The Gosnell Movie’s Real Battle

A group of filmmakers (who brought you Fracknation and Not Evil Just Wrong) is in the middle of a crowd funding campaign on IndieGogo to fund a movie about Kermit Gosnell, the abortion doctor who delivered live babies and snipped their spinal cords with scissors. The film is a response to mainstream media’s suspicious lack of coverage. (Yes, the story was intentionally ignored. Or maybe not. Wait, yes it was).

The campaign has been controversial. Promoted by Nick Searcy (Justified) on The O’Reilly Factor, The Rush Limbaugh Show, having political conflict with Kickstarter, this $2.1 million campaign is garnering tons of media momentum and is on track to break the record for the most money raised for a non-celebrity crowd sourced movie (it’s the most successful campaign on IndieGogo).

One of the filmmakers, Phelim McAleer, comments, “The media have basically ignored [Gosnell’s] crime and his trial. He ran an abortion clinic in Philadelphia, where he delivered live, viable babies, and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors.”

In their IndieGogo video, the filmmakers cite the Grand Jury Report on the Gosnell trail: “Bureaucratic inertia is not exactly news. We understand that. But we think this was something more. We think the reason no one acted is because the women in question were poor and of color, because the victims were infants without identities, and because the subject was the political football of abortion.” (Grand Jury Report Re Misc. No. 0009901-2008. First Judicial District of Pennsylvania Criminal Trials)

This crowd funding campaign touches on a basic human question – what is the relationship between personal value and personal narrative? To some, Gosnell really isn’t a story. To others, the lack of coverage is deplorable. The project isn’t a battle for screen time, but for values that make the story worth telling.

As of now, the movie has raised about $1.4 million of its $2.1 million goal, and will close on May 12, 2014. You can give anywhere from $1 to $10,000 here.