The team behind the pro-life Christian film details a widespread and alarming attempt at censorship.
Based on a memoir by the same name, Unplanned tells the true story of Abby Johnson, who ran an abortion clinic in Texas for eight years. That ended after she was called in to help with an ultrasound-assisted abortion.
The image of the baby fighting to avoid the abortionist's instrument of death was too much and she knew she could not do it any longer (this is in the film and the scene is truly haunting). In fact, Johnson was so convicted that she became a pro-life advocate, going as far as to set up a ministry to help other abortion workers leave the industry.
Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon, the team behind the God's not Dead franchise of Christian films, adapted and directed Johnson's story. And they put together a strong cast, including Christian actress Ashley Bratcher in the lead role, to help tell the tale. It is a powerful work and it pulls back the curtain on the money-grubbing and unethical tactics of abortion business behemoth Planned Parenthood, Johnson's former employer.
Needless to say, this sort of exposé is the last thing that organization and its pro-abortion allies want the public to see. So it would seem they have gone all out to suppress the film and its pro-life message. As we wrote here, Solomon and Konzelman went to Capitol Hill yesterday for a Senate hearing on apparent efforts by big tech companies - Twitter, Google, et cetera - to silence the film.
A few weeks ago, Twitter temporarily shut down Unplanned's account and blocked its followers. At the hearing, a representative of the company claimed that was an error by an automated system. In an interview this morning on Fox News, Solomon made clear that sounds unbelievable.
"(They) closed us down on opening night, which, considering we had the account for nine months, was quite unusual."
Twitter was not alone in the apparent censorship campaign by pro-abortionists. First, Unplanned was given what the filmmakers felt was an undeserved "R" rating from the Motion Picture Association of America - which we covered here, here and here - then several TV networks blocked advertising for the movie, and so did the biggest player in the tech industry. Konzelman believes it's all part of an orchestrated effort to silence the pro-life message in particular and conservative views in general.
"Well, we are completely blocked at every turn. I mean, our primary difficulty was with Google, who refused to take any of the advertising for our film. All of our banner ads up until our date of release were refused."
And it doesn't stop there. The writer/director team says the two biggest subscription streaming services - Netflix and Amazon Prime Video - are both likely to reject the movie once it finishes its theatrical run. When you consider how successful Unplanned has been so far at the box office - almost $14 million in revenue in 13 days in release - we at Christian Film Blog find it impossible to come up with any explanation other than they are parties to an orchestrated campaign to silence the film's right-to-life message.