Last Friday, like many Fridays, I watched a new movie on Netflix. What I did not expect was to see my own face on the screen.
For about 10 seconds, I watched video of myself play out in the new film “Reversing Roe.” This was done without my knowledge or permission, without credit to myself or my network, and in a way that advanced a narrative contrary to what is true.
“Reversing Roe,” released on Netflix in September, charts the period leading up to the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade and the pro-life opposition that has followed ever since. A press release calls the so-called documentary “intense and unflinching in its commitment to telling the whole story”, claiming to offer candid and riveting interviews with key figures from “both sides of the divide.” If that was the goal, the film certainly failed to meet it.
Netflix filmmakers showed their hand by portraying the pro-life movement as a group of predominantly male, violent, religious extremists. As Katie Yoder has reported for the Media Research Center, filmmakers interviewed at least five top female pro-life leaders who curiously didn’t make the final cut at all. What’s even more disappointing is the film’s overall portrayal of women in the abortion debate. “Reversing Roe” included interviews with 13 pro-abortion women, but only one pro-life woman. If I didn’t know any better, I would think the pro-life movement was some exclusive man’s club. But I do know better — historically, polling shows no significant difference in opinion between men and women on the abortion issue.
I am also a woman and pro-life, and I am the host of “EWTN Pro-Life Weekly,” a global television show dedicated to covering the pro-life cause from a Catholic perspective. It was in that capacity I was included in “Reversing Roe,” as filmmakers extracted a portion of a 2017 interview I had done. The clip did not include my questioning, my commentary, or any of my words for that matter. I was silent; just as abortion advocates like pro-life women to be.
One of those female pro-life leaders interviewed and then ignored by “Reversing Roe” was Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, the group responsible for the largest pro-life event in the world. She, along with Yoder, joined me on “EWTN Pro-Life Weekly” this week to share more about her experience. Mancini said she gave about an hour of her time with the Netflix producers on what I can safely assume is her busiest day of the year: the day of the March for Life. Mancini said she shared with them that to be pro-life is to be pro-woman. Her role in the national — if not global — discussion on abortion is incredibly significant.
The filmmakers rejected her commentary, apparently because it didn’t suit their narrative.
Pro-life women who expected to be in the film were not; and women who were not expected to be in the film were. That’s what makes the film’s tired trope even more dishonest. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that abortion advocates are the ones who are profoundly anti-woman. Just look to the story of Jane Roe. The woman at the center of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade case was oddly missing throughout the entire film. It’s bizarre. She’s central to the topic and the case at hand. But perhaps Roe’s own story didn’t fit the script either.
Jane Roe’s real name is Norma McCorvey. Abortion advocates often try to hide that McCorvey never had an abortion, and after the case experienced a profound conversion to Christianity. She became a pro-life advocate for the remainder of her life.
The exclusion of Roe in a documentary named after her own Supreme Court case is a telling choice by these filmmakers. They are editing history. And they can edit pro-life women out of the history of Roe, but present-day, pro-life women won’t remain silent about it.
Catherine Hadro is the host of “EWTN Pro-Life Weekly.”
