UnPlanned

My wife and I just got back from seeing Unplanned, the story of former clinic director Abby Johnson who left Planned Parenthood after eight years working for the organization and became a pro-life advocate. She was the youngest clinic director in Planned Parenthood's history. She now heads up "And Then There Were None," which helps other abortion workers leave the industry. This isn't a film review, just some varied thoughts.

The film opens up in a strategic way, IMO. It shows the PP escorts (Abby had volunteered as one, which is how she got her start with the organization) as caring in a compassionate way for the young women coming to the clinic. They meet them at their cars and tell them to "ignore" the "protestors." "Start talking to them right away," the escort showing Abby the ropes says. "What about," Abby asks. "Anything. Just keep them distracted." The flip side of showing the escorts in a positive light is something I have personally struggled with reconciling, and that is the aggressive "baby killer" model of (men, in this case) shouting at the women going in. You see early on there are two groups on the "other side of the fence" and the other group is the 40 Days for Life folks. The young woman speaks kindly to Abby and they develop a kind of relationship in their respective professional areas--one a PP volunteer, the other a 40DFL volunteer (both pregnant at one point too).

Abby doesn't do anything half-way. The current clinic director sees her potential and calls her into the "POC" room, a room she had never been in before. "You know what POC stands for, right?" one of staff ask her. "Products of Conception," she says. "Pieces of Children," the staff member replied in retort.

An interesting scene ensues, I'm not sure if others have noted it or not. Zachary King has spoken of abortion as a Satanic sacrifice. The way the scene is filmed and the language used when Abby enters the POC room points to a kind of parallel. She refers to the POC room as "the Holy of Holies" and in the scene the camera floats through a wall where there is a kind of pass-through vault of aborted baby parts, which must carefully be counted by the staff to ensure none are left inside the woman's uterus. If you know anything about the "Holy of Holies" in the Catholic Church, and the tabernacle that houses the Eucharist--the body of Christ--this will not be lost on you.

In the break room at one point, a staffer recounts an incident in which Shawn Carney of 40 Days for Life (the young man in the blue shirt) knocks on her door to ask for prayers and to raise awareness of the cause, when they both realize they 'know' each other from their respective camps. The staff proceed to kind of make fun of what he's doing, going door to door, until she lets it drop that he's knocked on about 25,000 doors. "What are the odds, right?" 25,000 doors. This is a young man who sees what is going on and is committed to making it a thing of the past in our culture. He and his wife will later be instrumental in helping Abby leave PP.

The role of "a job" was one that has been on my mind lately. I've had some dirty jobs before, mostly in my twenties, but was always able to move on to something else. I presume Abby was doing pretty well at PP, they compensated her well, and the staffers likewise were doing awful work but everybody has to work, so you kind of turn a blind eye to it. It's easy to say, "just walk away," but with bills to pay and families to support it's easy to rationalize things. The fear of the unknown, of not knowing how one will support oneself if such an industry is all you know, I think keeps a lot of people there. It's like stripping or drug dealing. Just keep focused and don't look at what you're really doing. That's why Abby's work with "And Then There Were None", and 40 Days for Life as well, are so important, because they see you have to have something in place for the real financial fallout of leaving the industry. It's like in scripture when it says in James 2:16: "If one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?" They are doing a real and valuable thing in providing alternatives so people actually can leave the industry.

A telling scene concerning the business model of Planned Parenthood comes at a corporate meeting in which Abby is given an award but puts the Director in an uncomfortable position when she questions the pushing of abortion vs. the preventing of unwanted pregnancies via birth control. "Abortion is our fries and soda" she spits, making reference to the high margin markups in fast food restaurants, where they "break even" on hamburgers but the real money is in the ancillaries. "Abortion is what pays your salary. When Abby notes that PP is a non-profit, her boss notes, "Non-profit is a tax status, not a business model."

The scene (that others may have noted) that had me beside myself was when the bio-medical "waste" hauler comes out with a blue 55 gallon drum of aborted babies and body parts to load up. You kind of feel for him, he is just doing his job (again, back to the job thing). Shawn and the 40 Days folks ask if they can pray over the remains. "Ok," the hauler says, "but you might want to wait. I got another one coming out." It's a powerful prayer. This is a holocaust on a magnitude almost icomprehenisible to human sensibilities, happening right under our noses, every day, every second, in every part of the world.

Abby is a modern day Paul of Tarsus. When Saul was putting Christians to death and encountered the Lord, the early Church wasn't sure they could trust him. When Abby shows up at the 40 Days for Life office "wanting out", having been blinded by the light, knocked off her horse, and, later, crippled under the weight of her guilt and sin, it would be understandable to question or condemn her. But these Christians don't do that. They take her in and speak to her of love and forgiveness, not condemnation and judgment. Though she was complicit, like Paul she will become a fierce and zealous advocate for the very lives she oversaw the destruction of: 22,000 in all under her watch.

Abby's husband (Doug on Tap) is a rockstar. I don't know him in real life, but he seems like a model husband that hates what his wife is doing but loves her and is there for her in everything. As I understand he holds down the fort with their eight kids while she is doing the work she is called to do. Maybe not the most traditional model, but not the most traditional of circumstances either.

When PP takes Abby and Shawn to court, I could feel my palms starting to sweat. This is truly a David and Goliath fight ("We have Soros, we have Gates, with have Buffet," Abby's boss says. "Who do you have?"), but ultimately they had no ground to stand on. I loved the lawyer representing Abby and Shawn, and his affable laid backness, because he knows in this instance the truth is on their side. Pro life work is not for the weak of heart. David Daleiden is one young man I admire very much, and part of what impressed me so much is he is so cool under massive and numerous lawsuits. Courts and such can be intimidating, but he ultimately knows the Truth will not forever be silenced and he is not on "the wrong side of history."

There are other things I could say and note, but the image I was left with, that seared into my consciousness, came early in the film. Abby is in the surgery room during an abortion, a first for her. She is assisting with the ultrasound and sees the baby in the patient's womb clear as day. As the abortionist works at pulling out the struggling fetus by the leg and the clear tubes begin to fill with blood and fluid, and the machine picks up force, eventually what is left as the legs, torso, and, ultimately, head are suctioned out, is...an empty hole. A black, empty hole in the uterus, where a life used to be but is no more. The fetus fought to escape the instruments, on the ultrasound screen, but there was no one to come to his or her rescue. The empty space in the uterus is the kind of empty space left in the soul after such an act of violence--of the mother, of the boyfriend or father or grandmother that drove them to the clinic to "get it taken care of," of the abortionist, of those helping to procure it--where God's grace used to be. This cavernous void is an empty place in need of healing, but it must be seen for what it is. God's mercy is fathomless, but we must face that void--not just for our role in what we have done, or what we have failed to do when it comes to abortion, but with all sin that robs us of the indwelling of grace, the place where God used to live. There is redemption, a ransoming the weight of which only Christ's cross can bear, but it came at a steep price.

I hope all can see this film. The acting is very good, not hokey in the slightest, and pulls the rug out on the lies that Planned Parenthood perpetuates in their work, a false and misguided compassion motivated by profit and tells a story of the power of persistent prayer by pro-life stalwarts working tireless (75% of no shows at the clinic happened when prayer vigils showed up, remember that!) for years in the hopes of a Saul becoming a Paul. Abby Johnson was an agent of death who was blinded by the light and was called to become a tireless apostle for Life. There is redemption. There is a lot of work to be done, and the battle for Life is just getting started.

The Progressive Presupposition

This evening I attended a panel discussion at the invitation of a friend. The title of the sponsored evening was "A Crisis of Leadership and Faith" and included three panelists--a child advocacy lawyer, a theologian, and a parish priest--who shared their views on the "reality behind the headlines" of the clergy abuse scandal from their respective positions. It was held at a local Catholic college, one of a dozen or so in our immediate area.

I went into the evening with as open a mind as I could. My inclination was to presuppose both the panelists and the audience were of a more progressive bent, though I was also prepared to be mistaken if that was in fact not the case. I did check out the twitter feed of the theologian on the panel prior to the talk, and did notice he retweeted Fr. James Martin, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, and a quote by liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, which gave me a pretty good idea of his leanings. The friend who invited me and with whom I attended was not Catholic, but had an respectful curiosity about Catholicism in general and was open to learning something about the Church, which was in many respects a kind of foreign institution.

Life, politics, religion are never completely polarized to the extent we see on the news. Most people in everyday life are not classified in a binary fashion as either "Radical Leftists" or "Right-wing extremists" but have ideations on a gradient. And yet when it comes to my feeds, my social circle, and my Catholic sphere of influence, I would say I am in somewhat of a conservative bubble. I vet sources and am generally aware of which lean left and vice versa. I know publications like America magazine and The National Catholic Reporter exist, but do not feel inclined to read or cite them, though I try not to demonize them either. I am willing to concede that there are different ways of approaching or seeing an issue, and I try to be respectful and charitable in the way I would hope to be respected and treated with charity. So, my attendance at this talk was a kind of opportune forced exercise, a chance to venture out of said bubble and see what was going on on the other side of the Catholic fence.

The panelists shared their respective experience and views on the roots of the crisis. The lawyer--a Catholic mother of four--spoke about abuse in general and what was unique about abuse in the Church, the PA Grand Jury report, and her advocacy work. The theologian spoke about the problem of clericalism, structural sins/violence, unequal distribution of power, church organizing, and changing social structures. The priest spoke about his particular parish, comprised of predominately Hispanic families (many of whom were undocumented) and how in this community the priest is trusted and "they come to me for everything." They shared for about an hour, after which questions were taken from the audience.

I was there to learn--about the abuse crisis in the context of this particular talk, yes; but also as a "mystery shopper" to learn about how progressive Catholicism works and how "we-are-the-church" Catholics think, what they believe, and the things they presuppose. Here are a few of my observations:

-Learning how to read between the lines. 
The language that is used says a lot about their ideological presuppositions. For instance, references to the #metoo movement, social sin, change, justice, organizing, empowering, etc. are keywords for a progressive ideology. Whereas a conservative may regard with suspicion or disdain and would not include such terms in their lexicon, it is important to realize that for a progressive, these are points of pride. Change is not something to fear but embraced, for instance. It's where efforts should be focused, and mobilization should be occurring, a kind of "get out the vote" mentality. It can be subtle, though, not always overt but implicit.

-What is not talked about is as important as what is talked about.
Orthodox Catholics can sometimes fall into the trap of litmus testing and showing their hand in brusque fashion. "Yes, but what about ABORTION??" may be preemptively interjected when the topic of the preferential option for the poor comes up. Of course care for the poor should not be antithetical to the life of the unborn, so it plays into progressives' dismissal of conservatives as "obsessed with below-the-belt issues." The theologian spoke about his work supporting CRS (Catholic Relief Services) and getting other students involved with them as well. That being said, it was notable that many things were intentionally left unsaid when the John Jay report came up during the discussion. Homosexuality was never mentioned, and pedophilia was brought up, but not pederasty, for instance.

-How the narrative is framed
One thing I noticed--both from audience members when they offered their comments and questions, and from the panelists themselves--is that progressive-minded Catholics frame the narrative as one of power structures, inequality, and a kind of egalitarian ideal. One woman called for "a greater role for women in the Church" and another man spoke of empowerment of the laity in leading discussions and working to make a difference. It is an interesting intersection with conservative Catholics, though, who also realize there is a failure in ecclesial examples of personal holiness and that the laity will in fact be leading the charge in keeping the Church afloat. 

-Radically different assumptions
Much like the way Republicans favor small government, states' rights, and free markets while Democrats favor taxation and more federal oversight and regulation, there are different assumptions within the Church among progressives and conservatives on what "church" means, the role of the conscience, and ecclesial authority. Emphasis on the social and collective versus the personal was something I noticed (social/structural sin vs. personal holiness, etc)

When I had the opportunity to ask a question, I asked how the panelists saw the crisis of faith, as noted (but not discussed) in the title of the talk. I cited some statistics from Pew research indicating that 50% of young Americans who were raised in the Church no longer call themselves Catholic; that 7% of those raised in the Church still attend Mass weekly; and that 8 in 10 leave the Faith before they turn 23. Of course there is no real answer that can be summed up in a few minutes time, but the question itself, I felt, was worth asking. Does progressive Catholicism attract a committed and sustainable community of young believers? Does orthodoxy? If so, it is overstated, or is it enough to sustain the demographic vocations cliff that will radically challenge the ecclesial carrying capacity of the Church in the next twenty years when aging priests retire and/or die?

I felt like an outlier in the crowd, and while I originally had a kind of antagonistic mentality going in, I deliberately tried to temper it with an open-minded listening and a respectful temperance of pushing my own ideological assumptions forcefully into the conversation. These were people who were also committed to the Church as they knew it. I felt for the young theologian, who said that between his wife and him, they had five degrees in Theology between them. "I have given my whole life to the Church," he said, and seemed to imply that he was too invested to turn his back on it. But I also got the impression that the progressive platform rested on the theme of change, and doing it from the inside by way of organizing and challenging the nature of ecclesial hierarchy. It seemed like a kind of hold over from the 1960's way of thinking/organizing/exacting reform, a bit tired, and one that I'm not convinced will save the Church from its present crisis.