I recommend this movie for teens aged 15+ years to be watched with parents for discussion afterward.

Based on real people and real events.

An abortion doctor can’t deliver live babies and then kill them, can he? In 2013 Kermit Gosnell was convicted by a Philadelphia grand jury for killing three still-living aborted babies by severing their spinal cords. He performed this same procedure on all the aborted fetuses.

This is not a pro-life movie. Instead, it clarifies abortion procedures and centers around one unscrupulous abortion practitioner.

Why You Should Watch It

More information about a controversial topic is better than less to make an informed decision or form an informed opinion.

This movie is important because 664,435 abortions (in 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) were performed in the U.S. without patients having all the facts. This number is larger than the entire population of Memphis, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Portland, or Washington, D.C.

In addition, New York’s recent law means the act Gosnell was convicted of is now legal on healthy babies up to and during the actual birth, not only failed abortion attempts, if the mother’s health is at risk. People who are not doctors can do abortions and “health” is undefined.

If you are a parent then you know: having children is damaging to our emotional, physical, psychological, and economic health. It changes you irreversibly but we are usually better for it.

Watch Out

The film was not graphic but it described abortion procedures that anyone with an opinion about abortion should know. The film mentions baby body parts and a five-year-old abortion survivor who started kindergarten on the day her mom testified.

Acting

This movie caught my attention because of an article about Dean Cain’s conservatism. I loved Cain in Lois & Clark: the New Adventures of Superman (1993) but not so much since. It’s more important that Cain be a good man and a good father, unafraid to have a conversation about his conservative opinions in Hollywood, than a good actor.

Cain’s role as the investigating detective who wanted to prosecute Gosnell for causing the death of one of his patients was eclipsed by the complex part of Assistant District Attorney Alexis McGuire, mother of five, played by Sarah Jane Morris.