“Unplanned” being shown in Saskatchewan
After months without a required Canadian distributor, the movie “Unplanned” found a distributor: Cinedicom, the small distributor based in New Brunswick, to take on this film. There are approximately 25 theatres in Canada that have confirmed showing from July 12, 2019 for one week.
Cineplex has chose to profit from an American propaganda film designed to target abortion providers and disparage women and gender diverse people that can get pregnant. This U.S. religious propaganda portrays doctors as sinister, profit driven and unethical. This movie has been debunked over and over again.
Ironically, this statement was made by the pastor who owns Cinedicom: “Everybody has their right to choose to go see the movie and they have a right to choose not to.”
It is our position that freedom of choice must be extended to all pregnant people, in the form of unrestricted access to abortion should they so choose.
Abortion is healthcare and is provided by ethical professional staff in a very safe and patient focused environment. It is offensive that movie theatres are choosing to provide a platform for hatred and division in our communities.
This movie is being pushed as a real-life tale of a former Planned Parenthood employee that witnesses an abortion that suddenly changed her and joined the Coalition for Life, an organization she had only weeks before been yelling at to leave their clinic. However, the “heroine’s” story that this film is based on has been criticized since 2010 and debunked many times over the years. Not only was she in trouble at her job at Planned Parenthood, but the details of her story don’t add up.
This movie falsely states that an embryo or fetus can feel pain and has the cognitive function to resist abortion. The part of the brain responsible for this functions does not develop until the third trimester, long past the point in which the vast majority of abortions are performed in Canada. Further, this movie presents abortion is a high risk, dangerous procedure. This is false. Less than 1% of abortions provided in Canada result in any complications.
In addition, this movie depicts abortion providers as demonic, cold hearted monsters and seeks to shame women who choose abortion. This type of hate filled propaganda can incite violence and harassment of both abortion providers, and the people who seek abortion.
Showing the film is being touted as a right to free speech. However, the film is a propaganda story for anti-choice religious organizations to push their anti-abortion agenda. Here is a review of Unplanned by The Guardian.
CALL TO ACTION:
A protest is being planned for Saskatoon on Friday, July 12th
Cineplex Scotiacentre Theatre (347 – 2 Ave S)
Details are coming soon as the times of the film will be published on Wednesday, July 10th.