My Thoughts on Unplanned-- the Book and the Movie That's Coming From It.

Promotional Image for Unplanned

Unplanned is a movie, coming out on March 29th of this year, based on the autobiography of the same name by Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood director turned Pro-life activist and speaker. The book is very, very well written in a gripping, can't-put-it-down kind of way. Abby doesn't shy away from describing her mindset and perspective while she worked at Planned Parenthood, including the legitimate good she was able to do for her clients in that position, and her complicated relationship with the people 'on the other side of the fence' protesting and praying outside the clinic where she worked. She truly believed that she was helping women, which makes her eventual switch to the pro-life side all the more striking. While working in the clinic, she eventually had a watershed experience that convinced her of the humanity of the unborn child, and today is one of the foremost leaders of the pro-life movement and runs a ministry that helps people working in the abortion ministry to leave and find work elsewhere.

If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend it. It does an excellent job transporting you into the mindset of a pro-choicer or abortion clinic worker, something that frankly, the pro-life movement desperately needs. We NEED to see that these are people too, and that they usually truly believe that they are acting out of compassion and have a drive to help others. We need to see where other people are coming from, and be able to talk to them with love and empathy if we're going to reach them. I've literally seen pro-lifers hypothesize that abortion doctors are literal demons in human form or people that work in the clinic could be witches who feed on the blood of the unborn in exchange for immortality-- that sort of nonsense needs to stop. Demonizing people and reducing them to their sin does nothing to save their souls. Acting and speaking to them only as our enemies is not going to reach these people and transform their hearts. In fact, one of the most important, and to my mind, touching, points in Unplanned (the book) is the fact that the protesters outside of the clinic treated Abby with love and respect, even while she was still working in and supporting the abortion industry.

I haven't stood outside an abortion clinic as much as some have, but even in my limited experience I've seen the need for this realization. One of my strongest memories protesting outside of an abortion clinic had to do with a car leaving the clinic at the end of the work day. I remember it was being driven by a blond lady wearing scrubs, most likely one of the nurses. In the back seat, staring out the window at me, were two small children, maybe four or five years old, with those medical paper masks on their faces. Their mother was so afraid that we would come after her children because of the work that she did that she disguised their faces before coming past us. Why would she ever listen to what we were saying, if she was that afraid of us? Why would she ever want to become one of us?

If we're going to change hearts, we must treat those with whom we disagree with love and respect. They need to know that they have nothing to fear from us, and they can speak to us and expect to be treated with dignity.

At the same time it makes the need clear for this realization, the book does a good job of showing what reached Abby's heart as a clinic worker, and what she saw in the abortion industry itself that led to her changing her mind. A pro-choice person could read this and see that a lot of the arguments that they've made for abortion either have no real basis in reality, or could be solved another, more compassionate way. What abortion actually looks like behind those clinic doors is much different from its public image, both medically and professionally.

Ashley Bratcher (left) the lead actress, meets Abby Johnson (right) on set

Because the book is so very, very good, I'm both very hopeful and very nervous about the movie that they're making of it. Visual media has a way of reaching more people than print media does, and this movie has the potential to reach a lot of people and bring about a lot of needed change, both in the pro-life movement and in the lives of pro-choice activists and clinic workers.

I recently saw a promotional 'sneak peek' of the film, released online during one of the many pro-life conferences that preceded this year's March for Life, that seems to affirm that the film is making a valiant effort to honor the spirit and impact of the book. Abby, the leaders of 40 Days for Life, and various other pro-life leaders have promoted the film, giving interviews saying that they believe in the film and that it will have a big impact. The film itself had a full-time prayer team made up of both Catholic and Protestant participants on the set at all times and a devoted cast who believe in the message and are willing to risk their careers by working on the film.

The clips of the film itself seem to follow the story line of the book pretty well, which I was very glad to see. A couple of the scenes seemed to suffer from slightly cheesy acting though, and that makes me a little nervous. Not that I doubt the conviction or effort put in by the cast to make a quality production, but Christian movies are notorious for struggling with integrating their 'message' naturally, and it seems like this film may suffer a bit from the same setback when it comes to pro-life arguments.

 The writers of the movie, Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman, are best known for their work on the God's Not Dead franchise. I'm going to be brutally honest, I don't think God's Not Dead is a good film. I won't review the entire plot of the movie here, but in a nutshell, the characters, both the 'good' and the 'bad' guys, are little more than stereotypes, and the antagonists are almost cartoonishly evil. There are a couple 'redemption' scenes, but they feel very contrived. The Christians are the good guys, and everyone else is a bad guy that likes to persecute Christians and/or enjoys being an abusive jerk to everyone around them-- a very binary and unrealistic way of telling a story that leads to a self congratulatory back pat for Christians rather than an honest attempt at dialogue with atheists. I haven't seen the other two films that they're known for, God's Not Dead 2 and Do You Believe, but from what I've heard they suffer from similar setbacks (movie titles are linked to reviews of the films).

Dr. Raddison, the villainous atheist philosophy professor from God's Not Dead

I will say that the writers seem to truly want to do this story justice-- and this story is very, very different from the story line of the other films that they've done. Here, the protagonist, the person we're supposed to empathize with, is for at least the first half of the film an abortion clinic director-- a person with even more of an 'evil' reputation in Christian circles than an atheist philosophy professor. The story demands a more nuanced telling than a simple black hat, white hat story, and the clips I saw in the sneak peek strongly suggest that the filmmakers recognize this. I was also interested to see that the writers are directing this film themselves - all of their previous films were directed by someone else. Their previous track record still makes me a little nervous about the quality of the storytelling, but I cannot doubt the sincerity of the project and the people involved in it.

I desperately want this film to succeed. Abby's story is a powerful one, and the more people it reaches the better. I really believe that this film has enormous potential to change hearts and minds if it's done well, and I think there's significant reason to hope that it will be.

Edited to add: A friend of mine who has been involved in the movie from day one, visited the set during filming and has a character based off of her had this to say,

"I’ll say a couple of things without any spoilers: while some details and characters in the book had to be altered due to time constraints and to avoid losing the audience to complexity, the overall integrity of the message and major thematic elements remained strongly intact. And 2) the cheese factor is turned way low in favor of showing the reality of abortion. It’s not pretty, and the film makers know that it was far more important to share the truth than to make everything squeaky clean for church audiences. No fear! We are praying for God’s will to be done."

For more information on the film


The 30 min long 'sneak peek'


For more information on the book (seriously you guys, worth the read)



Abby's Ministry