Eggen, Alberta’s education minister, has spoken definitively against the video. “It’s completely outrageous. I was offended,” he told Global News. “… It’s outrageous to the general public that someone would make a connection between abortion and the Holocaust.” He added, “The presentation was inappropriate and misleading, using incorrect information and, quite frankly, frightening.”
