MPAA Gives Pro-Life Film R-Rating

Producers claim politics influenced rating in former Planned Parenthood worker's pro-life biopic

A pro-life film has been given an R-rating despite the absence of nudity, sex, violence, or curse words and filmmakers are convinced it's the message that led to the prohibitive rating.

Unplanned is a biographical film about the life of Abby Johnson, the former Texas Planned Parenthood manager who has gone on to become a pro-life activist. The film details her conversion and, while depicting the abortion process, it is short on any sort of graphic scenes. That is why filmmakers were surprised when the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) handed the film an R-rating. Producer Daryl C. Lefever said the rating, which restricts audience members below the age of 18 from attending without a guardian, would curtail the potential viewership of the film, and suspects the film's pro-life message played a part in the decision.

"We really thought we had made a PG-13 film," Lefever said in an email to the Washington Free Beacon. "There is no violence, no nudity, no sex, no profanity, and the only violence takes place in the womb, which most Hollywood folks don't think is a person."

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