A Catholic high school in Alberta is facing some intense criticism for showing a video that compares abortion to the Holocaust.As first reported by Global News, the École Secondaire Notre Dame High School in Red Deer showed the video to their grade 10 students as a presentation which, in turn, was part of a mandatory religion class. The presentation was reportedly put on by a group that goes by the name Red Deer and Area Pro Life.
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In the presentation, which a student filmed and contacted Alberta's education minister and media about, a young woman gives the talk to the class where she states essentially that all abortion is wrong and is tantamount to murder. People critical of the publicly funded Catholic school system in Alberta, obviously, weren't too pleased with the school for allowing this presentation and video to be shown in a publically funded classroom.
The video, punctuated by an annoying Euro-techno track, starts the Holocaust comparison about a minute and a half in. About halfway through, the video criticizes the ideas of Australian philosopher Peter Singer about human rights and states "of course, we've seen this before." At that point, the video smash cuts to stock footage of Auschwitz and speaks, in broad terms, about how the Nazis justified the mass killings of the Holocaust. At this point, the video asks the viewer if this "sounds familiar?"After the video, the presentation carries on for about 15 minutes, with the young woman presenter making some pretty misleading claims about abortion, even comparing killing a toddler to abortion. The student who contacted the government and media told Global that they did so because they "want facts, not opinions."The Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools board has stated that they will have "higher diligence" for what they allow into their classrooms. David Eggen, Alberta's education minister, said in a statement that he has contacted the school board in regards to the video and is deeply concerned about its contents."Let me be clear, there is no place in a publicly-funded school for a video comparing the horrors of the Holocaust to abortion."Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.