Movie review, missed it in the theater a couple years ago.
Not much more than 50 years ago the standard in Ireland was to send pregnant girls to convents where they and their children received cursory obstetrical assistance, were then indentured as unpaid labor for four years and their babies were sold to prosperous catholic americans.
Not a 100% cut and dried matter as it is pointed out in this dicsuccion of the Galway mass graves case, infiant mortality was very high in Ireland not so long ago, but had improved substantially by the time of Philomena's incarceration. The larger institution moves with glacial pace, in fact does not move until forces build to a point where their status is threatened.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2014/jun/11/horror-mass-baby-grave-ireland-instincti...
This was in a country where all forms of contraception were cause for imprisonment and abortion, oh my goodness. The convents were agencies of an institution that still opposes contraception.
Abortion and, I can't hardly believe this, contraception are still the most corrosive political issues in the US and abortion in nparticular is the keystone issue in the sector of the body politic which believes the the US government is morally illegitimate and desires a theocracy.
For better of worse and whatever your opinion on the ultimate morality of abortion or contraception is, the default belief that the old traditional ways were better are baseless. They were evil and profoundly sinful.
