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A director at Planned Parenthood claims the abortion giant has advised Hollywood on more than 150 productions since 2014, the Washington Post reported this week, underscoring once more that Hollywood is a bastion of leftism.
In an interview with the Washington Post, Caren Spruch, Planned Parenthood’s director of arts and entertainment engagement, explained that part of her role as director is to encourage screenwriters to address abortion, a role that was not utilized terribly often before 2014.
“Nobody used to call me,” Spruch told WaPo. “I would be watching TV and going to the movies and figuring out who I thought might be open to including these story lines.”
But that changed when she assisted on the 2014 romantic comedy Obvious Child — a film focused on a 20-something comedienne who becomes unexpectedly pregnant and has an abortion without repercussion or regret.
“Now I have a couple of repeat clients,” Spruch said. “Now people call me.”
Since her work on Obvious Child, Spruch estimates she has advised filmmakers on more than 150 movies and shows. In fact, her reputation in Hollywood has prompted the Washington Post to label her “Planned Parenthood’s woman in Hollywood.”
Melanie Russell Newman, Planned Parenthood’s senior vice president of communication and culture, admits to using pop culture as a tool to program consumers to subscribe to the pro-abortion agenda.
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“A lot of people learn about sexual and reproductive health care through pop culture and entertainment programs,” Newman said according to the story. “We’ve seen pop culture change views around LGBTQ issues, for example, and pop culture has the power to challenge abortion stigma, too.”
Planned Parenthood’s influence in Hollywood marks a profound change from the early days of film, when the Motion Picture Production Code treated abortion as a subject that did not belong in entertainment and a procedure that should not be encouraged. A 1956 amendment to the code determined the “subject of abortion shall be discouraged, shall never be more than suggested, and when referred to shall be condemned” in films. “It must never be treated lightly, or made the subject of comedy. Abortion shall never be shown explicitly or by inference, and a story must not indicate that an abortion has been performed. The word ‘abortion’ shall not be used.”
The amendment was a clarification of, and addition to, a prior amendment from March 1951 that stated, “Abortion, sex hygiene and venereal diseases are not proper subjects for theatrical motion pictures.”
Slate.com notes that the few early films that did touch on the subject of abortion typically showed abortions ending in devastation, whether physical or emotional. Most did not refer to abortions directly, adhering to euphemisms and covert implications instead.
However, those rules became more relaxed in the years leading up to Roe v. Wade (and even more so following the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling), marking a gradual transition during which time abortion began to be treated as commonplace and without physical or emotional consequences in both film and television productions.
The Daily Beast observes,
Following the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade, it seemed like abortion was going to become a natural part of Hollywood storytelling. Films like Cabaret and The Godfather Part II featured successful abortions without shame or fuss, and even television — which at the time was a more conservative medium — made the foray into abortion with shows like Maude and All My Children leading the way.
Today, it is even used as a comedic trope in some low-brow television shows and films.
Meanwhile, as Planned Parenthood and its agenda are welcomed in Hollywood and enabled to permeate pop culture through media, powerful pro-life films such as Unplanned and the yet-to-be-released Roe v. Wade experience the full force of Hollywood working against them and their success.
And yet, there is an upside. As noted by Susan B. Anthony List’s Mallory Quigley, despite Planned Parenthood’s apparent influence, pro-life sentiment is on the rise.
“The abortion industry’s grip on Hollywood is well-known, but what might be surprising is how soundly their propaganda has failed to move Americans’ minds and hearts,” Quigley told the Daily Caller. “Pro-life sentiment is on the rise. The overwhelming majority of Americans, especially young people, disagree with the extreme agenda of taxpayer-funded abortion on demand through birth and even infanticide.”
“Americans are tired of pro-abortion elites telling them what to think and value,” Quigley added.
Photo: AP Images
