International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day. 

According to the website the goal of this particular day of awareness is to "Celebrate women's achievement. Raise awareness against bias. Take action for equality."

In light of that, I thought I would share my favorite books about women who have greatly impacted the world. Keep in mind that I am a Christian so almost all of the books come from that perspective.

Courageous World Changers: 50 True Stories of Daring Women of God
by Shirley Ray Redmond

First Mothers: The Women Who Shaped the Presidents
by Bonnie Angelo

Reformation Women: Sixteenth-Century Figures Who Shaped Christianity's Rebirth
by Rebecca VanDoodewaard

First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies 

by Kate Andersen Brower

The One Year Women in Christian History Devotional: Daily Inspirations from God's Work in the Lives of Women 

by Randy Petersen 

Great Women in Christian History: 37 Women Who Changed Their World 

by A. Kenneth Curtis

Hey Y'all

Welcome back to my little corner of the internet. 

Thank you for your patience, emails, and check-ins on social media. It really did my heart good. 

I took about nine months off of writing anything at all and almost two years off of writing anything of real substance beside book reviews. A lot has happened for our family in the last 18 months so let me give you the cliff-notes version:  

• we PCSed (moved for all you non-military) from San Diego to Philadelphia, 
• my husband started a masters degree & sports medicine residency, 
• I had a miscarriage, 
• 2019 ended,
• we fostered a working dog, 
• I found out I was expecting again, 
• the pandemic started, 
• my husband started K9 Farr Fitness,
• the world seemed to shut down, 
• our daughter Emily was born,
• we got our new dog MJ,
• 2020 ended,
• my husband started studying for board exams,
• today we hit the one year mark of choosing to staying-at-home because of the virus

Of course any one of those things is challenging but to have all of them happen in 18 months? 

It has been a bit of a whirlwind. 

We have had marriage struggles, health scares, political unrest, social unrest, but most of all? 

Most of all we have had Jesus and I am so incredibly grateful. The last two years forced growth from me as a child of God, mother and wife that wouldn't have happened otherwise. 

Some of you may have noticed that things look a little bit different around my blog and social media lately. I have dropped the Forgiven Former Feminist moniker. 

I realized that while the name was catchy, it wasn't Christ-like and it didn't give me the scope to write about all the things I want to. I felt like everything had to be geared towards feminism and that left out things that I am really passionate about like: 

• homeschooling
• books
• time management
• pornography and sexual integrity
• Army life
• body image
• fitness
• home management 

...and frankly anything else that comes to mind. So, I have essentially re-branded to just my name across social media and here on the blog. I plan to write about anything and everything that I am thinking. Some things may really resonate with you while other things don't. That is totally fine, part of being an adult is learning how to get along with people you disagree with.  

So on that note, I am going to sign off for today. 

I can't wait to share more with y'all soon!

Title Tuesday: Fierce Women

Welcome to  Title Tuesday, my favorite day of the week! This day is dedicated to book suggestions, news, cartoons, and reviews. For 2020 I decided to structure my book reviews by breaking each month into topics. You can find my topics list here. This month we are covering womanhood. So lets jump in!

Today I want to take a look at Fierce Women: The Power of a Soft Warrior by Kimberly Wagner. 

I want to start by saying that I bought this book REALLY wanting to like it. My husband read the companion book Men Who Love Fierce Women: The Power of Servant Leadership first and he LOVED it. Since Fierce Women had the stamp from The True Woman Movement I assumed that this book would be as good as the others in that collection. 

Sadly I was mistaken.  

This book is not a guide for women on how to be both strong and Christians at the same time. This is a marriage book geared towards softening a woman's personality and wiring to be less confrontational. While it may be titled Fierce Women, this book is all about becoming softer and less abrasive to people around you, specifically your spouse. 

The portion of this book dealing with a husband's unrepentant sin just really put me off. 

On page 224 after saying that it is ok to confront sin in your marriage, Wagner then follows that statement up with, "If you release expectations and find joy in your relationship with Christ, you will reach a level of surrender that provides contentment no matter what your husband chooses." 

Those two statements counteract one another. How can you release expectations and confront sin at the same time? If you have no expectations then you cannot expect someone to stop sinning. 

This to me is slinging a bunch of buzz phrases together about a topic that is sensitive and demands clear instruction and biblical discernment not platitudes that you would find on a a coffee mug.

This book doesn't address fierceness in terms of anything but as a wife. It is almost like this book was written in anticipation of the second book about loving fierce women. It smacks of the idea that a woman exists only in relation to her husband. In light of that, I have to give this book 2 stars. It is theologically sound and it is well written but that is about it.  I would have liked to see a guide on how to be a fierce woman in other situations: work, school, with family, in positions of authority, volunteering, and the like. Women are multidimensional, even strong women in the Christian faith. 

 

Title Tuesday: The Accidental Feminist

Welcome to  Title Tuesday, my favorite day of the week! This day is dedicated to book suggestions, news, cartoons, and reviews. For 2020 I decided to structure my book reviews by breaking each month into topics. You can find my topics list here. This month we are covering womanhood. So lets jump in!

Today I want to talk about Courtney Reissig's book, The Accidental Feminist.

This book is a careful examination of the insidious ways that feminism has crept into modern day Christian women. Reissig talks in depth about the sneaky and subtle shifts in our thought patterns that stir up strife and cause discontentment in many Christian women.

I LOVE that even though Reissig is a wife and mom, she directly addresses the elephant in the sanctuary. What about women who are not wives or mothers? How do they fit in to the body of Christ? How do they honor God with their time? Reissig also makes some great points about how women that are wives and mothers can do more to foster relationships with the women that are not.

Reissig's chapter on submission is clear and well thought out. She tackles this delicate subject with poise and confidence that many teachers and authors fail to do nearly as well.

In short, Courtney Reissig's book The Accidental Feminist takes on major topics that are causing strife in the Christian church today in an honest, concise, and thought provoking way. I enjoyed this book so much that after listening to it on audiobook I went and bought a hard copy on amazon so I could re-read and annotate the book. This book is a solid 5 star, must read!

TItle Tuesday: A Year of Biblical Womanhood

Welcome to  Title Tuesday, my favorite day of the week! This day is dedicated to book suggestions, news, cartoons, and reviews. For 2020 I decided to structure my book reviews by breaking each month into topics. You can find my topics list here. This month we are covering womanhood. So lets jump in!

Today I want to talk about A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband 'Master' by Rachel Held Evans. This book was given to me as a gift by a friend who thought I might find it interesting. 

I can honestly say that a the book was really funny. Evans has a great way of writing that is humorous and makes you feel like you just sat down at your favorite coffee shop with a best friend. 

However, aside from the humor there wasn't much redeemable about this book in my opinion. 

Evans said that she was doing this as an experiment as an exercise in scriptural exploration and spiritual contemplation of the Christian woman's life. The problem here is that Evans followed both the Old Testament laws and things laid out in the New Testament . This is a problem because Christ fulfilled the Old Testament law (if you don't know what I am talking about check out this article) freeing us from things like not eating shelfish. The correspondence with an Orthodox Jewish Woman is great but really has no bearing on Christian life since the Christian Old Testament and the Torah are two different things. It seems like rather than really understanding what women are called to do, she wanted to do the sensational parts to satisfy a publisher.  

Overall, I give A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband 'Master' by Rachel Held Evans a 0 star review. It isn't theologically sound, and in fact it almost seems like the goal was to make Christian women resent the Bible and the historical treatment of women rather than to celebrate the liberation and freedom that comes from Christ. 

 

Title Tuesday: Fair Play

Welcome to  Title Tuesday, my favorite day of the week! This day is dedicated to book suggestions, news, cartoons, and reviews. For 2020 I decided to structure my book reviews by breaking each month into topics. You can find my topics list here. This month we are covering marriage. So lets jump in!

Let me start off by saying that today's book is one that many not be popular in many Christian circles. Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live) by Eve Rodsky is not a "Christian" book. In fact a lot of people would probably deem it a feminist text and move on. But, before I jump into that, lets talk about what this book is. 

Fair Play is an acknowledgement that in most marriages the majority of work inside the home falls primarily on the shoulders of women. In fact, modern women are being CRUSHED by the weight of everything that they are rightly and unjustly expected to do for their families. 

Fair play is a system that helps couples to balance out the work load. The best part about this book is that Rodsky says clearly how to do that. In a lot of marriage books this idea is summed up as, "have a conversation with your spouse about responsibilities" and then they move on. This book IS the conversation you need to have with your spouse, it is also the conversation on how to make the changes needed. 

I will say that when my husband and I used this system we had to add in categories because we are a military family and we homeschool. Both of those qualifiers have specific needs and requirements that this book just didn't cover. 

Now, as to the idea that this book is unbiblical... if you have read the Bible, sharing one another's burdens and having dominion over your sphere of influence is not a male/female thing. It is a Christian thing. There isn't anything in the Bible that says a man can't help with household chores. The word of God places a great deal of significance on treating one another with respect and a great many Christian marriages could use this book to help get out of some ugly, un-Christlike patterns.

Overall, I give Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live) five stars. I have come back to this book often and I have already loaned it to a friend. While it isn't a Christian book, there isn't anything in the text that compromises my theological standard. 

Title Tuesday: Adam and Eve After the Pill

Welcome to  Title Tuesday, my favorite day of the week! This day is dedicated to book suggestions, news, cartoons, and reviews. I write this portion of my blog because I am a big believer in the motivational speaker Charlie Jones' quote which says, "You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” I try to meet as many new people as possible and to read everything I can. This is my way of sharing that information with you. You can see a visual summary of the books I have reviewed for both adults and children over on my Facebook page. If you are interested in understanding my rating system for books you can read my Book Review Explanation here and What I Believe here. If you want to check out what I am currently reading or what I want to read next, friend me on Goodreads!

As my blog title suggests, I used to be a big proponent of Feminism. I was a card carrying member of NOW, supported Planned Parenthood, and ardently argued for "equality" between the genders. Adam and Eve After the Pill by Mary Eberstadt was one of the first books I read when I was trying to learn more about the roots of feminism and how it is impacting our society. This book was part of the groundwork for my decision to leave feminism and learn more about biblical womanhood, so I thought it would be good if I reread it and wrote a review of it.

Adam and Eve After the Pill is a fairly academic text written to explain the consequences of the sexual revolution. In this text Eberstadt asks the question of why so many women and men are unhappy if the sexual revolution was to our benefit. In her collections of data, opinions, and interviews Eberstadt makes the case that the revolution was in fact not a liberating wave freeing women from social bondage but rather a new kind of bondage tying women (and men) to an increasingly sexualized culture rampant with discontent. Eberstadt writes, 

This resolute refusal to recognize that the revolution falls heaviest on the youngest and most vulnerable shoulders- beginning with the fetus and proceeding up through children and adolescents- is perhaps the most vivid example of the denial surrounding the fallout of the sexual revolution (29).

Overall, I give Adam and Eve After the Pill a solid A+. I don't think that many Christians today are fully aware of what "the pill" has done to family and society in general. Understanding what is meant by the term "sexual revolution" and what the feminist movement has actually accomplished made it clear to me that Feminism was not for me. I think that this book is an excellent tool to help Christians determine if "the pill" is right for them and their family. I would strongly recommend this book to high school juniors and seniors getting ready to embark on adulthood. They need a full understanding of what "the pill" is and what it does, not just the party line given by mainstream media. 

Femininity Friday: Feminism and Economic Equality

Good morning! Welcome to another Femininity Friday. This is the day of the week when we discuss issues specific to being a woman. Topics range from health and fitness to femininity and feminism. Lets jump in.

In case you missed it a while ago, we started a series about the differences between feminism and anti-feminism. You can read the introduction to the series here and the FIRST and SECOND posts exploring feminism. We are trying to establish which school of thought (if either of them) is right for a Bible-believing-Christian-woman. We will be breaking down the definition of the two camps of thought and tackling a part of that definition in each post.

This is the third post in which we are looking at the definition of feminism.

I have listed out and put a short explanation of the various types of feminism here. (Feel free to check them out. If I have missed any, please let me know!) If you Google the definition of a feminist the answer you get is, "a person who supports feminism". That is not super helpful. So then I looked up the definition of feminism which says, "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality with men". This definition is echoed on Jezebel a very active feminist website (fair warning it has strong language).  

In the introduction to this series we covered the basics of why this topic matters at all. In the first real post we discussed political equality and in the second post we covered social equality. The third "ground' discussed is economic equality. That raises the question, what are the economic rights of men? If you check out the National Economic & Social Rights Initiative you will find that economic rights boils down to: 

• the right to education
• the right to access to food
• the right to health 
• the right to housing
• the right to social security
• the right to work.

Taking a look at that list, no one is saying women cannot have those things. Women are more likely than men to earn a college degree. 
There are plentiful services provided by our government to help women in poor financial circumstances with food and nutrition. 
Medicaid and Medicare are available to women that need health services. 
Women have the EXACT same access to social security that men do. 
And my favorite part... in 1920 (nearly 100 years ago) the Women's Bureau of Department of Labor was formed to make sure that there are equal opportunities for women in the workforce. 

This is usually the part where people start throwing around that whole "women only make 68 cents for every dollar a man earns" thing. Lets just talk about that one for a minute shall we? In 1963 the The Equal Pay Act was passed by Congress. This act dictates that women must be paid the same wage if they are doing the same work as men, period. If someone is violating that law it is a crime and should be reported and prosecuted. However, that whole wage gap thing is still promoted by feminists ALL THE TIME. If you don't believe me, check out the hashtag #WageGap on twitter. Go ahead, I'll wait.  

Ok, now that you're back and you have seen how many women believe that they are truley being taken advantage of economically, I want to share a video with you about the wage gap so you can see what exactly is being said here. The truth is this entire wage gap theory is a misrepresentation of fact! Originally I was going to write it all out, but I feel like they do a better job explaining it than I ever could. So with that being said, lets jump in and take a look. 

So there really isn't a gender wage gap at all. If you take this argument out of the running, that means that men and women have the exact same economic opportunities. Women are not being held back economically by men. They have complete access to the same economic opportunities.  

In the next installment of this series I will write up my final thoughts on feminism before I start looking at the anti-feminist movement. If you want to be sure that you don't miss one of my posts you can have The Forgiven Former Feminist delivered directly to your email here. 

While this is a bit more academic and a little less relational that the things I normally write, I still want to encourage constructive conversation about the topic. I would love to hear any suggestions, thoughts, or comments that y'all may have!  Want to know where I got my resources? Check out here, here, here, here, and here.

Femininity Friday: Feminism 2.0 Video

Good morning! Welcome to another Femininity Friday. This is the day of the week when we discuss issues specific to being a woman. Topics range from health and fitness to femininity and feminism. Lets jump in.

Today I want to share a video sent to me by a reader. I really enjoyed Tammy Bruce's explanation of what feminism is built on and why we can't share in it. While she takes a secular perspective, I think many of her ideas can be lent to the Christian worldview as well. Check it out below. 

What do YOU think?

Femininity Friday: Feminism and Social Equality

Good morning! Welcome to another Femininity Friday. This is the day of the week when we discuss issues specific to being a woman. Topics range from health and fitness to femininity and feminism. Lets jump in.

So, I started this series almost three years ago and then I had two children in two years and had to slow down my writing for a while.  In case you missed my article almost three years ago let me explain. I started a series about the differences between feminism and anti-feminism. You can read the introduction to the series here and the first post exploring feminism here. We are trying to establish which school of thought (if either of them) is right for a Christian woman. We will be breaking down the definition of the two camps of thought and tackling a part of that definition time I post on the subject.

I have listed out and put a short explanation of the various types of feminism here. (Feel free to check them out. If I have missed any, please let me know!) If you Google the definition of a feminist the answer you get is, "a person who supports feminism". Not super helpful. So then I looked up the definition of feminism which says, "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality with men".  

In my first post in this series we looked at the political aspect of the definition of feminism. The second "ground' discussed is social equality. 

So what is social equality exactly? 

Social equality is defined as "a state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in certain respects." When reading feminist texts or blog posts I read a lot about  the following being social issues: equal access to education, the opportunity to develop personal ambitions, autonomy to manage their own lives, and reproductive health. So, since there isn't really a cohesive answer I am going to tackle each one of these topics individually. 

Lets tackle the first issue of education. Lets be  honest, there was a time in history when women weren't allowed (like they were physically barred from going inside) to attend classes at both major and minor universities and colleges. My own beloved Alma Mater, Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas only admitted women on a limited basis 54 years ago! This is an area where "man" made some pretty serious mistakes in my opinion, but here is the thing. It is over. In the United States, you can now apply for college regardless of race, sex, or creed. In fact, there are now more female college graduates than male graduates. Thanks to Title IX, this battle is over, the goal of equal access to education has been achieved.   

The next two topics go together pretty well, so lets focus on them as a unit. Feminist want "social equality" and one of the ways that will be achieved is through making sure that women have equal opportunity to develop personal ambitions and autonomy over their own lives. I can understand this being a big deal in middle eastern countries where women aren't even able to leave their homes without a male relative. Yes, they desperately need this social equality. 

But here in the United States? 

Don't we already have this? Is anyone stopping you from trying to become a YouTube sensation, a WNBA star, or a nuclear physicist? NO! Women in the United States can do literally anything that they want, there is nothing holding you back. You have the autonomy to do whatever you want with your life. In fact, there was an article in the news this week about a girl being the first female athlete to earn an NCAA football scholarship directly out of high school. But here is the thing, do you know why she got the scholarship? Because she EARNED IT. It wasn't handed to her. I guarantee that she has spent hours and hours of her life practicing her sport. She had personal ambitions, she worked hard and she earned them, that is equality. 

This is usually the part where people start talking about how there aren't enough women going in to were in history predominately "male" jobs. But here is the thing, if you are all about women having autonomy, if they don't want to go in to that job field why do you care? If Sally wants a degree in Home Economics rather than Engineering, doesn't she have the right to make that choice?  

Lastly is the issue of reproductive health. This is a tricky issue cut and dry case of understanding what the verbiage actually means. Are feminists saying that women need to have access to information and treatment of female specific reproductive health problems? Then heck yes, I support that with a caveat. Abortion is not "reproductive health". I won't even start in on the religious side of the argument because it won't mean anything to people that don't share my faith. Just looking at the most basic science, these two issues don't belong lumped together. Check out The Secular Case Against Abortion and see what I mean. There is no pro-life and the pro-choice side of the reproductive health argument. Abortion advocates have done a brilliant job of tying murdering babies and "women's health" together. If you aren't pro-choice then you are anti "women's health". This simply isn't fact. I support women getting the medical care that they need, but I do NOT support women murdering their children and calling it "reproductive health". 

In my mind, women in the United States already have equal access to education, equal access to autonomy and personal ambition, and equal access to healthcare. No one is standing in front of these doors holding women away.  Therefore, advocacy for social equality is not a valid reason to join the feminist cause, since we already have the equality that feminism supposedly fights for. 

The next post in the series (which I would love to say would be next week but we are about to move across the entire country with two children under two so it may be a little further out!) we will be looking at economic equality. We will be looking at the Bible, academic texts, articles, news sources and more to get a clear image of what each group believes. Then I will check those beliefs with What I Believe and form a decision. 

While this is a bit more academic and a little less relational that the things I normally write, I still want to encourage constructive conversation about the topic. I would love to hear any suggestions, thoughts, or comments that y'all may have!

Femininity Friday: Feminism and Political Equality

Good morning! Welcome to another Femininity Friday. This is the day of the week when we discuss issues specific to being a woman. Topics range from health and fitness to femininity and feminism. Lets jump in.

In case you missed it last week, we have just started a series about the differences between feminism and anti-feminism. You can read the introduction to the series here. We are trying to establish which school of thought (if either of them) is right for a Christian woman. We will be breaking down the definition of the two camps of thought and tackling a part of that definition each week.

This week we are looking at the definition of feminism.

I have listed out and put a short explanation of the various types of feminism here. (Feel free to check them out. If I have missed any, please let me know!) If you Google the definition of a feminist the answer you get is, "a person who supports feminism". Not super helpful. So then I looked up the definition of feminism which says, "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality with men".  

The first "ground' discussed is political. That raises the question, what are the political rights of men? To vote, to run for public office, to have freedom of religion... the list goes on. For a full list of the political rights that men have check out the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, and the additional Amendments here.  

Women can (and do) participate in all of those activities, without the interference of men. If a woman wants to vote,  all she has to do is register (hopefully research the candidates) and then go vote. Just like a man. If a woman wants to run for office she follows the same rules and regulations as a male candidate. The doors are open, it is up to women to be willing to walk through them. In the end, politically women are equal to men. Therefore, advocacy for political equality is not a valid reason to join the feminist cause, since we already have political equality. 

Next week we will be looking at social equality. We will be looking at the Bible, academic texts, articles, news sources and more to get a clear image of what each group believes. Then I will check those beliefs with What I Believe and form a decision. 

While this is a bit more academic and a little less relational that the things I normally write, I still want to encourage constructive conversation about the topic. I would love to hear any suggestions, thoughts, or comments that y'all may have!  

Femininity Friday: Feminism vs. Anti-Feminism Introduction

Good morning! Welcome to another Femininity Friday. This is the day of the week when we discuss issues specific to being a woman. Topics range from health and fitness to femininity and feminism. Lets jump in.

Feminism has been all over the media lately due to the endorsement of many celebrities. Beyonce announced her support of the feminist label in bold letters at her concert. Taylor Swift came out as saying that now that she understands what a feminist is, she definitely is one. Those are justa few of them. People are now thinking feminism (and therefore being a feminist) is no longer a scary or bad thing thing. In fact, being a feminist is the cool thing to do. I saw an article recently that floated through my newsfeed saying that everyone is now a feminist and if you aren't... well that is because you don't know any better. 

But is this a good thing? Is society so messed up that feminism is necessary to balance out the constant discrimination that women face on a seemingly daily basis according to feminist? Some women say that it isn't necessary, not only that, but feminism is flat out wrong. They have formed their own camp of thought called anti-feminism. Anti-feminism has been around for a long time but they are becoming more vocal in light of the rise of feminism's new found popularity.
  
So which one (if any) of these is right for a Christian woman? 

To answer this question is going to take several posts. So this is the big announcement that I have been talking about on social media recently. We will be beginning a series studying the differences in between  the feminist and the anti-feminist camps.

We will begin with a simple explanation of the definition of feminism and the definition of anti-feminism. 

What is a feminist, exactly? I have listed out and put a short explanation of the various types of feminism here. (Feel free to check them out. If I have missed any, please let me know!) If you Google the definition of a feminist the answer you get is, "a person who supports feminism". Not super helpful. So then I looked up the definition of feminism which says, "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality with men".  Ok, that makes more sense.

What is an anti-feminist? The simple answer is someone against feminism. If you Google the definition of an anti-feminist the answer that you get is, "opposition to feminism in some or all of its forms...one opposed to women or to feminism; a person (usu. a man) who is hostile to sexual equality or to the advocacy of women's rights."

Over the next couple of weeks we will break down those definitions to get a better understanding of each camp. We will be looking at the Bible, academic texts, articles, news sources and more to get a clear image of what each group believes. Then I will check those beliefs with What I Believe and form a decision. 

While this is a bit more academic and a little less relational that the things I normally write, I still want to encourage constructive conversation about the topic. I would love to hear any suggestions, thoughts, or comments that y'all may have!  

Femininity Friday: Obvious Child

Good morning! Welcome to another Femininity Friday. This is the day of the week when we discuss issues specific to being a woman. Topics range from health and fitness to femininity and feminism. Today I want to talk about an insidious movie that is creeping in to American theaters: Obvious Child. 

While the name of the movie may sound cute, the movie itself is NOT something that I recommend anyone to see. This movie is billed as a romantic comedy but it falls into a special section of romantic comedies: unplanned pregnancies. This group includes movies such as:

• Nine Months- the story is told from the side of Hugh Grant the longtime boyfriend of the mother-to-be. He is afraid of commitment and as the story progresses he realizes that he will have to change his partying ways. 
• For Keeps- the story of a pregnant teenager that gets pregnant in high school, gets married and tries to make it all work out. 
• Knocked Up- A movie that came out while I was in high school, which all of my friends saw and quoted for YEARS to come. This is the story of a girl that "hooks up" with a guy in a bar and takes him home. Eight weeks later ater deciding to forget about the expirience Alison finds out that she is pregnant and has to contact her one night stand. They end up keeping the baby and drive off into the sunset together. 
• Juno- Another movie that came out when I was in high school Everyone LOVED it. This movie is about two teenagers that have sex and get pregnant. Although the movie touches on the main character possibly getting an abortion, Juno ultimately decides not to abort the baby because she finds out the baby has fingernails. She decides instead to give the baby up for adoption. 

These movies all touch on the issue of unplanned pregnancy, usually from the "oh my gosh how did this happen?" kind of a way. This really irritates me. Sex leads to pregnancy. That is basic biology. So is it in movies that everyone acts surprised when they have sex and then wind up pregnant? 

Now I am rambling, back to the point.

The movie Obvious Child is an independent film about a young woman who finds herself in a similar situation as the others. She finds herself pregnant and alone. Instead of keeping the child or putting the child up for adoption like the other movies, Dona has an abortion. 

Being pregnant with my first child, this breaks my heart. I cannot imagine letting go of the little life that is growing inside me as I write this post. I feel him/her move, push, and stretch. I felt him/her have the hiccups yesterday for the very first time.  

Having never been pregnant outside of marriage I cannot claim to have any understanding of the questions and fears that these women must feel. However, I believe that turning this issue into a romantic comedy is a slippery slope. Is it a laughable thing, this conversation about abortion? While Gillian Robespierre (the fiilm's director) says that the movie is not purely about abortion but rather a woman's right to laugh, I have a hard time believing that to be true. She openly says that the movie does not make jokes about abortion, and that the laughs are all earned. 

In my mind, that is just like saying that a movie in which there is a rape scene is still ok as long as they don't make jokes about it.

The jokes aside, the movie still skirts around the fact that this woman decided to end a human life. I have written about abortion a handful of times and you can read those here. One of the things that bothers me most about the issue of abortion is the terminology. You can dress the vocabulary up as much as you want but at the end of the day, a child is dead. So why is that in a "romantic comedy"? In my opinion there is nothing "romantic" or "comedic" about a dead child. Obvious Child is a horrific example how very mislead our culture is about the miracle of life. It isn't funny, quotable, or energizing to see the death of a child portrayed so cavalierly. 

If you would like more information about the abortion debate,

 please check out AbortionProCon.org