The Gosnell Movie: A Context

Earlier today I attended a matinee showing of Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer.  After the movie ended I sat in my car for a few minutes, mentally digesting the enormity of what I’d just seen; exiting the theater parking lot, a compulsion came upon me to write a review and to post it this same day.  This is it, sort of.

For upon further contemplation I decided that a “review” is grossly insufficient (in that regard, suffice it to say that the screenwriting, cinematography, and acting stands up to any of the best produced by major Hollywood studios).

Rather, I decided that writing a context is more fitting, as it will convey the personal and culture-changing potential of this film.

What follows will resonate strongest with those of us who believe that there is such a thing as Satanic evil extant in the universe and that it operates on this earth, including by and through human beings.

But it will also resonate with those who are open to the concept of evil, but believe it is merely some organic or spontaneous force, and so is without particular origin, purpose, and without designs or goals.

Even those who entirely dismiss any conception of evil will find benefit in what follows, for the entire purpose of this “context” is to encourage people to see the movie.

For you see, this is a film of such power that it compels each of us to contemplate our own conscience.

Now, that context I mentioned: we’re all familiar with the history of mass murder in Nazi concentration camps under Hitler, and the Soviet Gulags under Stalin.

We’ve seen the documentary films bearing witness to the mass graves, the crematoria, the walking skeletons that had survived long enough to see their liberators at the gates.

Others were borne witness through books such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago.

One is hard-pressed to imagine any possible explanation for such horrors other than that true evil does exist, and that instances of institutionalized mass-murder are an inseparable characteristic of it.

Now, as a thought exercise, imagine what might have occurred if those documentary films and books showing the future had somehow been available to audiences in 1917 Russia, or 1930’s Germany.

Had there been widespread knowledge of what actually awaited, rather than the prospective utopias peddled by Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler – don’t you have to conclude that they would never have been allowed to rise to power in the first place?

The Bolsheviks would have been stamped out by the masses of Russian people before they got traction, and Hitler would never have been elected (having scored second-place behind the aged and soon-to-be irrelevant Hindenberg in the 1932 German Presidential election). Imagine then the millions of lives that would have been saved, and the horrors avoided.

Now imagine, instead, that the information regarding concentration camps and gulags became widely available while Hitler and Stalin were in power, instead of before.

Even if it had only been available outside their countries, would it still not have steeled the resolve of those fighting to oppose them?  Would it not have added even more righteous morality to the cause of opposition?

And if also available within those countries, would it not have weakened the grips of those dictators, both strengthening their internal opposition and growing its ranks?

Consider that some actually believed that through Communism and National Socialism they were promoting a better world –  and once they found out that they were promoting the opposite would some have not switched sides?  Ponder the German officers who attempted to assassinate Hitler, but multiplied several times over.

Would not then those monsters and their evil regimes’ demise come that much sooner, thereby significantly lowering their body count?

Now we, with the benefit of hindsight, probably imagine that had we been Russian or German citizens back in the day, that we would absolutely have been amongst those who would have taken-in that information had it been available, and then proceeded to do the right thing to avoid the coming (or oppose the continuing) horrors – at least at the ballot box, if not also by more forceful means.

But like the proverbial “armchair warrior,” it’s easy to contemplate oneself as one who would have bravely been on the side of the angels back in the day, had one been around.

But since history informs us that many are not on the side of the angels, and many shirk involvement, one cannot be sure how one will act unless they actually find themselves in such a situation.

Well, we are in such a situation; we are living in a period that “will make the history books.”  There is an ongoing culture war that, increasingly, is becoming a physical conflict (e.g., Antifa); it is a conflict between good and evil.

As you no doubt know, this movie is about the abortionist Kermit Gosnell.  It does not graphically portray abortions; rather, its creators have weaved the story such that one instead envisions the horror in the mind’s eye.

As stated above, the brilliance and power of this film lies in the fact that it compels the viewer to contemplate his or her own conscience.

Previously this writer has compared abortion to the mass murder committed by Stalin and Hitler and other Collectivists (here).

Well, one can think of this movie Gosnell as not unlike a documentary illuminating the horrors of the concentration camps and gulags, but available while those facilities were still operating.

You as a citizen during this historic time have this revelation available to you.  Will history look back upon you as one of those who turned a blind eye, who avoided becoming informed, afraid that it might change your worldview, or force you to consider whether to act or not?

To force you to decide whether to join the side of the angels, or to be a shirker who avoids the subject, and leaves the outcome for others to determine … even as the mass-murders continue?

Will you consider seeing this film, rather than averting your eyes?  After seeing it, will you examine your conscience and then bear witness for the good?

As a final thought exercise, imagine the souls who were in a position to oppose the evils such as wrought by Stalin and Hitler – but shirked instead?

Whether because of their meeting with St. Peter, or of their own volition, do you not believe that they now regret it, and wish that they could turn back the clock, to come back and right their wrongs?

After you have departed this earth, what will you have done? Will you wish the opportunity to do over?

See the movie, then contemplate your own conscience – and how you will apply it going forward.