One of the best parts about staying home sick as a child was getting to watch shows I never had a chance to watch because I was in school. Reruns of Leave It to Beaver, Bewitched, and Brady Bunch were my favorites, along with game shows like the Match Game and The Price Is Right. Those shows (in addition to Mom’s Jell-O and soup) all helped pass the time and made feeling sick just a little bit better.
But the tables have turned, and today it’s not an illness making me sick but one of these shows. The Price Is Right recently aired an evening episode and said that it would donate the same amount contestants won to Planned Parenthood. That amount came to just under $100,000!
The game show that used to be fun for the whole family has succumbed to the pressures of society and has fallen for the lies spewed by an organization that kills hundreds of preborn babies—and maims their mothers physically or psychologically—every single day.
When so many people and organizations are hurting, especially today because of COVID-19, the last place that needs any charitable donations is an organization that rips babies apart.
In a 1979 homily, St. John Paul II said: “Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others and share their burdens. . . . Each one must show concern, not only for his or her own life, but also for the lives of the other members of the family: their needs, their hopes, their ideals.”
While he was speaking of a biological family, we can extrapolate this to include not only our Church family, but our brothers and sisters in Christ. That means everyone. We must show concern for the needs and ideals of all of our fellow human beings, and that concern cannot be to the detriment of a whole segment of the population—preborn human beings.
The producers of The Price Is Right (and anyone else who had a hand in the decision) could have helped our fellow human beings by alleviating some of the burden of the pandemic and donating to organizations that help out-of-work restaurant workers, small-business owners, health clinics or professionals who are helping people on the frontlines, or any number of such worthy causes. Instead, they chose to proclaim to the world that they believe it’s okay to kill a preborn baby.
And they made it seem like fun! No doubt people clapped and cheered as the dollar amount grew throughout the show.
How can they call this family entertainment when the money it raises goes to destroy families?
In a time when we are coming to understand the true meaning of the words “heroes” and “selfless,” we cannot forget that we must also be heroes—within our families and within our communities. We must heed the words of St. John Paul II and work every day to perform selfless acts that show our concern for others. Our very actions must embody the love Christ has for us. Donating to Planned Parenthood, cheering for its funding, and not speaking up when we see the evil in actions like this only allows this sickness to further permeate our society.
COVID-19 is a horrible threat to our bodily health, but the sickness embodied by the culture of death is a horrible threat to our souls.
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