from Priests For Life:

There are pro-life people who work in Hollywood, and two of them – Jonathan and Deborah Flora – have created a new tool to help the American people wrestle with abortion. “A Distant Thunder” is a powerful new 35-minute film that combines courtroom drama and supernatural warfare to help reveal the reality of what abortion does to a baby, and to the baby’s mother. The film helps the viewer wrestle with the issues and their implications, but is not presented in explicitly pro-life or religious themes. What it does, instead, is to help the viewer touch some of the aspects of the abortion issue that the other sides tries so desperately to cover up. In touching these painful and often scary facets of the issue, the viewer has the opportunity to let the light of conscience and compassion inform his or her conclusions.

The court case is about a partial-birth abortion that went wrong. The abortionist is on trial, not for having done a partial-birth abortion, but for what he did when the procedure went awry. One of the key witnesses is the nurse who witnessed the abortion. She testifies to how the procedure takes place, and to what went wrong this particular time. Her testimony brings to mind a number of real events related to abortion in the past ten years, and also reveals the striking contradiction between the care we give to the born and the brutality abortion allows to the pre-born. “What difference does three inches make?” is the question in the film and in reality. How can it be that when the baby’s head is in the birth canal we can kill her, but if it is pulled three inches farther, we can’t? The cognitive dissonance created by this absurd state of abortion policy is accented by reference to the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which recognizes the unborn child as a victim when, in the commission of a federal crime, a pregnant woman is injured or killed. How can the same child, if killed in a federal crime, be a victim, but if killed by an abortionist, be no more significant than medical waste? Common sense tells us that it’s the same child.

The nurse’s eyewitness testimony reveals to the jury the incredible details of a partial-birth abortion: the abortionist delivers the baby in a breach position, all but the head, and then creates an opening in the back of the neck with scissors. Then, inserting a catheter, he suctions out the contents of the skull. This description of the procedure reflects that contained in the medical paper issued by Dr. Martin Haskell in 1992 at a Risk Management Seminar of the National Abortion Federation. In the film, the reaction of the jury to these details is predictable. They are disgusted and horrified, as are the American people in general when they hear about this procedure. The reaction of the defense attorney is also predictable. He objects that it is unnecessary to relate these graphic details in the courtroom. This brings to mind a scene from “Judgment at Nuremburg” when, after a film is shown in the courtroom of the indisputable horror of the Holocaust, the defense argues that it is inappropriate to show such graphic imagery in the court. Similar objections were made in the halls of the US Congress when the diagrams of partial-birth abortion were shown during the debates about whether to ban it.

But in fact, we cannot honestly wrestle with abortion until we face what it is and what it does. A Distant Thunder assists us to do precisely that.

2. The Silent Scream

from wikipedia:

“The Silent Scream” is a 1984 video about abortion directed, filmed, and narrated by Dr. Bernard Nathanson in partnership with the Right to Life Committee. The film depicts the abortion process via ultrasound and shows an abortion taking place in the womb. During the aborting process, the fetus is described as appearing to make outcries of pain and discomfort. The video has been a popular tool used by the pro-life campaign in arguing against abortion,[3] even being shown at the White House by then President Ronald Reagan.[4]

The film compiled a series of ultrasonic still images of the abortion of a twelve-week-old fetus spliced together to create the video. For the first time the images of an aborted fetus were given an electronic platform, as opposed to the print form of the imagery used in years prior.[2] As a result, some anti-abortion activists began to use the film as proof that their position is science based.

The Silent Scream rose to international stardom when it premiered on the television program “Jerry Falwell Live” and aired five times over the span of a month over major television networks.

3. Volition [watch it here]

from LifeSiteNews.com:

Volition places its central character, who goes unnamed, in the historical contexts of what the filmmakers clearly believe to be three of the greatest human rights violations in history: the holocaust, slavery, and abortion. In each the protagonist is placed in a position of some authority, with the promise of more to come: in the first, we find him in the role of a Nazi who is being considered for a promotion; in the second, a respected American physician who has travelled to Africa and studied the blacks; and in the third, a promising medical student on scholarship whose girlfriend is pregnant.

The premise is as clever and well-executed as it is effective. It purpose is clear: by placing the same figure, presumably with the same sort of upbringing, and the same genetic and temperamental predispositions, into the crucible of extreme historical times that demand a response, we may observe his choices, or, in other words, we may try his “volition.”

As the synopsis of the film states, “Throughout history, men have been faced with difficult choices in a world that makes it easy for them to conform. This film explores the hope that lies behind every decision made in the face of adversity; the hope that is buried in the heart of those that look beyond themselves and see something bigger worth fighting for.”

4. 22 Weeks [official website and trailer]

“A young woman is locked in the bathroom of an abortion clinic after her aborted baby was born alive.”

A film about decisions, their effects and the echos they leave behind. Based on the shocking World Net Daily article by Ron Strom, on victim’s testimonies, and real 911 calls about one of the most controversial subjects of our time, “22weeks” achieves to confront both sides of the spectrum and their perspective to the on going question: “what would you do?”

This is the shocking true story about the reality behind abortion and the heroic struggle of a mother willing to do anything to save her child.

5. Killing Girls [official site]

For the last 15 years the population in Russia has decreased at a catastrophic rate. The mortality rate is almost twice as high as the birth rate. The Russian government is trying to encourage women to have more children, but so far the situation remains unchanged.

Killing Girls brings us into the world of an abortion clinic that specializes in late term teenage abortions. Here, abortions are sometimes performed even after 6 months of pregnancy. Killing girls is a story made for women with a women’s point of view. Russian writer Anna Sirota shares her own personal story with the audience, comparing the sad experience’s of her own, with Russia’s new generation of teenagers.

Killing Girls tells the truth about abortion – this film is neither Pro Life nor Pro Choice. Filmmakers follow the main characters when they enter the clinic and stay with them when they leave. But it is not just a documentary about girls who have had to make a tough decisions and only focusing on the medical procedures. Killing Girls is a story about moral and economic choices in today’s Russian society. It is the story about girls that at one point in their life decided to end a late term pregnancy. It is the story of the doctors who performs these late term abortions. Who are these people and what makes them do what they do?

Killing girls takes the audience through the history of abortion in Russia, through the Stalin time to Perestroika, and ending up today. It is story about choices and decisions, about morals and consequences, about sin and salvation and finally about the eternal battle between life and death. This battle is happening today.

6. Maafa 21 [official site]

They were stolen from their homes, locked in chains and taken across an ocean. And for more than 200 years, their blood and sweat would help to build the richest and most powerful nation the world has ever known.

But when slavery ended, their welcome was over. America’s wealthy elite had decided it was time for them to disappear and they were not particular about how it might be done.

What you are about to see is that the plan these people set in motion 150 years ago is still being carried out today. So don’t think that this is history. It is not. It is happening right here, and it’s happening right now.

The title comes from the Swahili term “Maafa”, which means “tragedy” or “disaster”, and is used to describe the centuries of oppression and diaspora resulting from slavery. “21″ refers to the ‘maafa’ of the 21st century, which the film claims is abortion.

7. Reversing Roe: The Norma McCorvey Story

from Priests For Life:

A powerful new documentary video focused on the pro-life conversion of the “Jane Roe” of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade abortion ruling, has been released by DONEHEY & ASSOCIATES, a Virginia-based communications company specializing in films on life issues.

“REVERSING ROE: The Norma McCorvey Story” is a 28-minute video presenting the real-life story of Norma McCorvey, the Texas woman who served as the plaintiff in the lawsuit that ushered in legalized abortion-on demand in America 23 years ago. The video documents Norma’s years of turmoil as the icon of the abortion-rights movement and the events leading up to her eventual change of mind and heart about abortion and God. And for the first time, the special story behind the birth of the 7-year-old child who helped bring Norma McCorvey to church is revealed.

“This video is offered as a powerful testimony to God’s faithfulness and as an encouragement to those who have labored in the fields to save lives from abortion, infanticide and euthanasia,” noted the video’s producer and director Dan Donehey. “It’s impossible to watch this riveting story and not be moved to feel compassion for those still inside the abortion business and desire to take biblical action to reach out and bring the message of God’s love to them.

Norma McCorvey waited 46 long years to have the Gospel presented to her in a way that touched her heart,” Donehey observed. “It’s my prayer that this video will encourage action that will help change the hearts of many others.”

8. Deadly Choice

from Christian Cinema:

Drama that talks about the right and wrong choices when it comes to teen pregnancy.

This quality landmark motion picture from Evangelical Films was released in 1982 under the title of Greater Than Gold. The movie has been slightly re-edited, and released as Deadly Choice.

A doctor and his daughter are forced to deal with the subject of abortion in this powerful and penetrating drama. They are both are hit with the issue head on, but from different sides. The movie presents the truth, the choice, the cost, and Christ. There are consequences to the decisions and choices we make in life…and some of them…are deadly.

9. One Day in May

from imdb.com:

Saturday, May 3, 9 a.m. As the outside world yawns and stretches to life, business is booming at this midtown abortion clinic. Clients — ranging in age from 13 to 40 — slowly take their seats in the waiting room. Among them: Angela Stone a woman who can tolerate just about anything — except the truth. Enter Matt and Drew. Pained expressions aside, they’re a couple of Xers in love. And in trouble. Although deep inside she knows it’s wrong, Drew believes an abortion is her only option. Matt’s far from convinced, but he’ll do anything for Drew — including standing by as she carries out her fateful decision. As the couple waits, a tense, sometimes sad, sometimes bizarre, drama plays out. But as the physical and spiritual battle for Drew’s unborn baby rages, the clock ticks on. Will Drew change her mind — before it’s too late? And will Matt stand up for what he knows is right?

10. Holly’s Story

from: Christian Cinema

A popular teenage girl, Holly, struggles with unexpected feelings of depression, remorse and alienation from her friends after getting an abortion as a result of an unwanted pregnancy. Holly finds solace at a crisis pregnancy center where an understanding counselor shows her acceptance, forgiveness and hope in her situation.

Holly’s Story is the first DVD in Cross Wind Productions’ Hear My Voice Series. The series deals with various teen-related life issues in a dramatic format designed to address those issues in a thought-provoking, relevant manner.

11. Tough Choices

from Christian Cinema:

Decisions made in an instant can have lifelong consequences.

Amy Gardner has faced few trials in her young, sheltered life, but she is about to learn that one step in the wrong direction can affect her entire future.

Tough Choices is the story of four high school friends who, when faced with some of the life-changing decisions of youth, make very different choices, paving the way to very different futures. As this moving drama looks at the sensitive issues of abstinence, abortion, and faith, the grace of God shines the light of redemption on a new path for these young friends.

12. Hard Truth [9 min.]

A powerful depiction of the absolute violence inflicted on the innocent victims of abortion.

CAUTION: Leaves no graphic aspect of abortion to the imagination.

Hard Truth – The famous (some would say infamous) video produced by Gregg Cunningham (The Center for Bioethical Reform) and Eric Holmberg (Reel to Real Ministries) and featuring Kemper Crabb’s powerful and genre-bending song “Malediction.” Hundreds of thousands of these videos have gone around the world.

Featured on CBS’ 48 Hours, this music video has the potential to change even the most hardened pro-abortionist. Powerful visual evidence proves abortion is murder. See conception take place in-utero and then witness the absolute reality of abortion; all this set to the most anointed pro-life song ever written – Kemper Crabb’s Malediction. Warning: Very strong content; viewer discretion is advised.

13. No Alibis

A fast-paced drama designed especially for teenage audiences, “No Alibis” includes a brief music video on abortion which may be too contemporary for some audiences. It, however, is an excellent presentation of the facts against abortion by teens themselves as we see how abortion touches the lives of the three main characters.

14. Eclipse of Reason

from The Apologetics Group

“…disturbingly stark and may prove harder for critics to dismiss as misleading.” — Newsweek Magazine

Introduced by Charlton Heston, Academy Award-winning actor and conscientious citizen who is well-known for taking an active role in community and film industry affairs. He urges the news media – which he charges with failing “badly to inform the public on the abortion issue” – to honestly consider and then address the information presented by the film ECLIPSE OF REASON in order to promote a better informed public.

“Choice” after all is meaningless unless the “chooser” has a grasp of all the facts.

This film was produced by Bernard Nathanson, one-time abortionist and leader of the nascent pro-choice movement, and documents the intra-uterine life of a little boy at 5 months of age as seen through a fetoscope – a camera placed inside the pregnant uterus. Riveting images of a late abortion are then shown with a camera both inside and outside the uterus. Consistently verifiable statistics emphasize that this horror – killing a child at this stage of development and beyond – takes place 400 times a day in the United States.

In addition, there are deeply moving interviews with the other victims of abortion: women who have been irreparably injured by abortion – both physically and emotionally.

“Dr. Nathanson’s logic and documentation utterly destroy the pro-abortion arguments.” US Senator Gordon Humphrey

15. The Procedure

from Priests For Life

This updated DVD features a powerful one minute video called “Raise Your Hand” and an episode of our “Gospel of Life” TV series in which Fr. Frank quotes from practicing abortionists to describe the abortion procedure. You will also hear the horror that abortion causes the mother as you watch several women of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign share their testimonies!

The third chapter of this DVD – “See for Yourself!” – has Dr. Tony Levatino, a former abortionist, using medical instruments to take you step-by-step through the most common abortion procedures. Also, Dr. Byron Calhoun shows two aborted babies and explains how they died. Finally, view footage of aborted babies from inside an abortion mill.

16. A Better Way

from Arkansas Right to Life:

A Better Way: A positive, encouraging look at one of the most crucial and controversial issues of today – crisis pregnancy. Pat Boone interviews real people who, in the midst of crisis situations, let love be their guide. They found “a better way” by choosing life instead of abortion. Approximately 28 minutes.

17. Assignment Life

from Arkansas Right to Life:

A powerful film chronicling a news reporter’s investigation into abortion. Based on real experience, it includes interviews with those involved on both sides of the abortion issue, as well as showing scenes of both a first-trimester suction abortion and a second-trimester salt-poisoning abortion. (Because of these short but very graphic scenes, the video would not be suitable for young children.) This video is also known as A Matter of Choice and is approximately 27 minutes.

18. Meet the Abortion Providers:

from Arkansas Right to Life:

Reveals the stark reality of what abortion is. In this video, former abortion providers tell their stories about why they became involved in the abortion business and why they eventually left. Those who were responsible for deaths of thousands of unborn children bring the truth of abortion to light. Approximately 29 minutes.

19. Ultrasound: “A Window to the Womb”:

from Arkansas Right to Life:

This is the pro-life version of “Eyewitness” that contains additional information addressing the facts and personal testimonies of abortion. By Shari Richard, RT., RDMS, nationally recognized speaker, sonographer, and founder of Sound Wave Images.

20. Ultrasound: Eyewitness To The Earliest Days of Life:

from Arkansas Right to Life:

Using ultrasound equipment, sonographer Shari Richard shows unborn human life in the womb, including fetal heart beat, yawning, and movements. Suitable for all age groups and ethnic backgrounds. Approximately 25 minutes.

from AV Club:

At the opposite end of the political spectrum comes another HBO documentary about zealots committed to living their politics at any cost. In Soldiers In The Army Of God, Marc Levin and Daphne Pinkerson explore the radical fringe of the anti-abortion movement, specifically a shadowy group called “Army Of God.” As the filmmakers delve into the world of anti-abortion extremism, they uncover a lot of lost souls for whom the movement provides an invaluable outlet for channeling their frustrations. It’s unsettling how far people will go when they’re convinced they’re executing God’s will: The eerie calm on Paul Hill’s face as he awaits execution for murdering an abortion provider is far more disturbing than anything found in most horror films. The filmmakers survey this sect with queasy sociological fascination, but tip their ideological hand with an ominous score straight out of a B-grade horror movie. Such tabloid tactics aren’t needed—the subjects themselves are sufficiently terrifying.

from dvdverdict.com:

Abortion is a lightning rod in America; religious people oppose it, while Planned Parenthood fights for the right of women to choose. Quite often the heated debate has erupted in spectacular acts of hatred, and Soldiers in the Army of God takes an inside look at the most violent faction of abortion demonstrators in the country. The members of the Army of God are willing to resort to terrorist tactics. Fire bombs, shootings, grenades, and physically threatening protests are the method to their stand against “baby killers.” This documentary is a hard look at their motivations, methods, and rationalizations. No matter where you fall on the abortion issue, this is a fascinating peek behind the curtain of a group of people who will resort to any means to stop abortion. The subject material is upsetting no matter how you look at it.

What makes Soldiers in the Army of God so compelling is the film’s ability to distance itself and not judge anyone involved in the movement. These days documentary film makers like Michael Moore have been cranking out work that makes them and their own opinion the focus of a film. As entertaining as this showmanship is, it undermines the true nature of documentary which is meant to merely observe and allow the audience to draw its own conclusions. Soldiers in the Army of God was produced as part of HBO’s America Undercover series, and it lets the subjects speak for themselves. You get unadulterated opinions from both sides of the debate. It’s fair and balanced in a way all good documentaries should be.

It shocks me people would consider murder an acceptable solution to murder. It’s very Old Testament “an eye for an eye” style justice. Yet Soldiers in the Army of God shows how these individuals feel they are engaged in a civil war where they seek to right the wrongs and stop the killing. The filmmakers allow both sides to talk directly to the camera about what all of this means to them. The abortionists come off as more level headed naturally, but surprisingly the antiabortionists come off as intelligent well spoken people too. I don’t agree with violence as an answer, but they do make a convincing argument.

2. Rain Without Thunder:

from Spirituality & Practice:

Rain Without Thunder (Tax Pictures) is a cautionary tale set in America in the year 2042. Abortion has been made illegal by constitutional amendment. Zealous pro-lifers have developed creative ways to combat what they regard as an insidious crime. “The Unborn Child Kidnapping Act” is a law designed to stem the tide of women leaving the country to obtain abortions. And the Catholic church has taken a new tact in its anti-abortion crusade by raising the “Messiah question.” The screenplay by writer and director Gary Bennett is thought-provoking. He has assembled a top-drawer cast including Betty Buckley, Linda Hunt, Jeff Daniels, Austin Pendleton, and others to enact this morality play about fetal politics.

from James Berardinelli:

The year is 2042; the country is the United States of America. Alison Goldring (Ali Thomas) and her mother, Beverly (Betty Buckley), have been convicted of fetal murder under the new “Unborn Child Kidnapping Act”. Since abortions are no longer legal in the United States, Alison, accompanied by Beverly, travelled to Sweeden to obtain one. However, the new law provides that women who leave the country for the express purpose of having an abortion can be tried and convicted as if they had illegally obtained one inside the United States.

Rain Without Thunder concludes with the following quotation by Frederick Douglass: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet avoid confrontation, are people who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its waters.” In a few sentences, this statement expresses the message that the producers of this movie are attempting to convey — that, for the United States to continue to evolve, those of us who value our freedom must fight against those who would repress them.

Told in a documentary-like fashion, Rain Without Thunder explores important and timely issues (few topics press more “hot buttons” than abortion), but, in the process, loses sight of the characters. The narrative style — interviewing the principals rather than actually showing events — dilutes the emotional impact. Words do not adequately replace actions, and this is like watching an extended episode of Sixty Minutes.

Rain Without Thunder is definitely an issues-oriented picture. Women’s rights, racial and sexual equality, the nature of freedom, and the politics of choice are all placed under the microscope. In most cases, some sort of argument is presented for both sides, although there’s never much doubt where the film maker’s sympathies lie. However, as interesting as some of Rain Without Thunder’s sequences are, without well-developed characters, the film’s impact is limited to the intellectual realm.

3. Finn’s Girl:

from Eye Weekly:

Brooke Johnson stars as Finn, an aging lesbian struggling to raise the daughter (Maya Ritter) of her recently deceased partner while working in an abortion clinic. Things get really craaaazy when she starts receiving death threats from local pro-lifers and has two police officers assigned to protect her. The concept has an undeniable movie-of-the-week feel, cramming in as many political hot potatoes as possible. (Biological engineering even makes an appearance.) However, the cast and co-directors Dominique Cardona and Laurie Colbert treat the melodramatic material with such gravity and realism that the film almost works.

4. Choices (1986 tv movie):

from wikipedia:

The film focuses on a 62-year-old judge who rethinks his opposition to abortion when he finds out both his 19-year-old daughter and 38-year-old wife are unwanted pregnant.[1] When his daughter tries to contemplate an abortion without informing her boyfriend, he immediately expresses his disapproval. However, he later changes his mind when he finds out his wife is pregnant as well. The three of them are all forced to make important choices.

from an amazon.com user review:

Evan (George C. Scott) and Marisa granger (Jaqueline Bisset) are happily married dispite the fact he is thirty years older than his wife. Their lives are thrown into turmoil when Terry (Melissa Gilbert), Evans nineteen year old daughter from a previous marriage returns home and confides to Marisa she is pregnant. Terry does not want her father to know she plans to have an abortion. Soon Evan learns her situation and forbids the abortion. Meanwhile, quit unexpectedly, Marisa learns she is pregnant. Evan now shifts 180 degrees and forbids his wife to have the child.

5. If These Walls Could Talk:

from wikipedia:

If These Walls Could Talk is a 1996 made for television movie, broadcast on HBO. It follows the plights of three different women and their experiences with abortion. Each of the three stories takes place in the same house in three different years: 1952, 1974, and 1996. All three segments were co-written by Nancy Savoca. Savoca directed the first and second segment while Cher directed the third. [...]

1952

The 1952 segment deals with Claire Donnelly (Demi Moore), a widowed nurse living in suburban Chicago, who becomes pregnant by her brother-in-law and decides to undergo abortion in order not to hurt her late husband’s family. However, abortion at the time is strictly illegal. Donnelly eventually finds another nurse (CCH Pounder) who provides her the name of a woman who can find her someone who will perform the abortion. After a clandestine procedure she finally manages to abort but dies shortly afterwards due to hemorrhage.

1974

The 1974 segment deals with Barbara Barrows (Sissy Spacek), a struggling and aging mother with four children and a policeman husband who works the night shift, who discovers she must welcome another addition to the family, despite having recently gone back to college. She considers abortion with the support of her teenage daughter (Hedy Burress) but ultimately chooses to keep the child.

1996

The 1996 segment deals with Christine Cullen (Anne Heche), a college student who got pregnant by a married professor, decides on an abortion when he breaks up with her and only offers her money. She is operated on by Dr. Beth Thompson (Cher). However, the abortion takes place during a violent protest, and an abortion protester (Matthew Lillard) walks in on the operation and shoots Dr. Thompson.

6. Invasion of Privacy (1996)

from a user review at amazon.com:

This movie is about whether a woman should have complete rights over her body, uterus and life. The couple start out great, but then she realizes he has terrible dark and violent moods, thinks he may have even harmed an ex gf. She always forgives him and comes home one night, happy about being told she’s pregnant and bursting to share the news with him. He erupts at her before she has time to tell him her news, he rapes her and she cowers in fear from him. She breaks up with him and decides to get an abortion – only to find out that her psycho/cruel ex bf has alreayd contacted her Dr and mentions how happy they both are, eventho they are going thru some difficulties.

It gets worse and worse from there… he kidnaps her and locks her in a secluded cabin until it’s too late for her to legally get an abortion. He kills and manipulates individuals and the judicial system – ultimately disgusting – but he gets his!

7. Story Of Women:

from amazon.com:

Marie Latour (Isabelle Huppert) wants to be a singer, but she is a woman struggling against poverty in war-torn France, with two children to feed and a husband away fighting. When a neighbor becomes pregnant, Marie performs an abortion and is rewarded for her services with a Victrola. It’s a small step from the Victrola to an income, and Marie finds that she likes to live comfortably and feed her children well. Her husband Paul (Francois Cluzet) returns and attempts to coerce her into being the type of wife he imagines he wants, but Marie insists on running things her way, and her husband is relegated to the role he imagined for her. She finds contentment in her power (merely the power to be herself and pursue her desires), but things are terribly out of balance in the world she was born into and eventually revenge is exacted. Claude Chabrol (Madame Bovary) has created a remarkably complex and poignant film about a very complex subject: the true story of the last woman to be executed in France by guillotine. An important film to see.

8. Leona’s Sister Gerri

from amazon.com:

The tragic and grisly photograph–a woman on a motel floor, dead after an illegal abortion–stirred a nation and inflamed a movement. Now, LEONA’S SISTER GERRI tells the powerful and thought-provoking story of the anonymous woman behind the image and how she became an extraordinary icon for the ever-controversial abortion issue. Through tears and laughter, Gerri Santoro’s tale of desperation in the days before legal abortion “unfolds in an intimate, unpretentious style” (The New York Times) as told by her family and friends.

9. I Had An Abortion

from an imdb.com user review:

An informative, thou a bit long, documentary of women’s experiences with abortion.

The “cast” is very intergenerational (several had illegal abortions, others had post Roe V. Wade abortions); come from different classes, races, and have different sexualities; and represent various spiritualities and religions. The women interviewed discuss their abortions and their feelings surrounding them; their children before and after their abortions; and often discuss their relationships with their own mothers. They also speak one how they feel about those who are anti-choice, from those that protested the clinic they had appointments at, to how people reacted to their abortions. Adoption, single motherhood, contraception, and chemical abortions (taking doctor-prescribed pills at home) are also discussed.

Some women work around abortion and other pro choice issues, others just share their abortion stories, and a few women were previously pro life- one still believes that abortion is taking a life. A great way to put faces on the abortion debate, as one in 3 women will have an abortion by the time she is 45. A very information film, everyone should try to see it!

10. The Abortion Diaries

In her new documentary, The Abortion Diaries, filmmaker Penny Lane does something quietly revolutionary. She invites 12 women over for dinner to talk about their abortions. Lane had an abortion four years ago, an experience that she describes as “horrifically isolating.” When she reluctantly began to confide in her friends, she realized that most women she knew “had abortions and had never told anyone.”

The Abortion Diaries ruptures that silence by going straight to the heart of the matter–women’s personal stories about their abortions.

11. Legal But Out of Reach: Six Women’s Abortion Stories

Description: Legal But Out of Reach intertwines the stories of six women and girls who seek abortions but do not have access to the necessary funds until they are helped by abortion funds (member organizations of the National Network of Abortion Funds.) The ‘characters’ range from a scared 11—year—old girl and her mother, to a 30—year—old single mother in hiding from an abusive husband. These stories, shot and edited in a straightforward documentary style, expose the many challenges faced by poor women who seek to end unwanted pregnancies, and the critical role that abortion funds play in states where Medicaid funding does not cover the cost of the procedure.

Client goal: National Network of Abortion Funds is a national organization that provides logistical and organizational backup to its member funds across the country. Legal But Out of Reach was commissioned to provide both the national office and the member funds with an ongoing fundraising tool for house parties and other organizational events; and to have an educational video to share with educators and activists seeking to raise awareness about economic barriers to access to abortion.

12. Jane: An Abortion Service

A documentary film reveals the story of a secret women-run collective that took matters into their own hands when abortion was illegal and created a safe underground network in the Chicago area.

13. Holy Terror

Documentary depicts the movements and attitudes and sometimes violent methods of the anti-abortion movement in the U.S., including an analysis of the alliance between the religious right and the political right.

14. Dear Dr. Spencer: Abortion in a Small Town (25 min. short)

From the 1920s until his death in 1969, Dr. Robert Douglas Spencer practiced medicine in a coal region of Pennsylvania. Dr. Spencer treated colds, set fractures, and provided basic medical care. He also performed more than 40,000 safe, illegal abortions.

After performing his first abortion in 1925 for a poor coal miner’s wife (almost 50 years before Roe v. Wade’s landmark decision), the doctor’s reputation spread. Soon he was receiving letters from women across the country asking for his help. The citizens of Ashland, Pennsylvania looked the other way as young women walked to and from his office, and even protected him each time the state police tried to shut down his practice. Dr. Spencer was arrested three times, but never convicted.

DEAR Dr. SPENCER begins with a selection of letters from thousands of women pleading for his help. They come from students, housewives, husbands and boyfriends, and they reveal with painful clarity the desperation their writers felt. The program includes interviews from those who remember Dr. Spencer, including Ashland residents (his wife, his lawyer, and many of his friends); women who traveled in search of his safe care; and a juror who served at one of his trials and helped to acquit him, even though she opposes abortion.

The film is narrated by actress Lili Taylor and features music by Bay Area mandolinist Mike Marshall. The film also includes an appearance by author and Beat poet Hettie Jones who wrote about her experience traveling to Dr. Spencer’s clinic in her 1990 memoir How I Became Hettie Jones.

15. I Witness: Shot Down in Pensacola

Once known for its pristine beaches and imposing naval base, Pensacola, Florida has become the center of the abortion debate with bombings, stalkings, and the murders of two clinic doctors and an escort. I WITNESS traces the dizzying escalation of violence in this Florida panhandle community. The documentary features “found” footage shot by clinic escorts, and interviews with religious and civic leaders struggling to provide a moral compass in a community torn by violence and religious fervor.

I WITNESS reveals what one religious activist calls “a case study in the effects of religious terrorism on a community.” Starting in 1984, the bombings, the murders, stalkings and continuing conflict at the clinics have forced this highly religious community to scrutinize both its convictions and responsibilities surrounding this difficult issue.

16. On Hostile Ground

A small number of healthcare professionals in this country have become targets in a civil war. They receive little public support for their work and face dedicated and unpredictable opponents. Their ranks are shrinking. On Hostile Ground enters the lives of three abortion providers to reveal the obstacles (practical, legal, and emotional) that they face everyday, and shows them struggle with the decision to perform this procedure. It allows providers who work on hostile ground to tell their stories by being themselves, without the help of a narrator. They reveal what their professional decision has done to their personal and family lives. While they each have their own stories, they are all driven more by personal experiences and spiritual beliefs than by political conviction. They each express anger, confusion, and resentment in their own way. By weaving together three very different character portraits, this documentary takes an unusual approach to a volatile social conflict, portraying abortion through the personal stories of those who are in mortal danger because they provide it.

17. Live Free Or Die

A portrait of a small town OB/GYN that explores the radical decline in the number of doctors performing abortions, as well as the impact of Catholic hospital mergers on the provision of abortion services. Aired as a POV special in 2000 with a town hall and Internet component that generated the most extensive on-line discussion in the history of POV programming. Human Rights Watch Film Festival entrant.

18. Silent Choices

Chicago-born filmmaker Faith Pennick was sent on a mission after a friend made a simple, straightforward comment. During an argument about the future of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in 1973, her friend declared to Pennick, “Abortion is a white woman’s issue, and black women have more important things to worry about.” “I was floored by her comment,” said Pennick, “but I understood where that statement came from. Anytime you see media reports about abortion, it’s the same handful of middle-class, middle-aged white women running pro-choice organizations that are interviewed. How do you relate to an issue if you don’t see yourself in it?”

Pennick’s response to her friend is the groundbreaking documentary, Silent Choices. The 60-minute film examines the controversial issue of abortion and how it impacts the lives of African American women. Depicting the juxtaposition of racial and reproductive politics, the film takes a viewer on a journey from the early 20th century to the present day and depicts how African Americans contributed to and were affected by abortion and family planning. From African Americans’ cautious involvement with Margaret Sanger during the early birth control movement to black nationalists and civil rights activists who staunchly opposed abortion and birth control– or stayed silent on the issue–Silent Choices unmasks the complexities of this extremely emotional issue among African Americans.

19. Not Yet Rain

Last April, Ipas released Not Yet Rain, a new film about unsafe abortion in Africa by Emmy Award-winning director Lisa Russell. Not Yet Rain follows women in Ethiopia who must fight for access to safe abortion care.

By showing women’s real experiences with abortion, coupled with a public health perspective, Ipas has created a tool that organizations and individuals here in the United States can use to break through the silence here and show how abortion is linked to many issues we care about – issues such as sexual violence, international family planning and human rights.

20. Like a Ship in the Night

Abortion is illegal in Ireland, North and South, potentially punishable by life imprisonment. And yet at least 8,000 Irish women a year travel to England for abortions. They make this journey in secret and return in silence, some of them never telling a soul. LIKE A SHIP IN THE NIGHT is a 30 minute documentary which follows a young painter, a working class mother of five, and a self-proclaimed country girl as they plan their secret journeys across the Irish sea.

21. Rosita

ROSITA, an hour-long documentary by award-winning filmmakers Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater, traces a young girl’s journey from innocent victim to unwitting victor. When a nine-year-old Nicaraguan girl becomes pregnant as a result of a rape, her parents — illiterate campesinos working in Costa Rica — seek a legal “therapeutic” abortion to save their only child’s life. Their quest pits them against the governments of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, the medical establishment, and the Catholic Church. When their story gains international media attention the repercussions ripple across Latin America and Europe.

22. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Sociological over explanation, first for humorous then for poignant effect, on the topic of abortion. An unseen narrator explains, as if the viewer was from another galaxy, life on earth generally, and in the United States specifically, and relates the topic of reproduction, government and abortion to one particular family.

Through the use of film clips, news reports, and other elements, the story is told of the Adams family, a politician father, a caring mother, their daughter and her boyfriend, and how this topic becomes an important part of their lives. Included in the discussion is the history of the Constitution, a biology lesson of mammals, a geographic and sociological examination of the planet and a look at the rise of feminism in the USA.

23. Last Abortion Clinic (Frontline documentary)

“The Last Abortion Clinic” is set in Mississippi and looks at the legislation that has been passed curtailing access to abortion in the state. At the time of the movie’s creation, there was only one abortion clinic left in Mississippi. Anti-choice laws have gradually made it impossible for clinics to operate. First there was the legislation that required clinics to be registered as outpatient surgical centers. Then there was the 24-hour waiting period. Then there was the mandatory “counseling” script that providers had to give to patients before they could perform services. All of these laws have had a devastating effect on reproductive rights, and the bills’ sponsors are very clear about their intentions: they want to shut down the abortion clinics and test the “undue burden standard” in order to overturn Roe v. Wade

The “undue burden standard” was a result of the 1992 Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The Supreme Court ruled in Casey that states could place restrictions on access to abortion so long as the restrictions did not pose an “undue burden” for women. Casey explicitly rejected the trimester framework that was established in Roe v. Wade and caused a new wave of legislation to test the limits of the undue burden standard. The Supreme Court was intentionally vague in defining the standard. And now the question for pro-choice advocates is how many women have to be effected before the Court says that the obstacles are an undue burden?

24. From the Back-Alleys to the Supreme Court & Beyond

a trilogy of documentaries:

a: WHEN ABORTION WAS ILLEGAL: Untold Stories (28 min.)

Compelling personal accounts reveal the physical, legal, and emotional consequences during the era when abortion was a crime in the United States. Doctors who risked imprisonment by providing illegal procedures, women who experienced back-alley abortions, and others who broke the law by helping women find safe care speak frankly, some for the first time.

b: FROM DANGER to DIGNITY: The Fight for Safe Abortion (57 min.)

After more than a century of back-alley tragedies, a national movement to decriminalize abortion took root. FROM DANGER TO DIGNITY combines rare archival footage with present-day interviews to weave together two parallel stories: the evolution of ‘underground’ networks which helped women find safe abortions outside the law and the intensive efforts of activists and legislators who broke the silence and changed the laws.

c: THE FRAGILE PROMISE of CHOICE: Abortion in the U.S. Today (57 min.)

The World Health Organization estimates that unsafe abortions cause more than 75,000 deaths annually, worldwide. GIRE, a major reproductive rights group in Mexico, estimates 1,000,000 abortions take place each year in Mexico and 1,500 women die from clandestine procedures. Socio-economic and legal constraints, even in nations where abortion is technically legal and available, including the United States, prevent millions of women from obtaining adequate medical care. Situations in the United States that this video addresses include the crises of access and affordability, the atmosphere of harassment and violence for doctors and clinic workers, the impact of growing state and local legislative restrictions for women seeking care, the complexity of religious issues, and the provider crisis.

25. From Danger To Dignity: The Fight For Safe Abortion

weaves together two parallel stories: the evolution of underground networks that helped women find safe abortions outside the law, and the intensive efforts by activists and legislators to decriminalize abortion through legislative and judicial channels. Even though most abortions were illegal in the United States before 1973, restrictive laws did not prevent abortions. However, the safety of an abortion depended on a woman’s financial situation and her connections. A handful of individuals – doctors, skilled midwives, and others – provided relatively safe, low-cost care. Some physicians performed abortions for their wealthy private patients, charging thousands of dollars. Most women who sought abortions risked their lives by going to practitioners who had no medical training. Hospital wards were filled with victims of unsafe abortions.

After more than a century of backless tragedies, a national movement toward safe, legal abortion began in the 1960s. The documentary FROM DANGER to DIGNITY combines rare archival footage with interviews that document the courageous efforts of those who fought to break the silence, change the laws and end the shame which surrounded abortion when it was a crime.

26. In a Just World: Abortion, Contraception, and World Religion

The issues surrounding a woman’s reproductive rights are international in scope. In many countries, a woman’s right to contraception and abortion is a religious issue, a legal issue, an ethical issue, and a social/cultural issue. In the United States it is also a major political issue. In A Just World addresses all of these issues in some way with a significant focus on the relationship between a woman’s reproductive rights and her religion. Specifically, the show includes discussion of Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity and Buddhism. The program is also multicultural and features women from around the world with a specific emphasis on the US, Ethiopia and Peru.

The documentary looks at the teachings of major world religions as they relate to contraception, abortion and family planning.

27. Voices of Choice: Physicians Who Provided Abortions Before Roe v. Wade

A video called Voices of Choice: Physicians Who Provided Abortions Before Roe v. Wade documents the courageous stories of illegal and legal abortion provision prior to 1973 as told by the physicians who provided these essential health services and those who worked on abortion reform

28. Motherless: A Legacy of Loss from Illegal Abortion

MOTHERLESS is a half-hour documentary which explores the tragedy of death from illegal abortions. Three women and one man, whose mothers died due to complications from abortion before its legalization, discuss the trauma of loving and then losing a mother at a young age. Two of their mothers died in 1929, one in 1950 and one as recently as 1960.

Social and historical context is provided by a physician who treated hundreds of women dying from septic abortions, and a medical historian familiar with the widespread nature and causes of this tragic phenomenon. They discuss the medical, legislative and social history of abortion from the late nineteenth century until 1973. MOTHERLESS offers a rare and deeply moving insight into the human tragedies behind the statistics. It captures the feelings of these survivors as they remember and mourn their mothers, four among the thousands who died.

29. Aborto Sin Pena (Abortion Without Shame)

Greg is presenting his new movie called, Aborto Sin Pena (Abortion Without Shame/ Penalty). The film is a collection of interviews with three different Mexican women who received illegal abortions in Mexico. The women are all very different, one is indigenous, one already has a family and the third is a young college student. They all had abortions at illegal clinics, had a relatively positive experience and do not regret the decision. The movie shows another perspective on abortion, one that differs from the more commonly heard stories of dirty, dangerous, abortion clinics and the regret and pain women feel afterwards.

30. Obvious Child

from this page:

What makes Obvious Child unique is that it’s a comedy — a romantic comedy, actually. Its writing style is not all that different from Knocked Up and Juno; there are quirky pop culture references and fart jokes galore. But this film is actually believable. It tells the story of a young woman who, the night after being dumped by her boyfriend, sleeps with a man she hardly knows and becomes pregnant. She decides to have an abortion, and on her way to the clinic, she runs into her one-night stand. I won’t ruin the film for you — you can watch it online — but needless to say, hilarity ensues, and ultimately the film has a sweet and happy ending.

That last part is key. At the screening, Robespierre stated that she and her collaborators intentionally wanted to make a film about abortion that depicts abortion as being a responsible choice and also features a happy ending. I think this is a very important message to get across, and it’s not one that most films about abortion choose to acknowledge. While abortion is certainly a serious decision — and all serious decisions in life are accompanied by emotions — it’s important to remember that severe psychological reactions after abortions are not common and that, often, the decision to abort is a positive decision for the woman involved. That reality is depicted well in Obvious Child.

summary from imdb.com:

Elsa and Clive, two young rebellious scientists, defy legal and ethical boundaries and forge ahead with a dangerous experiment: splicing together human and animal DNA to create a new organism.

written/directed by: Vincenzo Natali

starring: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley

A Trailer

Conservo-Libertarian Reviews:
John Nolte at Big Hollywood
Christian Toto
Kurt Loder
movieguide.org Christian reviews

Abortion/Life Content: [will have to wait for the dvd release]

===============================

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD:

part of a review from Film School Rejects:

Splice is the story of two scientists, who are also involved with one another, hard at work trying to crack all manner of genetic codes. They are fusing the genetic material of various types of life in order to create an entirely new organism that can then produce valuable proteins used to fight diseases. The smitten biologists are confident that their work is on the right track until tragedy strikes at a convention and their parent company threatens to pull the plug. In desperation, they decide to cross the ethical point of no return and add human DNA to the mix. The result of their experiment is Dren, an amalgamation of several animals but predominantly exhibiting distinctly human features. Their excitement turns to horror when Dren displays erratic, violent behavior. Have they made the breakthrough of the century or a terrible, irreversible mistake?

I liked Splice a lot, and I feel I’m right on the cusp of loving it. For me, Splice represents exactly what Science-Fiction is supposed to be. There is a stigma, and perhaps at one point I held this same belief, that Sci-Fi is a juvenile, plastic genre that produces little more than spectacular effects and mindless fantasy. But great Sci-Fi takes a very tangible societal issue or question and uses technology to emphasize the universality and timelessness of those issues. The interesting thing about Splice is that it is less interested in examining the obvious moral quandary of cloning as it is the question of abortion. At the beginning of the film, our protagonists Clive (Adrien Brody) & Elsa (Sarah Polley) discuss the possibility of having a child and while he is strongly for the idea, she is staunchly opposed. The argument appears to placed on the back burner in the wake of Dren’s arrival, but if you listen closely to their conversations about what to do about Dren and how to handle the situation, they are echoing the conversations of a young couple struggling with the abortion decision; their actions and the shift in their relationship are also indicative of such a decision.

here’s a review snippet from Crash! Site:

Here’s another MAJOR SPOILER… As I kind of mentioned before, the Dren character rapes the Elsa character (Sarah Polley) at the very end of the film (and gets her pregnant). This seemed VERY ‘tacked on at the last minute’, as if they were trying to figure a way out of the film. They also added on what I presume to be an abortion ‘statement’. That’s what I was reading in the tea leaves, anyway. If they had wanted to really make this an abortion film (pro OR con), then the pregnancy thing needed to happen WAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY earlier in the movie in order to ‘make your case’ as it were. Not that I care about seeing any movie about that topic. Just sayin’. Dropping it in at the very end wass for nothing but shock value.

part of a review by Lou Lumenick from the NY Post:

Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley play a superstar geneticist couple who at one point debate abortion in Vincenzo Natali’s smart, scary — and at times very funny — horror movie “Splice.”

The fetus in question has been engineered from the genes of various animals — as well as Polley’s character, Elsa. Brody’s Clive, whose ethical concerns have been pushed away by his girlfriend, wants to destroy the hybrid embryo before it comes to term, as they previously agreed.

But her burgeoning maternal instincts prevail. Needless to say, keeping this particular baby turns out to be a huge mistake.

from jezebel.com:

Half psychological thriller and half horror film, Splice, which stars Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, is a surprisingly smart film that explores issues surrounding bio-ethics, abortion, and parenthood through a modern-day Frankenstein story.

summary from imdb.com:

At a turning point in his life, a former tennis pro falls for a femme-fatal type who happens to be dating his friend and soon-to-be brother-in-law.

written/directed by: Woody Allen

starring: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Matthew Goode, Emily Mortimer, Scarlett Johansson, Brian Cox, Ewen Bremner

A Trailer

Conservo-Libertarian Reviews:
Kyle Smith
Nehring The Edge
Thomas S. Hibbs
Rightwing Film Geek

Abortion/Life Content:

Emily Mortimer: I want you to make me pregnant.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers: Chloe… We discussed this. It’s very quick.

Emily Mortimer: It’s not quick, we’ve been sleeping together for ages. And I want three children, and I want them when I’m young.

Emily Mortimer: Meanwhile, I don’t know what’s wrong. All my cousins get pregnant so easily.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers: Look… it’ll happen. I’m just really tired.

Rose Keegan: Well, you have to see a fertility doctor.

Emily Mortimer: I know. We’ve tried everything. [...]

Rose: Would you ever consider adopting?

Emily: No, absolutely not. I want my own children. [...]

Rose: Did I tell you Victoria Phyfe is pregnant?

Emily: Really?

Rose: She’s so happy.

Emily Mortimer: I think he really knows what he’s doing. Didn’t you get a good feeling about him?

Jonathan Rhys Meyers: To me, fertility doctors are a cut above witch doctors.

Emily: Oh, yeah. Well, he’s not like that last one. I feel like it’s gonna happen this time. [...]

Jonathan: I’ve got to go to work.

Emily: Oh, really? I was kind of hoping we might, you know… before you went to work. It’s my time of the month, and remember the doctor said we really should try and do it as often as we possibly can in the morning.

Jonathan: Darling, I’m gonna be late.

Emily Mortimer: You know, I bought Chris an ancient Greek fertility charm. Do you remember?

Jonathan Rhys Meyers: I’ll never forget.

Emily: I sent off for that fertility thingy. He had to put it under his pillow for two months. And absolutely nothing happened, of course. Poor thing. I’d just subjected him to the torture.

Matthew Goode: They think he’s firing blanks.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers: Are you mad calling me here?

Scarlett Johansson: When are you coming over?

Jonathan: I’m trying to make it for tomorrow.

Scarlett: I can’t wait till tomorrow, I’m going crazy.

Jonathan: What the hell’s the matter?

Scarlett: I’m pregnant.

Jonathan: I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

[...]

Jonathan: How the hell did you get pregnant?

Scarlett: I told you that weekend last month that we needed to be careful and I didn’t have protection, but you couldn’t wait.

Jonathan: What unbelievable bad luck. ######, I can’t get my wife pregnant no matter how hard I try, and the minute you’re unprotected I knock you up.

Scarlett: It’s ’cause you love me, and you don’t love her.

Jonathan: Is that your interpretation?

Scarlett: It’s a child conceived out of genuine passion, not as part of some fertility project.

Jonathan: OK. Well I’ll go with you, and we’ll get it sorted.

Scarlett: I’m not doing that again.

Jonathan: Again? What’s that supposed to mean?

Scarlett: It’s the third time. I did it once when I was younger, and then I did it for Tom. I didn’t want to, but he insisted.

Jonathan: Nola, I really can’t see any other way.

Scarlett: Why can’t I just have it?

Jonathan: And what?

Scarlett: And we’ll raise it together.

Jonathan: That’s obviously not possible.

Scarlett: Why? You hate your job, you hate your life. I mean, it seems like a blessing. It’s a sign.

Jonathan: Look, Nola, I have to go. I’m juggling six things at the same time just to make this trip to the city look legit. I’ll talk to you on Tuesday.

Scarlett: Chris… You must… I expect you to do the right thing, OK? I’m not walking away from this.

[...]

Emily Mortimer: Is it something to do with those phone calls you kept getting? Because you acted really strangely after each of them. Are you having an affair?

Jonathan: Am I having an affair?

Emily: Yeah, that’s what I asked.

Jonathan: No.

Emily: You are.

Jonathan: Of course I’m not. Don’t be silly.

Emily: Do you not love me anymore?

Jonathan: Of course I love you.

Emily: Well, what’s wrong?

Jonathan: I just feel like I’m letting you down.

Emily: You’re not. How? Is it because I’m not getting pregnant?

Jonathan: I just… feel so guilty. So terribly guilty.

Emily: Listen, Chris. We’ve both been to the doctor. We’re both perfectly healthy. I can conceive and you’re perfectly capable of making a woman pregnant. Is it me? Have I been horribly pushy and obnoxious on the subject? Look, I… I just want a baby. I want to have our baby. We haven’t been lucky yet, that’s all.

Jonathan: Oh, Chloe.

Emily: Let’s get off the subject. Having a child should be something that makes us both happy and excited, not a cause of all this tension and anxiety and…

Jonathan Rhys Meyers: Nola, stop!

Scarlett Johansson: Well, this is crazy. We’re having a child together!

Jonathan: We don’t have to have a child together. It would make life a hell of a lot simpler if we didn’t.

Scarlett: Yeah, simpler for you, but not for me.

Jonathan: It occurred to me that even if you had the child, I could help you out financially.

Scarlett: That’s not enough.

Jonathan: Nola, be reasonable.

Emily Mortimer: Can we tell her now?

Jonathan Rhys Meyers: Sure.

Emily: Well, I wanted you to be here.

Penelope Wilton: Well, what is it?

Emily: Mummy… You can finally crack open the champagne. It looks like I’m pregnant.

Penelope: When did you hear?

Emily: This morning.

Penelope: Oh, I’m so delighted.

Emily: Oh, good.

Penelope: Alec? Alec? Come here.

Emily: We’re both walking on air.

Penelope: Well, you’re walking on air. Your husband looks a bit shell shocked.

Emily: ‘Cause I’ve exhausted him, poor thing.

Brian Cox: What?

Penelope: Chloe’s pregnant.

Brian: Oh, what a great day. Oh, my darling, congratulations.

Penelope: I’m absolutely thrilled. I couldn’t be more pleased.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers: Nola… it wasn’t easy. But when the time came, I could pull the trigger. You never know who your neighbors are till there’s a crisis. You can learn to push the guilt under the rug and… go on. You have to. Otherwise it overwhelms you.

Margaret Tyzack: And what about me? What about the next-door neighbor? I had no involvement in this awful affair. Is there no problem about me having to die as an innocent bystander?

Jonathan: The innocent are sometimes slain to make way for a grander scheme. You were collateral damage.

Margaret: So was your own child.

Jonathan: Sophocles said: “To never have been born may be the greatest boon of all.”

Scarlett Johansson: Prepare to pay the price, Chris. Your actions were clumsy. Full of holes. Almost like someone begging to be found out.

Jonathan: It would be fitting if I were apprehended and punished. At least there would be some small sign ofjustice. Some small… measure of hope… for the possibility of meaning.

Matthew Goode: Let’s work on number two. Come on.

Emily Mortimer: Come on, he is a handsome boy. Look at that face.

Matthew: Yeah, he’s gorgeous. [...]

Brian Cox: With parents like Chloe and Chris, this child will be great at anything he sets his mind to.

Matthew: Do you know what, I don’t care if he’s great. I just hope that he’s lucky.

Penelope and Emily: Oh, lovely. What a lovely thought. He probably will be. Absolutely adorable.

=======================================

from screenit.com:

SCARLETT JOHANSSON plays the struggling American actress who initially wants nothing to do with Chris after their one-night stand, but eventually falls for him despite being engaged to Tom, and Chris seeing and then being married to Chloe. She drinks, smokes and we hear she had two abortions in the past, but refuses when she becomes pregnant again. [...]

For those concerned about such matters, we hear that Nola had two previous abortions (one when she was younger, one that Tom — her boyfriend at the time — encouraged her to have) and Chris seems to want her to have a third for her pregnancy by him.

part of an article from 2006: “Actress Scarlett Johansson Bashes President Bush’s Pro-Life Abortion View” by Steven Ertelt from LifeNews.com

Scarlett Johansson, the “Black Dahlia” actress is the latest to add her name to the list of stars using their fame as a political platform.

Johansson recently attacked President Bush for his pro-life views on abortion. She said women’s rights would be doomed if the law was left up to him.

She accused the president, in an interview with Cosmopolitan magazine, of denying women their rights and forcing them to carry unwanted pregnancies to term.

“We’re supposed to be liberated in America but if our President had his way, we wouldn’t be educated about sex at all,” she said. “Every woman would have six children and we wouldn’t be able to have abortions.”

just to balance that out:

from a 2008 article at People.com:

The Match Point actress and director-to-be, 23, plans to tour the region for five days as part of a USO/Army Morale Welfare Recreation entertainment tour, says the organization. While there, she will visit numerous military installations, greet fans, sign autographs and interact with members of the U.S. armed forces.

“This USO tour to the Gulf region truly means a lot. I’ve wanted to go over and visit for some time, and now my moment has arrived,” says Johansson – who gets a large supply of fan letters from the military and wanted to do more than just answer them on paper.

“It’s one thing to reply to a letter or extend your thanks to service members in a speech, but it’s another thing to visit them and spend time with those that do so much for us back home,” she adds in a statement released by the USO.

summary from imdb.com:

A lonely middle-aged catering manager spends all of his time studying tapes of an eccentric TV chef. Meanwhile, a young woman is making her way from Ireland to find her boy friend, who moved to England to get a job in a lawn-mower factory. On arrival, she makes an early contact with the caterer, who recommends a boarding room to her. Slowly, it is revealed that the caterer has in fact befriended and subsequently abused more than a dozen young women. He, of course, now sets his sight on this woman. Much of the story is told in flashbacks, revealing how each of the characters grew to the point where they now find themselves. However, the drama of the character interaction is more important to director, Atom Egoyan, than the potential horror of the situation.

directed by: Atom Egoyan

starring: Bob Hoskins, Elaine Cassidy, Arsinee Khanjian

A Trailer

Conservo-Libertarian Reviews:
James Bowman
movieguide.org Christian reviews

Abortion/Life Content:

Gerard McSorley: Has Lysaght got you pregnant?

Elaine Cassidy: We’re both responsible. [...] I’ve missed a few times.

Gerard: How many?

Elaine: There’s no doubt about it.

Gerard: You’re carrying the enemy within you. Thank ### your mother isn’t alive to see it. You’re a whore. You’re a whore!! You’re worse than that!

Bob Hoskins: You’re fond of the boyfriend, are you? It’s not difficult to believe he’s fond of you. I said it’s not difficult to believe he’s fond of you.

Elaine Cassidy: I’m having his baby.

Bob: What?

Elaine: I’m pregnant.

Bob: Heh, heh. You’re going to be a mother!

Bob Hoskins: I’m glad you’re going to have a baby, Felicia. It’s a help to me, that.

Elaine Cassidy: A Help?

Bob: Another life coming. [...] A child is a blessing, Felicia. Never forget that. A blessing. Are you thinking of having the thing terminated, Felicia?

Elaine: What?

Bob: Do they have that over there? Abortion?

Elaine: Where?

Bob: Ireland.

Elaine: There’s difficulties.

Bob: Difficulties. Of course.

Prostitute car passenger: Had an abortion six months ago. I had to get rid of it. And it had to be quick. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breathe. Because every day, it was growing inside me. And it was becoming… becoming a person and I just… made me feel ill. I Didn’t want it. It reminded me of what I did. What I do. [???] private. I looked in the phone book. I found a clinic. Nice place, the Gishford in Sheffield. Stuff all really nice. Friendly. Didn’t ask too many questions.

Bob Hoskins making abortion reservations for Elaine Cassidy: Right, thank you. Thank you for fitting her in. Bye!

Elaine Cassidy: Johhny’s different. He’d want our baby.

Bob: And you came here to ascertain that? To make sure? Is that right, Felicia? But you never got an answer? We have to look at it like that. If the girl in the office had struck lucky today, then it would’ve been a different kettle of fish. I’m not saying it wouldn’t. But she didn’t. And I’m definitely of one mind with you now. We won’t find Johnny.

Elaine: Johnny will be over for St. Patrick’s Day. Or Easter. I was thinking about that the entire day. It could be alright when I’m there and we’re together again.

Bob: Well there’s no doubt that Johnny loves you, dear. Nothing you’ve said to me contradicts that. Now, the point I’m trying to make to you is: the situation, like you and Johnny are in, could all too easily be affected by misfortune. Ada said that, Felicia. Ada had a considerable insight into matters of the heart. The thing is, Felicia, you’re over here now. This isn’t Ireland and we have… certain facilities available. What I’m saying to you is what I’d say to any daughter Ada or myself might have had. I’m giving you the benefit of long experience. There isn’t a doubt in my mind, Felicia. I’ve thought of nothing else since I’ve rested poor Ada in the ground.

Elaine: There’s some would call it murder.

Bob: Murder? We’re not in this world to cause pain, dear. Of course, you have to think of yourself on occasion. I’m not saying you don’t. But there are other people, too. Which is something you’re daily more aware of as you grow older.

Elaine: What are you talking about?

Bob: I won’t deny you’ve been through it, Felicia. But so has your dad. And your great grand. Imagine them trying to hold their heads up. There’s that to think about, too. We all have to do terrible things, Felecia. We have to find the courage sometimes. Now you’re a young girl. When you find Johnny again, you can both make the choice to have a child. But the circumstances have to be right. A child needs to be surrounded by all the love it can. The love of the mother. Of course he’ll have that. But the love of the father. And the grandfather. And the great great grandmother. Why deprive this baby of that? I’ve put by a little that I’d gladly donate in order to do the decent thing by your family.

Elaine: Anything you lend me, I’ll send back. Every penny.

Bob: I’ve no doubt, Felicia. They can do an immediate at the Gishford.

Elaine: A what?

Bob: It’s a clinic. They can do it at once. I asked a girl to put a call into them. You could be back across the water by monday. Back a free spirit, Felicia. With the whole thing lifted from you. It’s what’s right, Felicia, believe me. It’s what’s meant.

[Elaine lies on clinic table]

Bob: C’mon, now, put your coat on. Yeah. That’s it. C’mon, let’s get you home. Thank you. We’re very much obliged.

Clinic Receptionist, Emma Powell: See that she keeps nice and warm.

Bob: A little journey, then I’ll tuck her up.

Emma: Oh, just a minute. Doctor said she wasn’t sleeping too well.

Bob: C’mon, dear. [...]

Elaine: I’ll send every penny back. And every penny I’ve caused today.

Bob: Today was my treat, dear. I was happy about today. Ada would’ve liked today. But you’re in no state to travel, of course.

Elaine: I have to go.

Bob: You weren’t at all well in the car, dear. You certainly can’t set off on a journey is this condition.

Elaine: I shouldn’t have done it.

Bob: What’s done is done, dear. No one ever grew rich on regrets. What about the bright side, eh? For as long as you want it, Felicia, there’s a welcome at number 3. You have your own little room, now. The sensible thing would be if we took it day by day.

Elaine: I had dreams. The whole time it was happening. I had dreams. I dreamt that I saw him. Johnny and me. Walking with our little boy.

Bob: A boy, was it? Oh, I remember being a boy. Drink up your cocoa, dear. I’m sorry if I’m fatherly, Felicia. I can’t help being fatherly. I’ve grown fond of you.

Bob Hoskins: Oh, a chat in the car. I like the chats. Then sleep. They were always asleep when it happened, Felicia. When I layed them to rest.

Elaine Cassidy: No!

Bob: Sshhhh. I couldn’t lay you to rest, dear. Not until you’d taken care of your little one. I couldn’t do that myself, Felicia. You are my special angel sent from up above. Fate smiled down on me and sent an angel to love. You are my special angel right from Paradise. I know that you’re an angel. Heaven is in your eyes.

Elaine Cassidy: Your grandchild wasn’t born, Mrs. Lysaght. Did you tell Johnny? Did you give him any of these letters? Wherever Johnny is, I want him to know that I’m alright. The pain can wash away. Healing can commence. Lost within a man who murdered, there was a soul like any other. [...] I remember the names of the ones he took away. Elsie. Beth. Sharon. Jackie. Bobbie. Samantha. I remember these names with every new face that I meet. May we all rest in peace.

=======================================

summary from imdb.com:

Amelie is a shy waitress in a Montmartre cafe. After returning a long-lost childhood treasure to a former occupant of her apartment, and seeing the effect it has on him, she decides to set out on a mission to make others happy and in the meantime pursues a quirky guy who collects discarded photo booth pictures.

directed by: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

starring: Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz, Dominique Pinon

A Trailer

Conservo-Libertarian Reviews:
James Bowman
Nehring The Edge
movieguide.org Christian reviews

Abortion/Life Content:

Audrey Tautou: And I had heart-attacks, I had to get an abortion, cause I was on crack when pregnant. Besides that, everything’s OK.

=====================================

from screenit.com:

Amelie jokes that she had two heart attacks, took some crack and had an abortion while pregnant just to see if her father is listening to her.

summary from imdb.com:

After living in Japan for some time and finding employment as a drug dealer, a brother sends for his sister to move Japan and live with him. With a story out of sequence, this film shows the brother and sister in their intimate moments. The experience is jarring at times and blissful at others. The setting is the Japanese redlight district of the very near future. The sister gets involved with sex and drugs and the brother lives dangerously. With their parents gone from a horrible car crash (seen more than once), all these two really have is each other in an exploitive world. The brother and sister associate with many deceptive people and the reveal of the deceiver’s true nature and actual motives is constantly surprising. It is the view from the otherworldly that makes this a thrilling story. From their childhood to recent events, this film builds with the significant facts. Within the tenets of a foreshadowed guide to the experiences after death, these young adult sibilings keep their pact not to leave the other.

written/directed by: Gaspar Noe

starring: Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta

Reviews from film festival screenings

Abortion/Life Content: [won't even be playing in theaters until September]

=======================================

from a Breitbart article:

Another scene shows doctors beginning to carry out an abortion and later provides a close-up of an aborted foetus.

from The Reel Place:

To avoid ranting, let me conclude with a list of things that Enter The Void does that earns it zero stars: showing an aborting, showing multiple close-ups of an aborted fetus…

from Movieforum:

With the third act, Noé returns to Oscar’s disembodied POV and the visuals get even more surreal: a model city of Tokyo becomes a dream palace where past, present, and presumably future converge, Oscar bears witness to Alex’s degeneration into homelessness, and watches his sister’s abortion of her boss’s love child (and in case you weren’t sickened enough, floats closer to an eyeball-searing inspection of the bloody fetus—take that Mr. Castle, with your Percept-O and Coward’s Corner!). Gradually, Linda and Alex overcome their poor lifestyle decisions and come together as lovers, unknowingly presenting Oscar a chance at potential rebirth…

Initially, Oscar has to physically fly from location to location, but eventually, discovers a way to travel via light sources (into the light bulb in his apartment, out the table lamp in Linda’s strip bar), but towards the end of the film, he seems to be able to travel at random (and absurdly so—he flies into a burning stove element in Linda’s apartment and then out of her navel in the abortion clinic!).

from the Film Society of Lincoln Center:

…a swooping close-up of a screamingly fake aborted fetus swimming in a dish of very real-looking blood… [...]

Even more graphic in its display of organs and orifices was Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void. Like Resnais, Noé is enthralled by the crane-mounted camera, although the range of expression he wrests from its aerial maneuvers is far more limited. A neo-psychedelic trance movie, this visceral voidoid is shot entirely from the subjective point of view of a young man who, within the first 10 minutes, is gunned down in the filthy bathroom of a Tokyo club. Having promised his sister that he would protect her forever, he—or rather his disembodied spirit—hovers around, until he achieves reincarnation in a way that recalls a much-quoted line from Chinatown. Enter the Void is careless and dopey, but visually quite interesting, and I might have cut it more slack if not for the aforementioned fetus, which, although supposedly first-trimester, looks like a very tiny but fully formed infant. I’m sure that Operation Rescue would happily put it in their educational videos.

from Movieline:

Worst Use of Close-Up: Enter the Void
Gaspar Noe’s sprawling psychedelic head-trip is a technical masterpiece, with each scene literally traveling to the next by floating over Tokyo rooftops or swooping through lightbulbs, sink drains and bodily cavities. Fine — but the slow, spiraling descent into a kidney-shaped tray holding a freshly aborted fetus proved to be a little….how do you say? … much.

summary from imdb.com:

A TV program selects people at random to kill one another for fame and their freedom.

written/directed by: Daniel Minahan

starring: Brooke Smith, Merritt Wever, Glenn Fitzgerald, Will Arnett

A Trailer

Conservo-Libertarian Reviews:
James Bowman
movieguide.org Christian reviews

Abortion/Life Content:

Narrator, Will Arnett: Previously, on The Contenders.

Brooke Smith: All I can allow myself to think about is my baby. There’s nothing that I won’t do for my baby. It’s that simple.

Arnett: With 10 kills in only 2 tours, she’s been unstoppable. Now, one month before the birth of her child, just 5 lives stand between her and her freedom.

Brooke: I try not to think about it too much because I just have to get through this.

Arnett: Dawn Lagarto: Mother. Hero. Contender.

Narrator, Will Arnett: With 5 opponents to battle, and a baby due at any moment, the clock is ticking for America’s longest reigning Contender and the tiny life inside her.

Brooke Smith: Okay, so what’s the story?

Joseph Barrett: You’re getting very close to the time you might labor. Your baby’s dropped into the birth canal. You’re already 3 centimeters dilated. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re early.

Brooke: Well… how early? like… when?

Joseph: Oh, I have no idea. Could be… any day now… Could be a month. That part’s still in the hands of God.

Brooke Smith: Please just say you’ll take my baby. It’s not for me, it’s for the baby.

Jennifer Van Dyck: You have some nerve. Waltzing in here 15 years later and asking for favors.

Brooke: Y’know, I came back for your first wedding, remember, Laura?

Tanny McDonald: Yes, and you wouldn’t even shave your armpits for your own sister’s wedding. We all remember that.

Brooke: This is not about my armpits. Why don’t we just say what this is really about, okay? You still can’t forgive me because I had an abortion. That’s right, in high school I had an abortion and she threw me out. There, it’s out.

Jennifer: That’s enough, Dawn. You’re embarrassing your mother in front of the whole country.

Nada Despotovich: Tony, please, give me the baby and let us go. Don’t make me do this.

Michael Kaycheck: I’m not gonna let you take my kids away.

Nada: They’re not your kids. You never adopted them.

Michael: Hey! Alexis is my daughter!

Nada: No, she isn’t.

Michael: What’s that supposed to mean?

Brooke Smith: Look, I’m just doing what anybody else in my position would do with a kid on the way. I mean, what did they call me in the paper the other day? Bloody mama? [...]

Marylouise Burke: She’s unprincipled. She has no morality that I can see.

Michael Kaycheck: That kid should be stripped from her loins right now. God should come down and do it Himself. [...]

Merritt Wever: I think Dawn is intimidating… and scary… and pregnant.

Marylouise: She’s unkempt. She has no faith. I think she’s a soulless creature.

Brooke Smith: Listen to me. I don’t wanna do this kinda thing. I have a baby on the way. I know you can understand that. I have to.

Marylouise Burke: Yeah, 911? I gotta woman out of Contender here, ready to give birth.

Brooke Smith: I can’t, Connie. I’m gonna have the baby right now. [...]

Marylouise: 5 minutes ago, you were gonna kill me. Now you want me to play midwife? I should shoot you.

Brooke: But we’re talking about an innocent unborn baby, here.

Marylouise: Okay, I’m gonna save the child’s life. But then you’re dead. [...]

Brooke: Just pull it out!!

Marylouise: People like you shouldn’t be allowed to have children. You should be sterilized. [...]

Brooke: #### you, you don’t even know me!!

Marylouise: well I know that you don’t even use contraception.

Brooke: Crazy #####!

Marylouise: No, what’s crazy is that then you go right onto welfare and they reward you for having illegitimate children. So have a few more, why not?

Brooke Smith: I think to separate a mother from her child is the worst thing you could do to anybody. And it hurts physically. It’s worse than any physical pain I’ve ever experienced.

Brooke Smith: They’ve got my baby. For me to get her back, I have to play this game. He knows that. I mean, it’s not like I want to do it, but he said he would. And he’s dying anyway.

Will Arnett: It’s amazing that Dawn is up at all. She’s still weak after giving birth only hours ago. If Dawn can do this, she will be free. And be reunited with her newborn child.

=======================================

from wikipedia:

Five new contestants are selected in a seemingly random lottery and, along with the winner of the previous series, comprise the six Contenders. Each series of The Contenders is played in the limits of a chosen city or town. Contenders are given a gun, though they may acquire other weapons, and the last one left alive is the winner. Contestants are forced to play the game, regardless of whether they desire to. A contender who wins three tours of the game is freed from it.

The film purposely leaves many key details unexplained, as the viewer is supposed to be watching only what the creators actually aired in the fictional TV show. How the show became so powerful as to randomly select people to be killed is unexplained, but all the Contenders seem to treat it as something they cannot control.

Series 7 is set in Newbury, Connecticut which happens to be the hometown of Dawn Lagarto. She is the longest reigning contender the show has ever seen. She has won two tours, and just needs to win one more to be set free. Dawn is eight months pregnant, and hopes to win the game for her baby. [...]

Most unusually, Dawn and Jeffrey already know each other. They were high school sweethearts who broke up after Dawn became pregnant and had an abortion and Jeffrey came to believe he was gay. Jeffrey, now married to a woman, and Dawn meet and the terminally ill Jeffrey agrees to allow Dawn to kill him.

summary from imdb.com:

In South Central Los Angeles, the unbalanced, deranged and neurotic ex-Ranger Jim Luther Davis meets his best friend Miguel ‘Mike’ Alonzo to drink beers and smoke joint. Jim is expecting to join the LAPD to marry his Mexican girlfriend Marta while Mike is being pressured by his mate Sylvia to find a job. When Jim is refused by the police department, he becomes furious and begins a series of violent actions until he is called by the Federal agency and assigned to work in Colombia. Meanwhile, Mike gets a dream job, making Sylvia happy. Jim invites the weak Mike and their friend Toussant to spend the weekend in Mexico. After some incidents, Jim returns bringing 20 kg of marijuana to Los Angeles, leading to a tragic end.

written/directed by: David Ayer

starring: Christian Bale, Freddy Rodriguez, Eva Longoria Parker, J.K. Simmons

A Trailer

Reviews

Abortion/Life Content:

Christian Bale: C’mon, woman. I’m going crazy.

Tammy Trull: I can’t.

Bale: A little blood never scared me.

Trull: It’s not that.

Bale: What then?

Trull: Soon, they will have milk.

Bale: Milk? Didn’t you take your ####in’ injections?

Trull: Don’t get ####ed off. You did your part. I can do the rest myself.

Bale: You’re going to the doctor and getting it taken care of.

Trull: No. I love you, and I want to have your child. If you want to run away, go. I don’t need your help.

Bale: You’re ####ing nuts. What if I punch you in the belly?

[a slap to Bale's face]

Trull: No one speaks to me like that. Not you. Not my father.

Bale: Maybe I should just shoot you.

Trull: Go ahead. Go ahead. I’m going to lose my life someday. Why not at the hands of the man I love?

[Bale pulls out gun]

Bale: Is that true? Think I am playing?

[gun placed under her chin]

Bale: You don’t know what I can do.

Trull: Yes, I know what you can do. But, I still love you. Because I see you, not your deeds. If you want to kill me… Because I love you… Then do it.

Bale: You ####ed up, woman. I’ll do it. It’s easy.

Christian Bale: I’m cool. Look, dude, she told me she was pregnant. I had a panic attack. I pulled my gun.

Freddy Rodriguez: Come on, dawg, I thought you loved her, dude.

Bale: I do.

summary from imdb.com:

A teenage loner pushes his way into the underworld of a high school crime ring to investigate the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend.

written/directed by: Rian Johnson

starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Nora Zehetner, Lukas Haas, Noah Fleiss, Emilie de Ravin, Richard Roundtree, Meagan Good

A Trailer

Conservo-Libertarian Reviews:
Big Hollywood
James Bowman
Peter Suderman
Nehring The Edge
Kurt Loder
movieguide.org Christian reviews

Abortion/Life Content:

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: I’m telling you now, you’re in over your head. You don’t want to put your hand in this!

Noah Segan: She’s dead! You…

Joseph: Why was she scared, Dode? She came to me. Who was she scared of? I think I know why, I just gotta know who!

Noah: You’re trying to confuse me.

Joseph: Dode.

Noah: You couldn’t stand it, your little Em. She was gonna keep it. It was mine, and you couldn’t stand that!

Joseph: What was yours?

Noah: I had you pegged.

Joseph: What was yours?

Noah: I loved her, and I would have loved that kid. I’m gonna bury you.

Lukas Haas: It’s still too much.

Noah Segan: No, it isn’t. You won’t complain when you hear it.

Lukas Haas: So maybe you should.

Noah Segan: You had her up against the wall with the brick.

Lukas Haas: I know my business. It’s still too much.

Noah Segan: No, it isn’t, ’cause that’s not why she was killed, but it’s real important to you, ’cause the person who killed her is real close. ‘Cause he’s got a lot to lose. And he knows if I don’t bury him by spilling to you, I spill to the bulls and I bury him for real. And he’s really, really scared. She had a kid in her, and he couldn’t stand it!

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Tug, it’s all right!

Lukas Haas: Tug, stop!

Noah Fleiss: She sprung it on me, just… It’s a hell of a thing to spring on a guy. I don’t remember much. Laura talked me down after. Said whatever… She knew her, said it wasn’t true. But I still think sometimes. I think about it being true, about it being mine. Maybe I did it ’cause I thought it was true. It’s a hell of a thing.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: You got Dode thinking Em had his kid, thinking I did it, and that was enough for him, but he stuck to the money, ’cause you had your claws in him! ‘Cause he couldn’t come away from the deal without it and make you happy!

[...]

Meagan Good: You know, if it’s any consolation, it probably wasn’t Dode’s kid. It might have been Tug’s kid. Frankly, I wouldn’t bet a horse. It was kind of a crowded field there at the end, if you know what I mean.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt: But maybe you had talked Tug up. Or maybe he just blew a fuse. But when Em sprung it on him that she had her kid, he did what anyone could count on Tug doing. He hit her. She took the hit for you, and you let her take it.

Nora Zehetner: Well, that’s most of it. Nine out of 10. I told Em to tell Tugger it was his. Told her it would soften him up. She said she wished she could keep it, but she didn’t love the father. I was gonna drive her down to the doctor the next day. Most wouldn’t. She was already starting to show. Three months. Do you know whose kid that makes it? Or have you known all along?

======================================

from screenit.com:

For those concerned with such matters, there’s talk that a teen was going to have an abortion, but was killed before that happened.