How we lost our innocents

Forty-eight years ago, abortion on demand became “the law of the land” with a controversial 7-2 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. Roe v. Wade, a 2021 film now available digitally through on-demand streaming services, explains the real story behind that tragic ruling that has resulted in the killing of 62 million unborn lives to date.

Narrated from the perspective of Dr. Bernard Nathanson, the notorious New York abortionist who co-founded NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League) and committed some 75,000 abortions, the film details the legal maneuvers and outright deceptions engineered by pro-abortion feminists and those who would profit from legal abortion that culminated in the twisted legal logic of the fateful 1973 decision. Nathanson eventually would repent of his life’s work to become one of the pro-life movement’s greatest advocates.

The script leaves something to be desired, but it gets the facts straight. We meet Nathanson, who bonds with feminist Betty Freidan and others to build support for reproductive “choice” and whittle away at laws protecting the unborn. There’s Norma McCorvey, the naïve young woman recruited to become “Jane Roe” of the landmark case. We look back at Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger at a Ku Klux Klan women’s auxiliary in 1936, preaching her gospel of eugenics to limit the black population.
Then there are the pro-life folks who underestimated the power of the “pro-choice” radicals and the weak resolve of even some conservative Supreme Court justices. Receiving her due is Mildred Jefferson, the black physician who worked tirelessly to defend laws restricting abortion and became the first president of National Right to Life.

The film’s pace is ponderous at times, but the portrayal of the easy manipulation of the media and public opinion by the pro-abortion radicals as well as their anti-Catholic bent is particularly revealing. It is a film that ought to shore up our resolve to end our nation’s nearly half-century slaughter of the innocents. 

GERALD KORSON is a Legatus magazine staff writer.