You'll Never Believe What My Child Brought Home!

Jayne Dough

Ok, I'll admit it: my kids go to a private Catholic school. I know that Catholics think birth control is a sin. I know that for Catholics women have no choice, it's just pump out baby after baby. I understand that this presidential election season has quite literally gone off the deep-end as far as women's choices, reproductive freedom, and well, . . . The Pill. But never in a million years would I have guessed that my elementary school daughter would come home from school with a paper that read:

"An article in the July 21, 2006 Washington Post shows a silent calamity underway in America. Over 1.5 million Americans area harmed, sometimes fatally, every year by medical mistakes. This is Islamic Terrorism; murderous hoards of syringe-armed officials steal silently through our thrice ravened flock. Research on the origins of this travesty reveals that: THE ARABIC ROOTS OF MODERN MEDCINE ARE HAVING THE INTENDED EFFECTS ON CHRISTIAN SOCITY. But Christianity today heals just like Jesus did. To find out the truth about science and health the Key is the Scriptures. It is the healing interpretation of the Holy Bible."

I was shocked. (And that sentence in all caps was their emphasis, not mine; it really was printed in all caps.)

So it seems that the right has not only declared war on the pill, spermicidal creams, and other normal means of contraception, but the entire medical profession is now suspect and lumped in with Islamic terrorist just because medicine has its origins in the middle east.

Now that medicine is now officialy off limits as far as school instruction what's next? Will Math be banned because zero was invented in India and the ancient Chinese did much to develop that subject? Will the classics be outlawed because they worship all those Grecian and Roman Gods who spent the majority of their time fornicating?

Am I the only one who feels this Nation has taken leave of their senses? I know that the Christian Right is the Republican base and I even know people who have been the subject of a medical mistake. (Two months ago my mom had a blood work up because she is diabetic and it just needs to be done every so often as she ages. The nurse called to congratulate her because the test results came back positive and she was pregnant; my mother laughed hysterically and told the nurse that she was menopausal and asked her to go find the right chart.) But given all that, I don't see the connection between telling the wrong woman she's pregnant and Islamic terrorism. If only I had the money for a Super Pac, I'd run a welcome back to reality campaign.

Despite their stand on birth control and Islam I don't think my 4th graders classroom is the proper platform for this type of hate. It's sad that the kids are being put in the middle, but then brainwashing children has been a successfull political and religious strategy thoughout history.