NOTE: The views I have written do not reflect those of Alcea Surrogacy, my employer.
While going about my typical daily regiment of searching “surrogacy news” on google- I came about a delightful article on the (please forgive me) “Catholic News Agency”
This titan of journalism has blessed us with their next Pulitzer prize winner “International group launches proposal to ban surrogacy worldwide”
After seeing this title, I was understandably horrified, as my career flashed before my eyes. I quickly and furiously searched the phrase “Surrogacy ban” but was oddly left only with the aforementioned article, and one other from “The Catholic World Report.” A single tear trickled down my face as I realized the grim future ahead of me. Surrogacy had no chance if these two pillars of journalism had their eyes set on it. With my palms sweating and my clicking finger heavy, I clicked on the CNA’s article and began to read.
Before we get into the article, I’d like to give a bit of background on the Catholic News Agency’s parent company, EWTN. Eternal Word Television Network was founded by Mother Angelica in 1980, and has since become “the world’s largest religious media network.” For its first 13 years, Mother Angelica seemed to run the straight and narrow and was uninterested in the neo-conservatism culture wars. This was until she bore witness to a theological display where a woman played Jesus; something so vile to her that a switch was flipped. She was so angered by this, that she spent an entire half hour saying on one of her shows where she remarked: “I’m so tired of you, liberal church in America, … Your whole purpose is to destroy … It’s time somebody said something about all these tiny little cracks that you have been putting for the last 30 years into the church.” Among other things, she opined that “We’re just tired of you constantly pushing anti-God, anti-Catholic and pagan ways into the Catholic Church. Leave us alone. Don’t pour your poison, your venom, on all the church.”
I bring this up, as I find it very interesting that the largest religious media network in the world- which claims to reach a “quarter-billion people in 140 countries was founded by a Catholic who was so myopic, that even the idea of non-traditional Catholics was disgusting to her. Among this and her less-than-favorable views on feminism, it’s no wonder EWTN has now become “The catholic Fox news”.
That phrase isn’t stated lightly, and if you’re reading this- you know the burden of truth is on me- so I shall indeed provide. I’ll cite a couple of major reasons.
For many years, the EWTN has (much like its late founder) grown increasingly interesting (and nowadays reliant) on neo-conservatism and the culture wars that come with it. A typical day of content on EWNT used to involve typical Eucharistic programming- priests praising the lord and such- but following Angelica’s proxy war on Catholic Liberals, a typical day of programming now covers topics of Gun Control (where an unqualified man who emphasizes how unqualified he is, says that handguns and gangs, not assault weapons, are the real issue), interviews with members of the Trump Cabinet, and petulant and blatant attempts of rage bait, like when they debated whether or not Nancy Pelosi should be allowed to receive communion. No, I’m not kidding. (Whatever happened to the oh-so-tolerant right?! Where have they been?)
Maybe those are just cherry-picked instances from ole’ biased Rose, so how about we dig a little deeper
June 2020 brought us another episode of our favorite Catholic show “Morning Glory” where its host, Black Catholic Gloria Purvis spoke on her feelings regarding police brutality. She called it “evil by nature.”
Her show was inexplicably suspended, then canceled in December 2020.
Why am I writing any of this? Everybody knows that Catholics have long tended to lean right, with their views on abortion tending to be one of their most important factors in voting.
I’m writing because there was once a time when even Catholics cared about Catholicism. There was a time where, (although not fully partisan, what is?) EWTN cared about Catholicism and produced content not to farm rage clicks and mass propaganda (At least not the political type) but instead to spread their faith.
When a faith-based agency forgoes fact and faith to instead comment on politics and culture war, every single thing they say must now be viewed through the lens of political propaganda.
Perhaps, you say- Perhaps Ole’ Rose is unfair in that statement. “You can’t claim that the “largest religious media network in the world- who claims to reach a “quarter-billion people in 140 countries” doesn’t care about Catholicism!
I disagree… and so does Pope Francis.
The Pope himself, when speaking of EWNT, said that “they are the work of the devil” (his words, not mine, although I’d call any network that welcomes Ben Shapiro on as slightly devilish)
EWNT has made consistent criticism of the Pope a major part of their daily… “content.” Recurring guests on EWNT’s weekly program “The World Over” constantly feature anti-Francis critics, and push anti-Pope rhetoric.
I don’t frankly care about EWTN’s views on the Pope, if you couldn’t tell, I’m not Catholic, but I do think if I was, I might have a fair bit of distrust if the increasingly politicized and worryingly myopic fringe of neo-conservative ideology poisoned the the “largest religious media network in the world”. The irony of Mother Angelica’s commentary regarding liberal Catholics violating the faith itself and becoming the backbone for the group’s current neocon drivel is not lost on me- but it is lost on the supposed 250 million viewers… scary.?
I’ve gone through this whole fertility-centric blog opining on religious organizations, so let’s talk about this proposed end to surrogacy we started with.
In short, A group of lawyers, doctors, psychologists, and others from five continents gathered in Casablanca, Morocco, to call for the repeal of all laws allowing or tolerating surrogacy around the world.
The group quotes the typical myopic verbiage we’ve seen a thousand times before.
They quote the horrors of children and “the separation from the woman who bore them, which deliberately exposes them to the wound of abandonment.”
The proposal states,
“The feeling that unites us all is the determination not to stand by and watch this human commodification, this modern slavery, develop,” she concluded. “Slavery would never have been abolished if our ancestors had been as individualistic as the present generation is. But human dignity must be defended at all times and in all places, and everyone has a part to play.”
If you’d like to hear my writings dismantling these schools of thought, read any of my blogs, or wait for the next one, as it covers much of this- but I’ll keep it short and sweet by saying two things.
First,
Horrific trafficking and forced surrogacy exist. Perverse unethical practices permeate every single industry. Pretending that banning the issue does anything is no different than banning abortion and then acting surprised when rates of maternal death skyrocket by 24%, (39% for Black women)\. What happens when you take away access to necessary life-saving procedures? People either die because they have nowhere to turn, or they die because they attempt necessary procedures on themselves.
That brings me to,
Point 2: Trying to ban surrogacy will only result in more unethical practices, and more shady people operating and exploiting innocent women, with fewer regulations stopping them. as it goes, anyone who disagrees with me would say,
“But Rose, something something, gun control logical fallacy?!”
If you truly think that regulations do not work because criminals will find a way to do illegal things regardless then you should definitely not research the fact that over 4 million gun sales have been blocked due to regulations. Imagine how high that number would be if politicians actually cared…
What does any of this matter?
Here’s the deal. Everybody has an agenda. Whether your agenda relates to something as important as… I don’t know… Stopping potential life-threatening legislation, or… let’s say, getting mad at men dressing up as women…. it is an ideology-based call to action. If a faith-based organization starts welcoming Ben Shapiro on its show, you should probably recognize that you are no longer watching a faith-based organization. You’re watching political propaganda. I haven’t read the bible in a few years, but last I checked Jesus accepted people (show Jesus this clip and see what he’d say about his current “followers).
If your political mouthpiece disguised as a religious organization starts reposting the only article you can find on a nothing bill proposed by nothing researchers, then you should probably look at that skeptically too.
As always, send your complaints to Rose@alceasurrogacy.com, I’d love to debate the decontextualized data points you found on Facebook.