Administrators at Mercy High School, a Catholic school located in Farmington Hills, Mich., abruptly canceled the upcoming appearance of best-selling author Dan Flynn, alleging the content of his speech was "inappropriate."
The lecture, scheduled for February 12 and sponsored by Young America’s Foundation, was an after school event and attendance was voluntary. Flynn’s topic, entitled "Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood," exposes the real foundations of the abortion-rights movement — the historical fact that Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, was an anti-Catholic bigot who advocated concentration camps and forced sterilization.
Carolyn Witte, the school’s principal, said the lecture was unsuitable for high school students. The "content could be misunderstood," Witte told YAF. Flynn’s speech is taken from his book, Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall For Stupid Ideas, which is backed by 985 footnotes.
Witte continued by saying her students — whose ages range from 14 to 18 — were too "sensitive" to hear a topic about Planned Parenthood’s roots. "I’m not suggesting that I or the school is anti-Mr. Flynn," said Witte. "I just have not heard Mr. Flynn speak."
While Mercy High School administrators didn’t think their students were mature enough to hear a topic related to abortion, the school has brought in speakers to talk about chastity and has shown videos regarding sexual abuse.
Update: Dale Price remembers that this is the same schools that had a fundraising lunch with Catholic and pro-abortion Gov. Granholm back in 2003.
17 comments
I’m not sure the school is wrong on this one. The kind of material that Flynn’s talk would cover – anti-Catholic bigotry, concentration camps, and forced sterilization – are things that a not-fully-mature teenager could easily turn into either a conspiracy theory or a reason to hate. It would be better presented individually by the parents, within the context of loving the sinner, than in a general lecture format.
And that’s a far cry from saying that the students are too immature to hear anything about abortion.
Why is this topic any more “sensitive” than the systematic murder of 6 million Jews in concentration camps during the Holocaust, which, I’m assuming, these students learn about in their history classes?
Good point, Jay!
…and they probably bussed their students to see “Schindler’s List” when it came to the theaters. All “thinking” schools did.
Jay and Momof6: Irony Alert! Mercy High School in Farmington Hills is less than 8 miles from the Holocaust Memorial Center in West Bloomfield. I don’t bet, but even I’d say there are good odds that the high schools at Mercy have taken field trips there!
These kids are 14-18 years old. God knows what these kids are exposed to already. Odds are good they’re exposed to a lot more than what I was exposed to when I was their age. And most likely this school, or at least some teachers in this school, have no qualms about using the…um…innovative teaching aids for sex education recommended by Planned PArenthood and the other usual suspects. If this were the case, it’s strange for them to talk about Flynn’s topics being too sensitive for 14-18 year-olds.
Catholic School Censors Pro-Life speaker
An optional, after-school lecture by Dan Flynn, sponsored by Young America’s Foundation, has been cancelled. Excerpt from the article:
Administrators at Mercy High School, a Catholic school located in Farmington Hills, Mich., abruptly canceled…
I am really not surprised by this. I went to an all-girls Catholic high school like Mercy in the same archdiocese. If you think that is bad you should have been in my “Christian” Lifestyles where the teacher spent a very long time talking to a class of high school seniors about artifical contraception. She had examples of each and she told the girls how to use them, their pros and cons, and other things. Then, on the last day of classes, she spent, at most, five minutes talking about NFP and how it works … not nearly the same amount of time as she did on those non-Humanae Vitae friendly methods. And there was not one mention of Humanae Vitae. I debated with her on numerous ocassions. The teacher contined to teach the class even when parents complained and she even did things to keep the administration from hearing her give her talks. Yeah. It is very very sad.
Why is this topic any more “sensitive” than the systematic murder of 6 million Jews in concentration camps during the Holocaust, which, I’m assuming, these students learn about in their history classes?
One of the dangers of teaching about the Holocaust is that it makes it easy to hate the Nazis. We do it anyways because we believe the lesson to learn far outweighs the danger, especially when the average teenager is not overly likely to run into even a neo-Nazi these days.
People working for Planned Parenthood, on the other hand, are everywhere. The danger (of hating these people) is much higher, and the benefits (seeing that in at least one relevant case, the evil of abortion was tied in with other evils) is not as great. Still, it’s a worthwhile connection to show people – but that doesn’t mean it is appropriate or best for a school to allow someone to lecture high school students about it.
Anna, I still don’t understand your argument. Doesn’t legalized abortion concern you greatly?
Shouldn’t it be of great concern to all God-fearing people, including high school students?
I think it should.
We shouldn’t teach our kids moral values because it might cause them to hate those who don’t share out values. Is that the gist of the argument?
I graduated from Mercy High School in the mid-1990’s. There were at least two girls in my graduating class who had aborted their babies during during their high school years(and proudly advertised this fact.
If Mercy girls are not “too sensitive” to abort their own children, perhaps they are not too sensitive to hear Mr. Flynn.
I wonder what the principal is REALLY afraid of? My guess is parents of ‘sweet jenny’ who ‘miscarried’ last year… compliments of Planned Parenthood, of course. Or ‘sweet jenny’ who never got pregnant because of a visit to Planned Parenthood. And ‘sweet jenny’s’ parents are major benefactors.
I agree that this topic would NOT be inappropriate for these kids!
absolute piffle. I remember talking about abortion at my Catholic *grade school*, and none of us were scarred. kids especially need to hear this while they’re teens and still willing to listen to people who say things that are contrary to “popular opinion” or “widely known fact.”
any high school teacher who thinks high school students are too sensitive to hear about Sanger’s plan for genocide is either delusional or living in a bubble.
Matt and Jay,
Doesn’t legalized abortion concern you greatly?
…
We shouldn’t teach our kids moral values because it might cause them to hate those who don’t share out values. Is that the gist of the argument?
Emphatically YES legalized abortion concerns me greatly. And no, my argument is not that we shouldn’t teach our kids moral values because it might cause them to hate.
If the lecture were about abortion directly – why we oppose it, the damage it has done both women and babies, perhaps some stories from women who regret having abortions or from survivors of abortion like Gianna Jenssen – then I would be 100% in favor of the lecture. But that’s *not* the topic that Flynn proposed. According to the article, his topic was an expose, a talk about the “real” motives behind the abortion movement, an outing of the sins of Margaret Sanger. No matter how true his words are, it is clear to me that they are meant to be inflammatory. And while we *should* be inflamed always against abortion, being inflamed against *Sanger* (and, by association, anyone associated with Planned Parenthood) is more spiritually dangerous.
As such, I think this particular aspect of the overall abortion issue is better discussed in a more one-on-one situation, as between a parent and child, (where the nuances of a proper understanding can be better conveyed) than in a large-group lecture format.
As a current 14-18 year old, I can confirm
a) We’ve seen worse
b) We’d like to see better
c) We’re not *that* sensitive
d) That school is nuts.
I would consider this an ideal age group to be taught to question why we do what we do, and what may be behind popular movements, particularly since there is so much peer pressure in high school. I don’t know the tone Mr Flynn’s presentations, though.If his ideas are not intended to provoke hatred and if they were to be presented alongside ideas about other groups and individuals who stand to gain from the horrors of the abortion practice, that WOULD fall under the title of valuable education, I think.