Watch: Exclusive Sneak Peek from Pro-Life Movie 'Unplanned'
This article was sponsored by “Unplanned.”
The movie “Unplanned” — opening March 29 — tells the story of Abby Johnson, a former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic turned staunch pro-life advocate.
The moment that changed her life occurred in 2009, when she was asked to assist in an ultrasound-guided abortion. As Johnson recounted the experience in her book on which the film is based, it was an unusual request because she dealt with the administrative side of running the clinic.
The unborn child being aborted that September day was 13 weeks old. When Johnson saw the ultrasound image of the baby, it reminded her of her daughter, Grace, with whom she was pregnant at the time.
As the device used to suck the baby from the womb was inserted, Johnson remembered seeing the child struggle, turning and twisting trying to get away.
Johnson came to the sudden realization that everything she had been told about the fetus not feeling pain and just being a blob of tissue was a lie.
“It was a human baby. And it was fighting for its life! A battle it lost in the blink of an eye. What I have told people for years, what I’ve believed and taught and defended, is a lie,” she wrote.
The Western Journal was given exclusive access to a scene from “Unplanned” when Johnson and her fellow Planned Parenthood employees were informed they would need to double the number of abortions being performed at their clinics in order to finance a state-of-the-art facility, designed to perform abortions up to 24 weeks (six months) into the pregnancy.
In the scene, Johnson — who had been named 2008 “Employee of the Year” — questions the logic of such a move.
“Abortion has never been my main priority,” she tells her boss and her Planned Parenthood colleagues. “Just look at our mission statement…: ‘To provide a comprehensive health care and sexual health information through patient services, education and advocacy.’
“That’s what I’m committed to doing,” she continued. “But if our stated goal is to decrease the number of abortions by reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies, then why are we being asked to double our abortion count?”
Johnson recently told The Western Journal that she signed a movie deal five years ago, but, “God just really gave the word to wait, and we were like, ‘What? We don’t want to wait.’”
But the wait continued over the next few years.
“After Trump was elected, we felt like, ‘OK, now is the time. The culture is ready,'” she said. “Society is ready and now with all this that’s happening in various states — late-term abortion, Born Alive Act — we could not have planned the release of this. This was all completely timed by God.”
The film screened at the Conservative Political Action Conference late last month and received a standing ovation.
According to Johnson, several hundred groups have already pre-purchased entire theaters as the movie gets set to launch nationwide.
Actress Ashley Bratcher, who plays Johnson in the film, told Fox News, “We are not seeking to attack Planned Parenthood, but we are trying to open the eyes of the public to reveal what abortion really is.”
She counted the cost when informed by the filmmakers her decision to be in “Unplanned” may mean she is blacklisted in Hollywood, responding, “I don’t care. It’s worth it. I know where I stand.”
Bratcher related that the material in the movie hits especially close to home for her, because she learned after taking the part that her mother had intended to abort her.
Her mom shared with her that she was at the clinic and on the table, but when a pregnant nurse came to examine her, Bratcher’s mother became sick to her stomach and got up and walked out.
“I chose you,” she told her daughter.
“It blows my mind that I never knew that about myself until after I had stepped into this role to play Abby Johnson, and tell one of the greatest pro-life stories of all time,” Bratcher said.
Johnson told The Western Journal that the glory in her journey belongs to God.
“We’re really doing this to tell God’s story and to really glorify Him, and to show people the truth,” she said.
“I feel like our society is just yearning and searching for truth right now, and the only way to drive out this sort of darkness we’re living in, is to show the light. That’s really what ‘Unplanned’ does well.”
Find theaters and showtimes here.
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