A playwright seems annoyed by some of the criticism aimed at her play:
A Calgary playwright says her play about abortion aims to bring the two sides of the contentious debate together, not create more controversy.
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Cawthorne is pro-choice, but hopes her play will make people on both sides of the abortion debate rethink their beliefs and develop empathy for women making a very difficult decision.
[…]
The president of the University of Calgary’s anti-abortion club said the play sounds “a little bit bizarre and tragic.”
Leah Hallman of Campus Pro-life said she respects Cawthorne’s artistic right to tell a story, but feels the Abortion Monologues is like telling the story of slavery without hearing from slaves.
“Because it’s forgetting the victims of abortion and that is the unborn,” she said.
Cawthorne counters that her pro-choice play includes the stories of women who choose not to have an abortion.
If that isn’t good enough for some, they should write their own play, Cawthorne said.
I don’t know anything about this playwright and her work, other than what I read in the article. I have no idea whether I’d like it or not. But it doesn’t matter what I think, does it? Because ultimately, if pro-lifers really want to influence the culture, they need to get in there and start creating their own plays. Or write their own blog posts. Or paint their own paintings. You get the point. I’m not sure I’d say it quite as, er, strongly as this blogger did, but I share the sentiment.
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Andrea adds: Yes, she has a point. However, it’s almost inconceivable that a pro-lifer writing an abortion play would get the stage on any university campus. I suppose one could argue that almost every other play out there is a pro-life play, too, insofar as good theatre rarely celebrates death, but rather points to how we endure the struggle, aka life. I don’t mean to beat people over the head with my pro-lifeness, but really, when’s the last time you saw a great movie that started with death in the first minutes–and that’s all there was? What’s the old saying–all pro-choice activists are alive? Anyhoo. I’m quite sure pro-abortion activists probably don’t see it that way.
My other point would be that under duress (and media interviews always involve duress) Leah Hallman may not have come up with the world’s best quotable quotes. We do the best we can, under the circumstances.