The controversial movie “Unplanned” recently opened in theaters nationwide. It’s a powerful and compelling film based on the true story of Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood abortion clinic director who later became a pro-life activist.
Once named as a Planned Parenthood “Employee of the Year” and the youngest woman to direct a clinic, Abby had a profound change of heart after guiding an ultrasound probe during a 13-week gestation abortion in her Texas clinic. Abby watched in horror as the baby on the screen desperately twisted away from the intrusive suction catheter being inserted into the woman’s uterus. When the suction machine is turned on, the baby is dismembered, disappearing slowly from the screen.
The film’s writers-directors Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon defended this disturbing scene as being faithful to Abby’s personal account and said it had been vetted by Anthony Levatino, a retired obstetrician-gynecologist and former abortionist who plays the doctor in the scene.
The movie was given an “R” rating not for sex, drugs, or profanity, but for violence. A 16-year-old can have an abortion, but she can’t see a film about it without being accompanied by a parent or guardian.
The movie flashes back to the beginning of Abby’s eight-year involvement with Planned Parenthood as a college student who was recruited at school to volunteer as a clinic escort. She undergoes two abortions herself, one surgical and another chemical, with the use of the abortion drug RU-486. Abby is told by clinic staff that she would experience cramping and bleeding like a heavy period. After suffering at home through 12 hours of hemorrhaging and excruciating pain, she finally falls asleep on the bathroom floor covered with blood. The cramping lasted eight weeks.
As clinic director, Abby is told by her superiors that the clinic must double its quota of abortions performed. She was reprimanded for insubordination by expressing her opinion that the new quota policy conflicted with Planned Parenthood’s mission statement. After the reprimand, and after witnessing the traumatic ultrasound-guided abortion, she retreats to a nearby pro-life advocacy center and decides to resign from Planned Parenthood. Abby goes on to form “And Then There Were None,” a nonprofit organization that has helped 500 people leave the abortion industry. The group reports that after watching the film, an additional 94 workers have contacted them asking for help getting out of their jobs.
Abby’s conversion is strikingly similar to that of former abortion doctor Bernard Nathanson. He once ran the largest abortion clinic in the U.S. and was a co-founder of the National Association to Repeal Abortion Laws, which later became NARAL Pro-Choice America. He was instrumental in legalizing abortion. Like Abby, he changed his mind after watching an ultrasound of an abortion and later narrated a well-known documentary about it called “The Silent Scream.”
Abortion defenders often cite the “hundreds of thousands” of women who died of illegal abortions before Roe v. Wade. In his 1979 book “Aborting America,” Dr. Nathanson refuted that figure. He wrote, “It was always ‘5000 to 10,000 deaths a year.’ I confess that I knew the figures were totally false … but in the ‘morality’ of our revolution, it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics?”
As expected, Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, issued a statement about “Unplanned,” saying, “The movie promotes many falsehoods including most importantly, distortions and incorrect depictions about health care.” This denial is not surprising; Planned Parenthood performs 911 abortions a day and takes in $127 million in profits annually. After its release, the film was the fourth top-grossing movie in the country, despite the fact that several TV networks refused to air its trailer and its Twitter promotional account was temporarily suspended on opening weekend for no clear reason.
As the film demonstrates, instead of empowering and liberating women, abortion more closely reflects patriarchal values: seeking power through control and domination, condoning violence on the grounds of personal privacy and using killing as a solution to conflict.
Viewers should definitely see this important film and decide for themselves.
Marilyn Kopp is past president of Feminists for Life of Ohio.
