Americans “really push back” when presented with abortion on TV and in films, one pro-life leader stressed in reaction to Hollywood writers recently campaigning for more abortion scenes.
On Wednesday, pro-life legal group Americans United for Life (AUL) hosted “Women Speak 2018: A Symposium on Life Without Roe” in Washington, D.C. The event challenged Roe V. Wade, the Supreme Court case that legalized abortion in 1973. Afterwards, AUL President and CEO Catherine Glenn Foster spoke with MRC Culture about TV writers in Hollywood pushing for more abortion scenes.
Foster stressed this wasn’t a new trend.
“We already have seen some abortion in TV and in the movies,” she said. As examples, she pointed to films like Obvious Child and Grandma as well as TV shows like ABC’s Scandal. All three brought up abortion – and the media applauded them for it. Film writers praised Obvious Child as an “abortion romantic comedy” in 2014, lauded Grandma as “funny” in 2015, and hyped Scandal’s 2015 “awesome” abortion scene.
But Americans weren’t so happy, Foster argued.
“What we’ve seen is that, in many cases, the American public responds not very favorably to these movies and these storylines,” she said, “and they really push back.”
But Hollywood isn’t giving in – just yet.
“So that’s why you see writers trying to ask for more of this, because they’re trying to get it in front of American viewers and then normalize this as part of everyday life, when it simply isn’t,” she added. Instead, abortion is a “very serious decision, a very harmful decision” where “in so many cases, it does harm the women that its proponents claim that it will help.”
Foster recommended ways for the pro-life movement and pro-life viewers to react to Hollywood’s push.
“When an average American is watching TV in the comfort of their home or when they go to the movie theater and they’re suddenly confronted with this abortion scene and they say, ‘Hang on, this isn’t what I’m wanting to support here,’ there are so many ways that they can speak out about that,” she urged, with “some of the easiest” standing “right in front of our face.”
That included “talking about it with friends, with neighbors, with colleagues, and just sharing pro-life perspectives” by saying “Hey, that was not my favorite scene, and here’s why, here’s the facts, here’s the law, here are the potential risks, here are the harms.’
She also pointed to social media.
“It’s right on our phones, on our computers, it’s right with us all the time it seems,” she continued. “And so, going online and saying maybe ‘#abortion, this was not a good scene and here’s why. Here are the real facts.’”
“Those are some of the ways that everyday Americans can start to push back on that abortion industry narrative and transform our culture to be one that encourages and supports life from conception to natural death,” Foster concluded.
