MTV's Treatment of Abortion - Tragic on Many Levels

******UPDATE******

Last night MTV aired a special Pregnant and 16 episode in which a teenager, Markai, decided to abort her second child.  This was very difficult to watch.  Not surprising is how the subject was treated.  I first heard about this by a Salon article this morning and proceeded to watch the video of the episode.  LifeNews.com has a story here as well.  I was heartbroken, astonished, and saddened at how tragic this is in many different ways.  It is worth viewing simply to see the decision making process of this young couple and the kind of support and information they receive.

The most tragic was to see  a very nice girl in a poor situation receiving little or no support, receiving appallingly unscientific and false information, and ultimately rationalizing a decision clearly against her conscience which she admits will haunt her forever.  This could have been avoided with simple financial assistance.  Period.  

Lack of support.  She first discusses the dilemma with the father who says they have to make a decision that is best for him, her, and their daughter (what about the baby she is now pregnant with).  They don't want their children to suffer through poverty--admirable.  She seeks the advice of her friend who offers to support her decision no matter what she decides.  Adoption is not an option because she will feel too attached,  "I'm in love with this baby already and this baby not doin' nothing but making me sick" (I love this baby too much to just give her away, too much to let her suffer in poverty, therefore..).  This is irrational.

Appalling information.  She calls the local clinic to get information on abortion services.  The very friendly woman on the phone instructs her that there is a medication abortion where the "pregnancy tissue is expelled", and there are surgical abortions in which there is "gentle suction to remove the pregnancy".  She is so upset she needs to end the call.  Later at the clinic she is told not to think of 10 fingers and 10 toes and a forehead, just a ball of cells or it will make you depressed (her baby had a heartbeat at this point).  The sad reality that euphemisms and dehumanizing rhetoric are employed in order to make the unthinkable thinkable. She seeks the help of her mother and gets the following:  "I can't tell you what to do but this one you're on your own,  Mommy can't help you."  I really feel for this poor soul.

Contradiction on display.  Watching this tragedy unfold is disturbing but an fascinating glimpse into the inner struggle of conscience on vivid display.  "Mommy loves you a whole bunch...she'll do anything and everything for you in the whole wide world".  "I never called that thing a baby because I told you not even to think of it as a baby."  "You hurt my feeling when you called it a thing I know its not a person but it's still a part of us."  "You will never feel my pain"  "A thing can turn out just like that (pointing to her 1 yr old daughter)...nothing but a bunch of cells can be her."  "I wonder if we could have made a better one [decision]."  "I don't think God would have given me something I couldn't handle".   This is difficult to witness.  Tragic.

The episode ends with an interview with two other young women who had abortions.  The pain of their decisions is more than evident.  Pray for all victims of abortion...this includes so many women who suffer and are in pain.

*****UPDATE*****



Youth Pro-life Leaders Respond to MTV’s Abortion Episode
by Bryan Kemper
For weeks we have been hearing about the MTV special that would feature a teen couple contemplating abortion. We were tempted to write about this show last week but decided to wait until the show aired. We know that MTV is no bastion of decency or truth, but we did not think the show would actually go as far as it did. We were wrong.

One very telling feature of the show was that it played without commercial interruption; this is not normal for MTV. This show was obviously funded by some one or some organization with an agenda; a very deadly agenda.
To be honest it felt like this was almost scripted as the perfect pro-abortion propaganda film. The couple was young, poor, and volatile; and they also already had one baby. They talked about God and the father had a Jesus tattoo on one shoulder and was wearing a necklace that looked like a rosary. They could have made it an extreme case, but they kept it simple; I don’t think they could have cast a better couple for this show to make the audience sympathize with their decision to kill their child. Full story at LifeNews.com