Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy” and American Dad, has stayed true to form with his new cowboy epic, A Million Ways to Die in the West. The American western holds a special place in cinematic history, and if you’re longing to see a classic tale of virtue and justice play out on the big screen, then I have an excellent piece of advice for you.
Stay out of the theater.
Starring MacFarlane as well as embryology expert Sarah Silverman, A Million Ways to Die in the West reviews the many threats that one faced on the frontier. It also covers the different means by which Christians can be mocked and defecation depicted. Say what you will about John Wayne, he didn’t need excrement jokes to sell tickets.
I’ve got standards, Pilgrim.
Offensive material is nothing new for Mr. MacFarlane. In 2009,the Fox network refused to air an episode of Family Guy that attacked pro-lifers. Entitled “Partial Terms of Endearment,” it featured a character who explained his opposition to abortion with the line, “If God wanted us to kill babies, he’d make them all Chinese girls.”
While Seth MacFarlane may consider gendercide to be a joke, Planned Parenthood takes the matter seriously. So seriously, in fact, that it opposes laws against gender selective abortions and employs staff who are willing to set them up.
In some parts of the world, girls have a tendency to disappear after birth. And, in recent decades, they’ve been disappearing after their first ultrasound as the preference in some parts of Asia for sons over daughters has led to the widespread use of gender selective abortion. The problem exists in North America, too. According to a report published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Canada has become “a haven” for sex selective abortion, resulting in an as yet unsuccessful push there to outlaw the practice. Similar moves have been made in the US, although Planned Parenthood has made clear that it is not on board.
In 2011, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed legislation making it a felony for doctors to perform a sex or race selective abortion. Planned Parenthood spokesperson Bryan Howard responded that, “This law creates a highly unusual requirement that women state publicly their reason for choosing to terminate a pregnancy — a private decision they already made with their physician, partner and family.” In fact, the law does not require a woman to state (publicly or otherwise) her reason for aborting a child. However, when women have explicitly asked to dispose of a daughter, Planned Parenthood staff have been quick to offer assistance.
Live Action volunteers with hidden cameras have gone to Planned Parenthood clinics in multiple states seeking gender selective abortions. Visits in New York, Hawaii, North Carolina, and Texas all produced video footage of staff who were willing to help women determine the sex of their baby and arrange an abortion if the child turned out to be female. One staffer in Hawaii even explained how such an abortion could be paid for with public money.
It should be noted that if the a little girl is aborted around the start of the second trimester then she will typically face a technique known as “D&E” (dilation & evacuation). This consists of using a set of forceps to pull her apart one piece at a time. Evidence gathered by by Dr. Kawaljeet Anand at the University of Tennessee indicating that a pre-born child is capable of feeling pain at twenty weeks is obviously not a matter of concern for Planned Parenthood.
Although Planned Parenthood may take a blase attitude to all of this, most Americans do not. Polls show that an overwhelming majority of the public is opposed to gendercide, with a significant portion also concerned about fetal suffering. You can add your voice to that number by signing Live Action’s petition calling for Planned Parenthood to be stripped of the half a billion in federal funding that it receives. Girls already face plenty of challenges; a federally subsidized death shouldn’t be one of them.
