The commercial below from 1949 seems astonishing to us today. We often look back on the days when just about everyone smoked and wonder how we could have been so foolish as to fill our lungs with smoke. That a commercial should actually feature doctors smoking and report that they prefer a particular brand of cigarette (filter-less at that) seems unbelievable.
It took decades to dispel the image of cigarette smoking as glamorous. It took just as long to put to the lie the notion that filling our lungs with toxic smoke wasn’t as unhealthy as, deep down, we suspected it to be.
Am I wrong to hope that we will one day look back on abortion and contraception in this way? Perhaps we will wonder how women could ever have been convinced to swallow pills that would drastically alter their endocrine system, that we ever thought there would be no ill health effects from such a measure.
Even more, I hope for the day when we will be utterly dumbfounded that the legal murder of babies in the womb was ever considered “good,” or a “right,” or labeled “healthcare.”
Call me a dreamer, but I will continue to hope and work for the day when we will be even more astonished at our hardness and obtuseness with respect to abortion and contraception than we are by this old commercial promoting smoking.
Excellent Monsignor! I agree with you. Thank you for showing us the truth. “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32)
Oh dear, yes! I believe I do recall that commercial.
Being a little bit of an amateur psychologist, I have always had a theory about why the cigarette/tobacco manufacturers often used to promote the use of their ‘healthy’ products and services by using doctors and even nurses in their ads – not to mention big, strong outdoor types sitting on horseback! And we all know what happened to the guy who used to promote ‘that’ particular brand after years of smoking and cigarette commercials!
But – why spend thousands of dollars/pounds on producing ads that tell everybody how pleasant and ‘healthy’ it is to smoke cigarettes if indeed it is already generally recognised as being perfectly safe!?
Well – I believe it is because, deep down, even the manufacturers had guilty consciences about their products, because they already were quite well aware of the health hazards around this, and knew that the consumers themselves were worried sick about it, so found it necessary to placate their own consciences – as well as that of the consumers – in selling their filthy and deadly product.
I believe the same goes for so called pro-choice procedures and products. All involved, including those who already are taking the pills, having the abortions, etc., (and – those promoting it all!) are deep down highly guilt-ridden that what they are doing is not only wrong but will also do serious harm in the long run and therefore are desperate to find people, (especially doctors, dare I say!), who will assure them that it is all fine and will not only do them no physical nor mental harm, but that these procedures and products – so called ‘personal healthcare choices’ – can only be of great health-giving benefit to them.
Sad – isn’t it?
We, as Christians, have a duty to not only ‘do’ what is right ourselves but to pray for and try hard to gently convince others that these things will indeed harm them in the long run.
James 4:17 – “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”
As for hope, Msgr., of course I believe it is right to ‘hope’! But I’m not holding my breath!!
God bless all.
This is a good comparison, just like the obvious outlawing and abhorrence of slavery and jim crow which was relatively recently accepted as well.
Amen. I’ll be dreaming right there with you. When it comes to an issue of such gravity as this, whether or not it seems a fool’s errand to fight against this is irrelevant. Justice demands we fight no matter what.