R-Rated Pro-Life Film ‘Unplanned’ Cut More Gruesome Footage, Producer Reveals

“In the film, they are emotionally engaged. It’s been effective. We’ve had a lot of people who said they never thought about it before, but now their eyes are definitely opened.”

(Tyler O’Neil – PJ Media)  When the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) gave the pro-life film Unplanned an R rating, a minor scandal erupted. Few knew that some of the most gruesome footage died on the cutting-room floor.

Speaking with PJ Media this week, producer Joe Knopp said that while members of the Unplanned team publicly expressed disappointment at the rating, he thinks it’s a positive development.

“For me, as a pro-life believer who believes life begins at conception, when I watched those scenes — the opening scene with the procedure room and then the second one with the shower — I know that in front of my eyes, a baby is being murdered,” he said.

“I see the blood, I hear the music, the baby lose the battle with life before my eyes. For me, that’s R rated,” Knopp added. He said it took a while before he and his wife agreed to allow their 14-year-old daughter to see the movie.

As for the MPAA, the producer said, “I’ve got to believe when they watched the movie, they thought it was actually violence against a human being to the point where they also felt it deserves an R rating. There was part of me that thought it would be PG-13 because they thought the violence was not against human beings.”  View article →

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