Below is a video featuring Kalley Yanta, who, apparently, was a TV news anchor up in Minnesota and is still a media presence. She is railing against birth control in the video and makes some interesting arguments, which I will go over below the video and the break.
What birth control did for me was it enabled and prolonged my promiscuous lifestyle. It caused a loss of self-respect as I felt used over and over again, and sometimes I was the one doing the using. It resulted in the end of my first marriage due to my pervasive selfishness. I made some rather, shall we say, unhealthy choices during that "fun" time I was having—choices that had permanent and negative consequences.Emphasis mine. I see this as nothing but indirect scapegoating. It seems like she acknowledges that she had some personal issues, but then blames birth control for being a tool that she could use to avoid addressing those issues. Hey, it's not the fault of birth control that you had those issues in the first place! By the way, I don't think her personal issues had anything to do with "selfishness" or "promiscuity," but more likely with whatever led her to make "unhealthy decisions," as I highlighted in the transcript. My guess: it's the fault of a lack of critical thinking skills. If she's going to blame birth control, what else could she blame? Perhaps she could blame it on the alcohol? Maybe she had some shitty friends at the time, too. Later in the video, though, she seems to be more honest when she says that "[birth control] wasn't for me." That's fine, but then please don't advocate against birth control because it might be for some people.
The more disappointing part here is that she is bringing focus to all the negatives she sees as a consequence and brings no focus to the positives. She briefly alluded to her career briefly before the section I quoted above. What about that career, Yanta? As Biodork puts it:
The fact is that one of the reasons that Yanta got to where she's at is because she had access to birth control. She is a media presence, had a career as a TV anchor on KSTP-TV, and she now – at the time of her choosing – has a family of six children that she can afford to support because she was able to forgo early motherhood. This kind of appeal drives me batshit crazy. "Hey – it worked for me, but now I feel really, really guilty about my success and happiness."
Continuing, she then goes into how birth control is like abortion. I don't find it worth the effort arguing about that. The bigger idea revolves around the idea that a fetus has a soul. Not only that, she seems to think that these aborted souls go to heaven. Then what's the big deal? She then claims she'll have to apologize if and when she goes to heaven and meets all the fetuses she aborted (who she likely believes will be in the appearance of a young adult—more on the reason for this in a bit). Apologize for what? They're in heaven; isn't that a good thing? This is actually an inconsistency I see a lot with Christians. They claim that heaven is this wonderful place, but then still behave as though this life has significant value. If one were to compare this life to eternity in terms of mathematics, this life would have zero value. Even if someone were to live a long life, let's say 120 years, on earth, that 120 is insignificant to eternity. Just ask yourself what eternity (infinity) minus 120 is. The result is infinity. That number could be one million instead of 120 and the result would be the same. Yet, for the few Christians I have asked about this, the answer for why this life would be valuable seems to boil down to "It just is!" I get the impression that many Christians don't actually believe what they claim to believe (or they suck at logical reasoning...or both). Getting back to Ms. Yanta, I would ask her (and any Christian that agrees with her), "Isn't it better to abort a fetus knowing they'll certainly get into heaven than let them live out their lives which would risk them getting into hell?"
As for her "proof" that fetuses get into heaven? Well, that comes from this book Heaven Is For Real. This almost deserves a post in itself. I have not read the book, but I have seen part of an interview with the boy, who supposedly had an experience in heaven, and his father on FOX News. Some of the great "proof" offered there was that the boy, while under surgery, supposedly saw his father talking to God (praying, I assume) in one room and his mother in another talking on her phone and with a friend. And there was no way the boy could have known this! *head desk* Because obviously it is rare for parents to pray or talk to friends when their children are in surgery (sarcasm). Another great "proof" was the boy supposedly meeting his grandfather, who had died 30-some years prior. And he knew things about his grandfather he shouldn't have known. Because obviously children never hear stories about their deceased grandfathers (more sarcasm). The one "proof" that I will admit I was slightly more curious about was how he supposedly met his sister that was miscarried (which is where Ms. Yanta gets her idea from). Once again, it couldn't be that the boy overheard his parents or other relatives speak of this. No, the explanation that he met his sister in heaven is obviously the more reasonable explanation (yet more sarcasm—and the boy probably could have said he had a brother and it would have yielded the same result as I doubt the family knew the sex of the miscarried fetus).
Much of the second half of the video includes a bunch of religious babble where she asserts things that she believes as being absolutely true. I see no need to point out that I find it all to be bullshit. Though, I could maybe add that some of her claims are not even supported by her Bible, such as Satan being a murderer. Do you know how many people Satan killed in the Bible? 10 — Job's children (or is it 11 with Job's wife?). And Satan had God's permission to do it! God's kill count? I've heard it's in the millions. You can't really get an accurate count, though, because many stories just say that a bunch of people die, such as in the Noah's Ark story.
Otherwise, she downs women who would get an abortion to save their livelihood, but I've already addressed the hypocrisy of this. Moreover, she really hasn't changed her attitude all that greatly. I claim she's still selfish. She's there acknowledging the fact that pregnancy can ruin a woman's career and financial future and also acknowledges the fact that could have been her. If she was truly such a changed woman, then she should serve her punishment! She should be selling all her stuff, giving up her career, and living in poverty. She should be living as though she had gotten pregnant at a young age. But no. Instead she's going to live her life of luxury that wouldn't have been possible without birth control and demonize those women who continue to use it. I'm sorry for being redundant, but Christians with "holier than thou" attitudes piss me off.
There's also a real kicker in there when she says, "When the contraception fails, which often happens..." Emphasis mine. Interesting. Earlier she had been telling us about how she had been living a promiscuous lifestyle, no thanks to birth control. How many times did this contraception, which often fails, fail for her? It sounds like it failed exactly zero times. I guess she must be the exception to the rule (sarcasm). That's not to say that contraception can't fail, but she's outright lying, and does this before claiming it is Richards who is "under the direction" of the "Father of Lies."
Also in that section, she now claims that birth control promotes selfishness and promiscuity (not her exact words). Recall that before she said it was an enabler. Not only has she lied about birth control, she has also changed her story about its impact on people's lifestyles.
I'm also disappointed that she has to use this unrealistic imagery of describing abortion as "ripping apart" the baby. On top of that, she uses anecdotes from her friends who supposedly had abortions, and all these friends have deep regrets. This wouldn't surprise me because I'd care to bet that many of her friends are also right-wing Christians that now believe that abortion is horrible. In other words, her source of information comes from people who agree with her and is not representative of the norm.
* I know I've used the word "supposedly" a lot in this post. I probably shouldn't do that, but I often feel I need to be clear that I'm not assuming what these people claim is fact, nor do I want to be reporting these claims as fact. I only have their word to go off of. I'm not trying to suggest that they are indeed lying, either; rather the issue is that I have no way to confirm one way or another the factual bases of their stories.
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