An Unplanned Life — A Movie Review

The current intellectual conceit is to begin a scholarly paper with a statement of one’s biases, so here are mine: as many of you know, I wrote the novel Solomon’s Knife, in which I proposed fetal transfer (transoption) as a solution to the pro-life/pro-choice schism over pregnancy termination. I wrote it because I believe in genetics, so I believe that a fetus is something unique: a recombinant DNA experiment in which a man’s sperm and a woman’s egg mix together to create an entirely different individual. And — as a libertarian — I believe in an individual’s right to life and self-ownership, which includes both a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy and the right of a baby not to be killed. The only way to reconcile this seeming clash of rights is to recognize that a woman has the right to expel the fetus, but not to kill it, just as a homeowner has the right to evict a tenant but not murder him. And, on the other side, anyone has the right to rescue that expelled fetus, but not to force the woman to carry it to term.

So you can call me anti-abortion if you want, but the word abortion must be broken down into its two concepts: terminating a pregnancy and terminating a life. Since I also believe in science, innovation, and human ingenuity, I believe that a technological solution to this impasse is possible. In my novel, it was non-destructive surgical transfer of the fetus from a woman who does not want it into the womb of a woman who does. Two reproductive problems solved with one baby. Prenatal adoption. Transoption.

I’m also compelled to offer a Spoiler Alert: stop reading here if you haven’t figured out that the film I’m reviewing is anti-abortion and its main character goes from pro-choice to pro-life by the end of it. Hope that doesn’t ruin the movie for you...

Enough of that. This is a review of the new motion picture Unplanned, the story of how the based-on-real-life character Abby Johnson went from being the 2009 Planned Parenthood Employee of the Year and director of a busy abortion clinic in Texas(!) to a faith-based anti-abortion activist, virtually overnight. Abby, played by Ashley (90 Minutes in Heaven) Bratcher, has had two abortions — one as a teenager and one while married to a man whom she was divorcing — so she sees no problem getting a job at the local Planned Parenthood clinic.

As her job titles and responsibilities climb, she (and we) are gradually let in on the secrets of the abortion industry: the ultrasounds that are used to determine the size of the fetus (and thus the cost of the abortion); the standing order that no one is to call 911 for any patient medical emergency (to avoid negative optics); and the ultimate horror — which shocked and haunted the otherwise indefatigable Abby (and which netted the film its unprecedented R-rating) — using ultrasound imaging to guide the suction tube toward a 12^th-week fetus as it frantically and futilely attempts to kick itself away from the device’s deadly pull.

Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon — the writing team responsible for God’s Not Dead and its sequel as well as the cult-classic vampire movie The Insatiable — team up to write and direct Unplanned. The film is superbly shot by Drew Maw and tautly edited by Parker Adams and Dana B. Wilson. The score — by Blake Kanicka — deftly jumps between extremes of tense, terrifying edginess that recalls (but does not emulate) Bernard Hermann’s Psycho score, and soaring warmth and even humor at all the right emotional pivot points.

A standout performance from Robia (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Scott as Cheryl, Abby’s boss, takes her from passionate supporter of a woman’s right to choose to a cold, calculating, bottom-line-obsessed dollar-chaser in the eight-year story arc. Emma Elle Roberts and Jared Lotz portray abortion protestors who are not angry, not accusatory, but ready to engage with Abby to the point where they exchange daily greetings and discuss their simultaneous pregnancies despite the vast moral and philosophical gulf that separates them. Tina Toner plays a dead-in-the-soul clinic employee to understated — yet chilling — perfection. The movie is not without its humorous moments, however, one of them being Cheryl having no problem with a pregnant director of an abortion clinic: seeing Abby that way, she muses with a wicked smile, will convince them that they’ll never want children.

Ashley Bratcher’s performance as Abby, though, is the one that deserves the most praise. It is a rare film of any kind that can play totally fairly with both sides of a controversy and have an actor that can convincingly inhabit two rhetorical extremes with equal aplomb. It is far easier to create straw men (or — more appropriately here — straw women) to spout ignorant, bigoted, or even nonsensical lines the writers set up for the protagonist to knock down. Such films and novels rarely ring true and almost never change minds. They are the stuff of propaganda. In Solomon’s Knife, I tried to present the best arguments the pro-choice and pro-life factions could muster regarding abortion and human rights. I did not expect to see such even-handed treatment from faith-based, conservative Christian filmmakers any more than I would a film made by secular progressive socialist feminist filmmakers. But I sat in awed amazement at the fair-minded, non-judgmental treatment of Abby Johnson in both phases of her life. (Admittedly, the screenplay was adapted from her biography of the same title, so she undoubtedly provided the most sympathetic portrait of herself at each point of her journey.)

It’s easy to understand how a college-aged Abby could receive a pamphlet from an enthusiastic Planned Parenthood advocate and have it all make sense to her in an Our Bodies Our Selves cultural framework. We see her volunteer at the organization that promised her it was working toward reducing the number of abortions by promoting contraception. Her passionate defense of her choice seems natural and deeply felt, and the conflict between Abby and her Christian parents, husband, and friends is evenly balanced without caricature or specious reasoning on either side.

From there, though, each step up in the organization comes with incremental compromises and little self-deceptions that become bigger and bigger until — when Cheryl announces that their new, 7,800 square-foot clinic will be able to perform abortions seven days a week, up to the 24^th week — Abby is forced to realize that Planned Parenthood’s true goal is to ratchet up the number of abortions as high as possible. Abortion, Cheryl fiercely tells her, is the low-cost, high-margin product that pays their salary, their 401k match, their health insurance. “Non-profit,” she declares, “is a tax status, not a business plan.”

It should come as no surprise that Abby bolts from this bottomless pit of death and misery to join the opposition: the Coalition for Life and its 40 Days for Life prayer vigils. I’ll leave a couple of plot twists at the very end for you to discover, with an “oh wow!” endnote that is the pro-family match of any closing-credit Easter egg in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

If you wonder how anyone could ever work in an abortion clinic, maybe this refreshingly balanced tale will explain how it can happen. If you are puzzled that anyone could believe a tiny fetus is something more than a bit of tissue — that it is an individual, genetically distinct human being with a right to life granted by “Nature and Nature’s God” and defended by the Constitution — you might find Abby Johnson’s sojourn illuminating.

Don’t just plan to see Unplanned. See it today.

Pro-Choice / Pro-Life Intersectionalism

The following essay is part of a series of articles I wrote in 1991, called Perspective Inversion, long before blogs or even the World Wide Web existed. I’ve updated this two-parter with some recent research (which my being a Ph.D. now forces me to cite and reference…) and present it with an upgraded Pro-Life/Pro-Choice Alliance orthogonal chart.

CHOICE vs. LIFE

   Both sides of the abortion battle are fighting for human rights. Pro-Choice people struggle to defend a woman’s right to control her body. Pro-Life people crusade to protect the life of the child within. It is this apparent clash of rights that has led to explosive confrontations and vicious opposition. The question, though, should not be whose rights shall be sacrificed to whom, but how can we protect the rights of everyone simultaneously. The conflict stems less from evil intentions on one side or the other than from the tragically flawed outlook that abortion is the same thing as pregnancy termination. It is not.

WHAT EACH SIDE WANTS

   In order to reconcile these two warring factions, it is necessary to ask what each side truly wants. Pro-Choice advocates seek the unconditional right of a woman to end her pregnancy. The method to achieve this has always been abortion, or the intentionally fatal removal of the fetus. Pro-Life advocates assert that a “preborn” is a human being with full rights to life. To protect this life has traditionally required full-term delivery of the infant. Therefore, supporting reproductive choice required the death of fetuses, and protecting the lives of fetuses required forcing motherhood on women.
   Is this terrible choice necessary? Must a woman choose to kill or be enslaved?
   I believe that there is a radical new possibility: pregnancy termination without fetal death; freedom of choice for women and protection for the fragile lives they carry. A fusion of both rights.
   I believe that abortion is a moral dilemma that has a technological solution. To see what such a solution might be, though, requires that Pro-Choice and Pro-Life proponents both allow the scales to drop from their eyes in order to view the question from a new angle. A perspective inversion, as it were (that is, after all, the title of these articles).
   What if a means existed to remove a fetus from one woman and place it—still alive—into the uterus of another? Such a technique already exists on a primitive scale (it is called non-surgical ovum transfer). What if that fetus could be placed in an artificial womb or high-tech incubator? Or frozen cryogenically for later thawing and implantation? Would this not satisfy both the truly Pro-Life and the truly Pro-Choice? For such a solution to be satisfactory requires that members of both movements identify their true desires.

PRO-LIFE OR ANTI-FREEDOM?

   The Pro-Life position comprises two sub-groups: a minority who merely desire that fetuses not be harmed whether or not a woman wants to give birth to it, and a (usually religiously-rooted) majority who demand the additional power to force the woman to see her pregnancy all the way through despite her objections. I believe that every woman has an absolute right to terminate her pregnancy at any point. Human rights are equal and reciprocal, though, and carry with them responsibilities. If a parent has no right to enslave her children—to force them to feed and protect her—then a child (or a self-appointed “spokesman” for a fetus) has no right to enslave its mother—to force her to feed and protect that fetus against her will. To demand forced motherhood — when there is an alternative — is indeed to demand slavery.

PRO-CHOICE OR ANTI-LIFE?

   Similarly, the Pro-Choice position comprises two distinct sub-groups: a minority who want simply the right to terminate a pregnancy by whatever means are available, and those who demand the additional privilege of destroying the fetus. I suggest that a fetus—being genetically different from the mother—is a distinct human being, separate from the woman even though temporarily trapped inside her. The chorionic membrane is a barrier it builds between it and its mother and should be respected as a threshold no one has the right to breach with deadly intent. To demand a fetus’s death — when there is an alternative — is indeed to demand murder.

WHEN RIGHTS COLLIDE

   I agree with the Pro-Choice camp that pregnancy is similar to trespassing. It is a woman’s right to determine if and when a fetus—whether originally “invited in” or not—has overstayed its welcome. She has the total right to “evict” the trespasser. Where I break with the majority of Pro-Choice people, though, is my belief that no one has the right to kill that trespasser when a non-lethal means of eviction exists.
   How can I support both a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy and a fetus’s right to life? Abortion — by definition (“bad birth”) — results in the death of the fetus. Pregnancy termination, though, does not by itself require a death by abortion. Abortion is the sloppy, easy method of pregnancy termination. It is currently the only method of pregnancy termination because nobody has researched alternate, non-lethal methods. The reason for this is grounded both in ignorance and misguided self-interest.
   When I was writing a novel about this in 1987 (Solomon’s Knife), I realized that non-technological factors had created a scientific roadblock to research in non-destructive pregnancy termination. Since the prevailing judicial opinion is that a fetus is not human if a woman does not want it, there is no medical impetus to develop pregnancy termination methods that would keep such legally non-human tissue alive.
   No one on the Pro-Choice side is going to rock the boat. Since women already have the judicially granted right to an abortion, developing an alternative might, in their eyes, confuse the issue. And though the Pro-Life side recognizes the humanity of the fetus, they are so overwhelmed by the horror of a million and more annual deaths that the only answer they see in the short term is to outlaw any and all pregnancy terminations and ban all research into birth control methods, including non-lethal ones. They can imagine no other alternative to abortion and feel that compelling the mother to continue with her pregnancy by force of law is a small price to pay to protect those incapable of protecting themselves. They are wrong. Killing is killing and slavery is slavery. To label killing “abortion” or slavery “maternal obligation” does not diminish the enormity of either.
   What neither side has fully realized is that technology stands on the brink of making the entire abortion controversy moot.

• —Electromechanical wombs—human incubators—are in development (Partridge, et al., 2017) that will allow fetuses to be brought to term without forcing motherhood on the unwilling.
• —Uterine transplants —There has already been the successful transplant of a uterus from one woman (deceased) into a woman who was born without one (Ortiz, 2016). While this is not the same as a fetal transfer, one can envision this method or the artificial womb above being used to save the life of a very immature fetus in the event of the death or incapacity of the mother, where premature birth would not be an option.
• —Cryogenic techniques already exist to preserve oocytes and embryos (Edgar & Gook, 2012) and it is not pessimistic to expect that the refinement of freezing techniques or the development of nontoxic cryoprotectants may someday allow for the successful freezing and revival of a fetus. This would allow a woman who may be unwilling or unable to be pregnant now to resume her pregnancy later or put it up for adoption by another willing recipient. Many women who rush into abortion regret their decision months or years after the irreversible act. A “fetus bank” would allow women a chance to reconsider, with the option of “birth abeyance” until later in life.
• —Fetal Transplant — A woman who does not want to give birth at all could transfer her fetus to the womb of a woman who does, thus solving two reproductive problems at once and saving a life as a bonus.

   In my novel, I call this medical possibility transoption, the option of transferring a fetus from a woman who, for whatever reason, does not want to give birth, into a woman who does, or into an artificial womb, or into cryonic suspension.
   Abortion prohibition, like any other prohibition, never worked and never will. Women have been, are, and forever will be forced to make hard decisions about pregnancy. If the decision requires the end of a pregnancy, women will seek it regardless of the legal risk or the mortal threat to the fetus. And babies will still die from abortion, legally or illegally. The only solution to this tragic choice is to find a life-preserving, rights-preserving alternative. This is a battle that will not be won in the legislature or the courts. It will not be won by bombing clinics or jailing protestors. This battle can only be won in the realm of medical technology. And I possess enough faith in humanity to believe that women—if given a choice—will freely choose life over death.
   Abortion kills the fetus, yet medical technology is reaching the point where a fetus could be removed from a woman who does not want to be pregnant and implanted into a woman who does, or frozen for later implantation, or brought to term in an artificial womb (Hamzelou, 2017). I contend that these are solutions both Pro-Choice and Pro-Life factions need but have not sought.
   Ironically, the greatest impediments to the life-saving solution of transoption are those who ought to be most pleased by its possibility. Certain Pro-Life advocates will reveal their true agenda if they denounce transoption as yet another interference in nature’s — or God’s — way. The possibility of saving lives is secondary to these people. They would rather make criminals of women by outlawing abortion than find a way to allow them the choice of non-lethal pregnancy termination.
   On the other side are the Pro-Choice advocates who fear that transoption would make abortion less attractive and thus rob them of their privilege of destroying utterly the contents of their wombs. They would rather have millions of women endure the guilt and doubt that accompanies abortion than seek a surgical technique that would end unwanted pregnancies yet still protect what many see as a tiny, defenseless human life.
   Once we have separated the two factors of fetal death and pregnancy termination, we see that there are not two groups in contention but, rather, six.
   On the Pro-Life side, there are those who would firmly oppose any form of pregnancy termination, even if the fetus’s life would be spared. These people are what I would call the Anti-Choice woman-enslavers. Their opposition to transoption reveals their true colors. There are Pro-Life proponents, however, who are opposed to abortion yet are profoundly troubled by the idea of using laws to restrict a woman’s freedom of choice. These people are nonetheless comfortable with the idea of adoption and might readily accept the concept of prenatal adoption, which is all transoption really is. These people I call Mere Pro-Life and would view transoption as a godsend.
   Among the Pro-Choice supporters are those who feel that if a woman does not have the absolute privilege of destroying her fetus, she has no reproductive freedom. To demand a dead fetus, though, when a pregnancy could be otherwise terminated is to demand the right to prenatal infanticide. Once again, their reaction to the concept of transoption reveals a secret agenda. Such people are the Anti-Life advocates of the “right” to bury one’s mistakes. The overwhelming majority of women, though — the ones who actually receive abortions — have always been troubled by the necessity of choosing between their freedom and their baby’s life. For them, the Mere Pro-Choice, transoption offers choice without guilt, freedom without death, and a way to change a pregnancy termination from a life-extinguishing to a life-affirming action.
   The most hideous position is what I call Anti-Life/Anti-Choice Fusion. These monsters would force a woman to destroy her unborn child against her wishes. These are the killers who administer government population-control programs in such tyrannies as Nazi Germany and Communist China and North Korea, where State-mandated abortions are one more category of oppression enforced at gunpoint.
   Both the Mere Pro-Life and Mere Pro-Choice factions who are troubled by their positions need only to discover the possibility of transoption to move toward the sixth position: the Pro-Life/Pro-Choice Alliance.

   There is no contradiction between Pro-Life and Pro-Choice once the irrational advocates of Anti-Choice and Anti-Life are jettisoned. Pro-Life/Pro-Choice is the only position that consistently defends all rights of all parties to a pregnancy, no matter what their age or sex. Reproductive freedom and preborn life are not fatally incompatible but are both part of the spectrum of human rights.
   If the parties to the abortion debate wish to seek detente, I would urge an immediate end to any legal and social obstacles to research that might develop pregnancy terminations that preserve fetal viability. I would urge Pro-Choice and Pro-Life activists to lay down their prejudices and work together for a life-affirming, choice-enhancing, and rights-preserving solution. The price in human suffering and death we have paid for the past several decades has been far too high.

References

Edgar D. H. and Gook, D. A. (2012). A critical appraisal of cryopreservation (slow cooling versus vitrification) of human oocytes and embryos. Human Reproduction Update 18(5), 536–554. doi:10.1093/humupd/dms016

Hamzelou, J. (April 25, 2017). Artificial womb helps premature lamb fetuses grow for 4 weeks. newscientist.com [Web site]. Retrieved from https://www.newscientist.com/article/2128851-artificial-womb-helps-premature-lamb-fetuses-grow-for-4-weeks/

Ortiz, F. (March 8, 2016). First U.S. woman with uterus transplant looks forward to pregnancy. scientificamerican.com [Web site]. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/first-u-s-woman-with-uterus-transplant-looks-forward-to-pregnancy/

Partridge, E. A., et al. (2017). An extra-uterine system to physiologically support the extreme premature lamb. nature.com [Web site]. doi:10.1083/ncomms15112