By: Ali Elizabeth Turner
There have been a few times in my life where I have made myself go to movies that made me uncomfortable, mostly military movies which remind me of the soldiers amongst whom I lived for three years in Iraq, and whose sacrifice I never want to forget. However, this past Sunday I saw the movie, Unplanned and though it is rough, I highly recommend it.
It is the story of a young woman named Abby Johnson, who became the youngest clinic director in the Planned Parenthood franchise. Her clinic was located in Bryant, TX, and while she worked there, the clinic performed over 20,000 abortions, including one on her. She had a chemically induced/ RU486 abortion wherein she felt she was going to die, lying alone on the floor of her bathroom for 12 hours unable to move, screaming in pain. Abby had been told that the contents of her uterus were going to basically just “slip out,” but the truth is that she clotted for months and was in terrible discomfort.
Still, in spite of Abby’s own negative experience, it took her quite a while before she could face down what she had been and what had happened on her watch. It happened one day when they were short-staffed at the clinic, and she was requested to come hold the wand that transmits the ultrasound imagery so that the surgeon could see what he was doing. It was in that moment, when she saw the unborn child do everything in its power to get away from the tube that would ultimately suck it out of the safety of its mother’s womb, that Abby’s denial was pierced, and she resigned that day.
Abby has since gone on to have eight children, is a highly sought after speaker, and has founded Then There Were None, an organization which helps people out of the abortion industry. To date she has helped over 500 people find employment elsewhere, other than in the baby-killing business. Her story of redemption is anything but tidy, and her courage makes her “unstoppable.”
The other thing that is “unstoppable” about the movie is the way the film itself has overcome numerous obstacles in the media world that threatened to “deep-six” Unplanned. First of all, they had to produce the film under a phony name in order to protect everyone involved in the project. Ashley Brachter, the woman who plays the part of Abby Johnson, was told that the chances were high that she would be black-balled from Hollywood and perhaps would never work again. None of the major networks are carrying any advertising for the film, except for Fox News and EWTN, the Catholic station. In addition, Twitter shut down the tweets of those who had seen it for several hours, and it was unnecessarily slapped with an “R” rating.
Its opening weekend, without the type of media blitz that usually accompanies a film’s release, Unplanned took in six million dollars, and is gaining speed. You should see it, and do take your teenagers of both genders. Nothing like something such as Unplanned will speak to kids and teach the consequences of one’s actions, as well as teach the fact that there is hope, and hope is real, even when a pregnancy is Unplanned.
