The White House is slated to host a screening of the pro-life film “Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer” on Friday, Slate reported this week.
The film is based on the true story of Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortionist who murdered newborn babies and committed numerous other crimes inside his “house of horrors” abortion facility. It stars Dean Cain (“Lois & Clark”) and is directed by Nick Searcy (“The Shape of Water,” “Justified”).
The White House recently sent invitations to pro-life leaders and others for the screening, according to the report.
Here’s more:
Friday’s Gosnell screening appears to be the first politically controversial movie to be screened at Trump’s White House. (The White House did not respond immediately to a request for comment about the Gosnell screening; this post will be updated if that changes.)
Presidents have hosted film screenings at the White House since Franklin Roosevelt converted a cloakroom into a movie theater in 1942. … President Obama hosted a screening of The Danish Girl, about an early-20th-century transgender artist, as part of an event honoring LGBTQ activists in 2015, for example. The first movie Trump screened as president was the Pixar sequel Finding Dory.
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Liberal news outlets that reported about the screening described the film as “gory” and “violent” because it shows “graphic depictions of abortion” in the second and third trimesters. Though they phrased it in such a way as to taint the film as propaganda, in reality, they admitted what abortion supporters often hate to — that abortion is violent and gory.
Gosnell’s abortion facility was described as a “house of horrors” by investigators. In 2013, a jury convicted Gosnell of murdering three newborn babies and contributing to the death of a female patient, along with numerous other crimes. He was sentenced to three consecutive life terms in prison. The mainstream media largely ignored the case.
The film became a success in 2018 after overcoming numerous hurdles. First, the crowdfunding site Kickstarter refused to allow producers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney to fundraiser there. They later broke a crowdfunding record on Indiegogo.
Later, Searcy said they finished the film three years ago but struggled to find a distributor. Not long before its release in October, two prominent media outlets – NPR and Facebook — refused to run ads for the film.
Despite these struggles, the film ranked in the top 10 at the box office when it came out. In January, “Gosnell” was the No. 1 best-selling drama DVD on Amazon during its pre-release sales.
The film is rated PG-13.
