I caught a few minutes of an interview with Francis Ford Coppola at a film festival.  During the Q&A portion of the interview, a young audience member asked Coppola what kind of advice he could give to an aspiring filmmaker.  He said, and as usual I’m paraphrasing this horribly, “If you’re a man, get married.”  He goes on to explain his advice, saying that he loved raising his kids and that they kept him grounded and focused on his work; held him accountable in his productivity. 

   As a creative individual, one could easily look at his or her family as a roadblock to creative independence and artistic output.  But Coppola discovered that supporting a family and having them support him, inevitably bolstered the quality of his art and motivated him to continue his work.

   It’s refreshing to hear this from someone in an industry such as film.  So often we view the family of a brilliant, creative mind as a distraction from their work.  But when we’re surrounded by those we love and love us, we can’t help but create beautiful art and in the end become better, well rounded people.  

Apparently the “change” that Obama has brought to the White House involves funding new ways to avoid the consequences of our irresponsible behavior. On January 23, Obama signed an order to lift the ban on U.S. Government funding to groups that provide abortions in foreign countries. Check out the story here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090123/pl_nm/us_obama_abortion

And this is just the beginning….

He’s promised to sign this bill if it reaches his desk….http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Choice_Act

Like a large portion of America, I was excited about Obama becoming president. He’s a dynamic, motivating figure. But it’s sad that a man with so much power and influence would have such a naïve and abrasive view about abortion. What a horrible abuse of taxpayer’s money and presidential power. 

How can someone, especially a husband and father, view human life this way. 
As a burden. 
As a mistake.

The mistake, Mr. Obama, is not the life of that little child. The mistake is in our failing relationships as husbands and wives. The mistake is in our sex smothered pop culture that teens drown in everyday. The mistake is us not teaching the beauty of physical love at the right time and that just because there are condoms and birth control pills, it doesn’t make sex harmless and safe. Our mistake is made by not keeping women safe from situations of rape and incest. 

We have failed as humans when the "mistake" in this situation is defined as an unwanted child, not in the irresponsibility of our physical acts of love or by failing to provide nurturing safe environments where a single woman who has been either raped or impregnated as a teenager feels she can carry the baby to term for adoption.
Would we really rather throw a still developing human in a trash can behind a clinic than see a happy little baby full of life? 
Honestly, ask yourself that. Have you ever looked into the eyes of a newborn and found the promise and miracle in those discovering eyes? Or the joy in the barren couple adopting a child? Or the baby born with a disability that proves to be successful and live a normal life despite the negative outlook from his healthcare providers. 
Maybe if we loved each other a little more, we would see the beauty and not the burden of a baby in these situations.

Of course the big argument from a liberal point of view, (bear in mind that I take no political side, they’re all equally unproductive and lobbyist controlled) is that it’s a woman’s choice to abort or give birth to a baby. This is the truth. The government has no right to tell her what to do with her body. So why are we attempting to make it easier and easier to have the procedure performed? Isn’t that government intervention? Basically our government is saying, “Continue to be irresponsible with your sexual decisions, we’ll take care of your consequences.” The problem is too complicated for our politicians to take the time to solve, so they come up with a simple means to an end. Erase the situation. Shouldn’t we be expecting more from the supposedly “best and brightest” of our country? Our leaders who are each paid $150,000 dollars and up to govern our lives? 

Erase the situation.

Women's rights aren't about the power over one's body; it's about the power OF one's body. Women have the most beautiful gift as a human and we're making the option of disabling that gift into a decision similar to purchasing over-the-counter cold medicine! When did we become so callous and indifferent to the origins of our own creation? We ALL started our lives as a speck in our mother’s womb. What makes my life any different than the life of that baby developing inside her mother?
We're arguing over the wrong part of this scenario. Babies should be created in a loving situation. One night stands, rape, incest, poor planning....are not loving situations. We need to find ways to prevent. Maybe that sounds lofty and unattainable, but I believe it to be the only way.

But, we erase the situation…like it never happened. That’s the best we get from our leaders. I was horrible in math class but I do remember if I erased my answer to a problem and left it blank because I couldn’t solve the equation, I failed that problem. The government has failed on this problem as well.

Here are some options:
1. How about we order idiotic organizations such as “Planned Parenthood” to fork over some of their extensive lobbying budget to help fund sexual awareness counselors in high schools. Hire teachers, mentors, and counselors. Give kids something to do besides each other. (Side Note: This should NOT be dealt with in elementary schools, let them be kids. If children that age are dabbling in sexual promiscuity, that’s our fault as parents and educators for allowing that to pass through their eyes and ears at such an early age.)
2. Put federal restrictions on network TV content. I saw a “Girls Gone Wild” commercial on prime time television the other night. Seriously?
3. Stop pushing the birth control pills like they’re the cure all drugs. This drug isn’t some magical pill that puts up a fence in front of an egg and safely holds up a “Stop” sign to sperm cells…oh…and clears up acne. No, these are serious medications that can do long term damage to a woman’s body and DO cause abortions whether you would like to believe that or not. And a large percentage of women receiving birth control are from….drum roll please…low-income households! Funny then that congress wanted to include $200 million dollars for birth control in the pending economic stimulus package. Low-income families+ cheap birth control=economic growth. We don’t want to have to provide health care or educate anyone below the poverty level now do we? 

I have many more ideas, but I’m not intending to write a book here.

Bottom line…our government and country are afraid to cross these ridiculous political party lines and stray from lobbyists, to find real solutions to this moral problem. Birth control, condoms, Morning After pills, abortions…are NOT solutions. Communication, prevention education, parental accountability, and sexual responsibility ARE solutions. But one of the most important is selflessness. Something a government cannot give us. 

We must begin as a culture to look at sexuality, human life, relationships, and youth as precious gifts. We’ve lost track of the art of loving our relationships. The core of which is giving ourselves up for one another. 
We only search for what will further our own happiness. A child should be the product of two people who are literally willing to die for each other. A child is a gift for those willing to give of their time, energy, and love. If we can’t give that much in our relationships in the first place, sex should not be in the picture.

Listen, we make mistakes.

There will always be instances where pregnancy stems from a one night stand, rape, incest, an unprepared couple, etc. But why can’t we take a different approach than murdering the result? Why can’t we work together to provide safe, healthy atmospheres to carry these babies full term? Why should they suffer our consequence? 

While on the campaign trail for president, Obama was quoted as saying, 
“I've got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby.” 

What a weak view. What a sad way to teach your children about human life. That there are no repercussions to sexual experimentation and that the gift her body holds in the ability to bring new life is less important than her naïve choice.

Since 1973, choice has been more important than the lives of close to 50 million aborted children. 

These were our children…maybe our next world leader…maybe your future best friend. 

The “change” we need to make is in our hearts, not in our pride and politics. 

Ben

   There is a daily NPR show that I try to catch called "Talk of the Nation" hosted by Neil Conan. Today I happened upon a segment where the topic was Genome study and Gene Therapy Research and how it affects our quality of life and modern medicine. 
   Becoming more popular is prenatal testing to determine whether an unborn child will arrive months later in the arms of his/her parents, healthy and normal….or with a disability such as Downs Syndrome. 

   One caller shared the story of the time he and his wife had testing done on their unborn baby, revealing a severe disability that would bring about an enormous burden on their family emotionally, physically, and financially. 
   They chose to terminate the pregnancy. The caller later said that they now have a healthy, happy little girl that was born a short while later. 
   Children and adults can also have testing done to discover (due to a particular illness common in their family history) whether they will fall victim to a disease or disability similar to their ancestors. 
   Another caller told of a man who was given a strong, almost definite, likelihood of developing Huntington's Disease. This truth was more than he could handle, so he took his own life. He didn't have an actual diagnosis, mind you. 
   So is it right for us to know, everything that will go wrong in our future? Is it better to expect or to experience our pain? 

   I remember when I was little. Being a boy who loved playing outside and in the woods, I would be sporting at least 3-4 band-aids weekly. And the thing that scared me the most wasn't the actual cut or even the pain removing the band-aid…it was the mere thought of ripping the band-aid from my skin and the possible pain associated with it. While deep in my 10 year old brain's crisis of how to go about removing the dreaded thing, my mom would come along and RIP! the band aid was gone. And before I could even open my mouth to scream, the pain had vanished. I was too busy expecting the pain to actually experience it. And when it came time to experience the pain, it really wasn't what I had built it up to be. 
   Now, I know the pain I describe pales in comparison to the pain of losing someone you love to a tragedy or learning from test results that you have a life-threatening illness. But in the end, pain is pain. We've all been dealt our fair share. We experience it, find ways to heal and cope, and do our best to move on and learn from it. 
   What good does it do me to know that my gene structure says I might develop Alzheimer's late in life? Could I start now by setting up insurance policies and prepare myself to slowly deteriorate and succumb to the disease? Possibly… but how does that make my life any better when, come 50 years from now, the tests turn out to be false, and I'm void of any life-threatening illness? 
   What if someone told you that on October 17, 2009, you would be inheriting a sum of money that would make you ridiculously wealthy? You would be excited, right? You would prepare yourself and make plans as to what you would purchase with the money. Your life starts to revolve around October 17, 2009. You start to live for that day. What if you died October 16th? All that excitement, all the planning…would be wasted. 

It's the same way with pain. 

   When we expect pain, we live it and it lives within us, bringing us down and keeping us from happiness. But when we experience pain, we learn from it and move on. Suffering is a tool every human needs to use in order for us to grow. The growth in my own life is due, not to my successes, but largely in part to many painful situations, illness, and unanswered prayers. 

   There is a reason for the trials we go through. There is a reason for suffering. There is a reason for pain. 
   There was a reason the first caller and his wife were given a baby with a disability. There was a reason the friend of the second caller was a prime candidate for Huntington's disease. It was to make them each stronger. It was to make them realize the frailty of human life and that we must be grateful for the small amount of time we do have here. 

   We must accept the tragedies that befall us and learn from them. 

   But, we as a forward-thinking, developing human race would rather find ways around this experience. We would rather rid our lives of a burdensome baby that could grow to be a blessing to those around her, or we would rather discover we might become sick before it's our time to know, giving us no hope for survival. 
   Why do you think our prime time TV is saturated with pharmaceutical ads touting a new drug to pull us out of sadness or depression? We don't want to experience it. We want a pill to take the pain away and leave the underlying reason for the sadness, unresolved. But, if we put a blanket over a fire, it appears gone, but it will soon burn through and show itself again. 
   Human suffering is not a medical condition we can treat. Human suffering is a necessary part of our daily lives. We have to confront it and attempt to heal. For when we avoid it… we miss the opportunity of the beautiful sunrise at the end of a long night.