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Viral Video Encourages Women to Reject Abortion: ‘You Can Do This’

July 5, 2021 Catholic News Agency 0
An image from the Canadian pro-life group Choice42’s animated video encouraging pregnant women to choose life. / Choice42

Montreal, Canada, Jul 5, 2021 / 11:00 am (CNA).

A viral video is challenging society and the media for pressuring women to choose abortion. Its message is simple: Women have an incredible Wonder Woman-like ability to choose life for their unborn baby – and succeed. They can, in other words, choose life for two.

Canadian pro-life group Choice42 released its animated video encouraging pregnant women to choose life on May 29. The short film follows a scared, wide-eyed young woman as she flees from the dark monsters of societal pressure and struggles to climb up a mountain. The video attracted hundreds of thousands of views on social media and was so successful that, on June 28, the group released a version in Portuguese, appealing to countries like Brazil. It empowers women with the truth that, yes, “you can do this.”

EWTN Pro-Life Weekly highlighted a clip from the two-minute video on June 26. 

“So you’re pregnant. You didn’t plan this. You didn’t want it. And now you have a choice to make,” the narrator says as the animation begins. “Take a breath. You can do this.”

“No matter what’s going on in your life, you can rise up and take this on,” she adds. “You can rock this.”

But, the narrator cautions, “I’m going to be real with you.”

“The choices that our society and the media are going to present you with, they’re not all equal,” she says. “Right now, your baby’s heart is already beating. That started about 21 days after conception. We’re talking about another human being here, and not just any human being. Your baby.”

The video goes on to warn that “abortion is probably going to be suggested, even pushed on you” also “by the people closest to you.”

But, the narrator urges, “you’re already this baby’s mother.”

“This child is already here in the world, living and growing inside you,” she says. “And what these people are suggesting to you is that you murder your own baby.”

While the narrator acknowledges that her words might sound harsh, she says, “I’m not going to lie to you. Not when your baby’s life is on the line.”

But pregnant women are “not alone, not by a long shot.”

“Reach out for help if you need it,” the narrator says. “We’ll help you.”

As an organization, Choice42 does just that: It exists to expose abortion for what it is and to empower pregnant women to choose life by providing emotional support, educational programs, and financial assistance.

The founder and director, Laura Klassen, dedicates her time to creating videos like this and others, in which she often wears her trademark pink wig. This one, she said, took six months to create.

“We just thought, why don’t we just put this into a video,” she told EWTN Pro-Life Weekly. “Something really relatable to mostly younger women, and just put that out there so that hopefully we can reach more women with our message even if we’re not talking with them one-on-one.”


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News Briefs

Massachusetts mayor challenges local pro-abortion Catholic politicians

June 22, 2021 Catholic News Agency 3
Mayor Thomas Koch of Quincy, Massachusetts, speaks at the city’s “Night 4 Life” rally on Thursday, June 17. / Lisa Aimola

Washington D.C., Jun 22, 2021 / 05:00 am (CNA).

A Massachusetts mayor called out pro-abortion Catholic politicians last Thursday at a pro-life rally in Quincy. 

In his speech at a June 17 “Night 4 Life” rally in Quincy, Massachusetts, the city’s mayor Thomas Koch asked, “Where are the consciences today of our elected politicians – particularly the Catholic and Christian ones?” the New Boston Post reported.

The pro-life rally, which took place at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Quincy, was attended by hundreds of participants. 

In an email following the event, Mayor Koch told CNA that “the Gospel of life is at the heart of Jesus’ message and I am so proud that our city hosted the Night for Life affirming respect for every human being from conception to natural death.” 

Koch, a practicing Catholic, left the Democrat party in 2018 in response to comments by Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez that all Democrats should support abortion rights. Koch is now a registered independent.

Koch’s speech, delivered off-the-cuff, entailed a story of his own failure to rally the local Democratic politicians on a critical pro-life cause. At the end of 2020, the state legislature voted to override Gov. Charlie Baker’s veto of the ROE Act, a bill that expanded legal abortion throughout a woman’s pregnancy. 

The ROE Act allows minors to get an abortion without parental consent, allows abortion after 24 weeks in the case of a fatal diagnosis of the unborn child, and strikes down a state law that requires doctors to try to save the life of a baby born alive after a failed abortion attempt. 

The local Quincy state legislators voted to override Baker’s veto. With a population of almost 95,000, the city south of Boston is home to three Democratic state representatives and one Democratic state senator. According to the New Boston Post, local representatives Bruce Ayers and Ron Mariano, as well as state senator John Keenan, all identify as Catholic.

In response to Koch’s speech, Keenan told CNA that he has already expressed his opinion through his vote and declined to comment further. Keenan also declined to comment on whether he was a Catholic.

In his speech, Koch said that he learned how to be “principled” from a young age after watching his father, Richard J. Koch, distance himself from Senator Ted Kennedy. As a campaign aide for Kennedy, Koch’s father spent extensive time with the senator but “departed” the position after Kennedy supported legal abortion.

In his speech, Koch encouraged the crowd to bring the pro-life discussion into the different spheres of public and social life. 

“We are the apostles of our time,” Koch said. “We need to be that light of hope.”

Other speakers at the June 17 rally included the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley. Mother Olga Yaqob, founder of the religious order Daughters of Mary of Nazareth, also spoke, as well as former NFL tight end Benjamin Watson and former Planned Parenthood employee Abby Johnson.


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