Loading ...
My husband and I went tonight to see Juno, a recent hit comedy about a high school girl who has a baby and gives it up for adoption. It was cute. We liked it. We were trying to figure out afterwards why we haven’t heard much from the pro-life movement about this film. Admittedly, it isn’t a perfect reflection of everything Catholics hold dear. The heroine, in addition to getting herself knocked up in a one-night stand, has divorced parents, is a fan of rock music and slasher movies, and mentions in passing the possibility of giving the child to a lesbian couple. Unlike Bella it isn’t filled with gardens and large families and other analogies to help press home the pro-life message. At its core, though, Juno does a nice job of cutting through many of the lies of the pro-abortion movement, and, as compared to Bella, it has the signature advantage of being a real hit. (It’s even been nominated for Best Picture.) As a mainstream movie with no trace of outright moralizing, there’s nothing to scare away liberals and regular teenagers looking for a good time. Actually, maybe it’s a good thing that the pro-life movement hasn’t made a fuss about it.
A particularly memorable scene from Juno is the one when the main character (Juno) goes to the abortion clinic with every intention of “nipping the problem in the bud.” (As she sardonically explains to the father of the child, “They told us in health class that this condition, if left untreated, can lead to… an infant.”) On the way into the clinic she is met by a protesting classmate who, though ridiculously dorky, does impress her with the fact that her baby already has fingernails. The clinic, whose ads claim that they exist purely to Help Women Now, is manned by a receptionist who doesn’t even look up from her cell phone when Juno enters, and who demands to “see her hands” as proof that she’s not carrying any bombs or weapons. After giving her the appropriate forms to fill out, the receptionist offers Juno a free condom (purple and individually wrapped.) In the sterile waiting room where she fills out the forms, Juno is assailed by what can only be viewed as an attack of conscience. The fingernail fact obviously bothers her. Every noise in the room seems to echo loudly in her ears. She flees. They try to make the whole thing humorous, but the message hits home.
Though it doesn’t give us very many of them, these pro-life messages from mainstream culture are really something to appreciate. They probably do a lot more good, actually, than most of our sign-holding (and I’m not above participating in that myself — after all, it seems to have helped in Juno’s case! But movies like this may make a deeper impression in the long run.) I always thought the Ben Folds Five song She’s a Brick must be a great thing for teenagers to hear. For those who don’t know, Ben Folds is a rock group, and the song is about a guy taking his girlfriend to get an abortion. It’s just incredibly bleak and sad. He describes pacing in the parking lot while it happens (which they do — when we pray the Rosary at the abortion clinic here, there are often young would-be fathers pacing outside the building, and I always find the scene just heartbreaking.) Going out to buy the girl flowers. In his mind he’s apologizing to the unborn child. Eventually they have to break down and tell their parents what happened because the girl is a wreck. The whole song makes you want to cry. Ben Folds, the songwriter, explained that the song wasn’t meant to be political… it was autobiographical. This was him in high school, and the adult Folds just wanted to show what it felt like. Again, whatever he thought he was doing, I suspect he made a lot more impact on the kids with that song than we do with our “Choose Life” signs by the roadside. It’s something to be grateful for.
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
I haven’t seen ‘Juno’, but ‘Knocked Up’ has a similar message. Similarly, it’s hardly a Catholic film, but I think films like these show that liberals’ hopes for a new era of “choice” must be receding.
Thanks, Clara, for keeping this site going single-handedly!
I liked Juno a lot. Very funny, and I agree, has a subtle message against abortion - very nice.
The issue of youth pregnancy and sex is something that must be constantly on the mind of parents of teenage girls. I can’t imagine how hard it would be.
Case in point, I know a young woman (21 - she’s my girlfriend’s friend) who is very sexually active. I think the count is up to eight different men in the past year and a half. Her parents, good Catholic, moral parents, sent her to Catholic schools, buy her birth control pills. If not, she’ll get pregnant because she has told my girlfriend that she never bothers with condoms when her birth control pills run out.
It seems to be the hardest of moral decisions a parent must make. Do we buy birth control pills so our sexually active daughter won’t get pregnant? It’s a very sad situation.
I know a 17 year old sexually active (runaway, drop-out) girl whose Catholic parents did not buy her birth control pills. The girl got pregnant. Because she was pregnant, she stopped using drugs and alcohol. She stopped hanging around with the kids who did those things. She moved back home with her parents and started doing correspondence courses. She started going to church with her family. She decided that she needed to go to Confession and make things right with God so that she could raise her child in the faith. Her love for her child gave her the motivation to turn her life around when nothing her parents had tried had worked. A teen pregnancy is not the worst thing that can happen and and avoiding it does not justify ignoring Church teaching on birth control.
Yes, thank you JK, and I couldn’t agree more. It would be gravely scandalous for a parent to buy birth control pills for a child. That makes the parent complicit in the sin, and enables the child to continue in an immoral and self-destructive lifestyle. Far better for the daughter to actually get pregnant, and then face the lifestyle changes that this will entail; hopefully, as in the case JK mentions, this may be the sobering experience that is needed to help her put her life back in order. But even if that doesn’t happen, there is still no excuse for the parent to encourage such immoral behavior.
One of the things I liked about Juno is that it put the issue of teen pregnancy in what seemed to me a healthy perspective. One the one hand, it was clear that getting pregnant out of wedlock was, for Juno and her family, a burden and also a source of some real shame. At the same time, Juno was herself a sympathetic character — intelligent, witty and also (which seems important too) quite attractive. And you see how, in part thanks to her (and her family’s) willingness to take responsibility and do the right thing, some real good comes out of it in the end.
Good points to consider from both of you, and I think if I were a parent I would say no to buying birth control pills for my daughter. On the other hand, there are some girls who would not just completely turn their lives around because they are pregnant. I could see them giving it up for adoption and continuing the same lifestyle. I’m sure it happens alot. I know a girl who has had at least three abortions. It’s unbelievable.
My girlfriend thinks a lot of parents buy birth control for their daughters. It’s better to live with the sin than with a child, or a pregnant daughter for nine months, I guess. I personally have no idea what the statistics are, but I suspect the issue of birth control is very much a compromising issue - and not just for daughters but for all women. Sure, it’s a sin, but whatryagonnado? It’s not like you’ll go to hell for it. (Keep in mind, I’m not speaking for myself here).
I asked my girlfriend if her mom ever asked her about it. She said no, and wasn’t sure how that conversation would go. Thankfully, she won’t ever need to hear that conversation.
I just watched Juno and thought it was very nice. It was funny the way she thought “sexually active” is a stupid term — it is. The noises in the clinic waiting room were reminding her of a heart beating, or at least that’s the way I saw it. Anyway, it was a nice film.