According to Rotten Tomatoes, 98% of 1,541 Rotten Tomatoes reviewers have given the Gosnell movie 4.5-5 stars, the highest of any film currently playing in theaters.
Adam Mill at The Federalist says it “shattered” his abortion agnosticism and should be “required viewing for Americans like me who avoided the abortion issue because I lacked the moral courage to really think about it and form my own opinion.”
The following are excerpts from his excellent article, which is worth reading in full.
“Gosnell’s defense at trial was to point to the arbitrary legal line between what he did and what the law sanctioned. His attorney argued that even if he had followed proper procedures in a sterile clinic using the most advanced medical equipment to terminate pregnancies, the fundamental moral character of what he was doing wouldn’t change.”
“This is the moral no-man’s land that hasn’t been rationally discussed since the political screaming started in the early 1970s.”
“Recently, we’ve heard people speaking out against political violence with assurance that the ballot box is the proper place to resolve our great conflicts in the United States. Yet the Roe v. Wade decision seems to have permanently excluded abortion from the normal political process in which moral judgments can be debated, tested, and evolved according to the state of medical science and public morality. This is, in part, why the Kavanaugh confirmation process was so ugly.
“Impulses to influence the debate manifest in such detestable ways in the absence of a democratic process. Are we satisfied with the outcome when judges establish an immutable moral distinction between abortion and murder? If you answered “Yes,” I ask that you watch the movie to listen to how Gosnell drew that line.”
“Who decides if a fetus is too advanced to abort? A nurse in Gosnell’s clinic reported feeling a newborn tug on her finger before the doctor ‘completed’ the procedure. We can and should agree that abortionists should not be making that distinction, and that there has to be a line.
“No matter how zealous an advocate for reproductive rights you might be, you have to agree on a line. The line needs to be established according to the best science and moral judgments as expressed by the great engine of compromise of our democracy.
“It’s time to set aside Roe and return the question to the moral accountability of the democratic process. Abortion rights advocates should refrain from refusing to acknowledge or accommodate any discussion or update to this line, because Gosnell proved one thing beyond refutation: at some point it’s not abortion, it’s murder.“
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