Dawn Eden has a post about a series of sketches that Planned Parenthood’s teen troupes perform at schools that even includes one called "Charlie and the Condom Factory." Which I find to be kind of ironic since with PP’s world view of individual selfishness and pleasure over responsibility that it seems to me that they would be the ones having Oompa Loompa’s singing over them as something disastrous happens to them as they tour the factory.
Oompa, Loompa, doom-pa-dee-do
I have a perfect puzzle for you
Oompa, Loompa, doom-pa-dee-dee
If you are wise, you’ll listen to me
What do you get with a contraceptive mentality?
Where a disease is seen as your own fertility.
You would think someone would object.
As women’s bodies become an object.
I don’t like the look of it
Dawn Eden provides a summary of the sketches along with their primary message from PP’s site. Now free of charge I would offer a more realistic sketch for them to perform instead.
Pandora’s Pill Box (A true myth) (20 minutes)
The play depicts Pandora a women whose sexual curiosity gets the best of her. Pope Paul VI warns her of the consequence of opening the pill box and of the problems that would ensue. But Pandora was very curious about the simple round pill box and she repeatedly fancied hearings sounds like whispers coming from the box. During the sixties the noise seemed to increase and the pleas from it were amplified by society surrounding it. She puts her ear to the simple case and is surprised when she very clearly hears these words coming from it spoken with a desperate plea. "Pandora, dear Pandora, have pity upon us ! Free us from this gloomy prison! Open, open, we beseech you! Open us to release a new age where every child would be a wanted child and marriages would become stronger and women would be freed of their very fertility and have fulfilling careers like men instead. Pandora promptly opens the pill box and out flies flies pills, IUDs, condoms, patches and every sort of chemical contraceptive device. Along with these contraceptive also flew increased marital infidelity, gigantic increase of divorce, increased fornication, gigantic jump in violence against women, increased sexual objectification of women, subsequent medical problems, necessity for abortion when contraception fails, and many other ills that were packed into the simple white pill box.
Primary Messages:
- Sexual promiscuity without consequences makes as much sense as breathing without air.
- Pope Paul VI was right in what he predicted would happen.
- That even though the promised wonders of contraception never came to fruition, it just doesn’t matter to society at large. P.T. Barnum’s slogan is yet again confirmed.
6 comments
A bonus of Pope Pauls! 16 for the price of 6!
The most horrifying thing about this is that seeing these skits will probably be the first time many of these high school students ever hear of Pope Paul VI or Humane Vitae.
Dear Jeff,
I would like to add that abstinance remains as did hope in the myth
The “Pandora’s Pill Box” gets to the real heart of the argument, doesn’t it?
In essence, the “history” of marriage in America posits a world in which men functioned in a sphere outside of the home and women in a sphere within the home. Thus, the economic, political, and institutional life of the family were under the sole dominance of men and the homelife and social life of the family were the exclusive dominance of the woman. Dropped on top of this formula was the overarching patriarchal control of men.
This is what is being taught of pre-1960s American life. It seems to me to be a classic case of “throwing the baby out with the bath water.”
That life for some women was horribly oppressive in the pre-1960s is undeniable. A patriarchal system thrives or dies on the honesty, faithfulness, and purity of intention of fathers. There were clearly enough “bad” men out there to destroy the positive image or separate spheres of influence between men and women.
How, then, to get women into a position of “equality,” particularly w/r to political and economic power? It is easy to see why feminists latched onto childbearing and rearing as the biggest “handicaps” of the equality movement.
Under the guise of “choice” our society has been educated to see children as a private, individual decision, divorced from parents, social mores, and, even, one’s mate. It was believed that this “choice” would set women into an equal position, one in which they would decide when and how to bear and raise children.
“Have a career, then children. Have children AND a career. Have children and not have a career. Have them with or without a life-mate. It is up to you.”
As you have pointed out… this has turned out to be a dead end.
There are so many negative consequences to the community through this “modern,” individualist approach. However if we (traditionalists) want to challenge this worldview, we need to articulate a “viable” alternative. It is NOT enough to point out the evils that came with opening Pandora’s box. We need to be able to honestly say that women have acquired political and economic equality under the law (we are almost there by-the-by). We need to say that women SHOULD choose to be a mother as a primary occupation. We have to make that option attractive again.
So long as we continue to focus on the evils without providing a positive alternative, we will be yelling at one another over an abyse.
>
True enough. For my wife and me, just the joy of having children, loving them and raising them, watching them grow in many ways, was a positive enough experience to make silly the idea that having children is a chore.
Check out our gumball vending machines http://gumball-machines.blog-city.com/