Here’s the latest dispatch from the crossroads of faith and media:

As planned, the controversial pro-life movie Unplanned hit the DVD/Blue Ray/digital market this week.  The film that debuted in theaters last spring tells the true story of Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson who controversially turned her back on the abortion industry and became a fetal-rights activist.  The movie – which opened at number 4 out the box office despite a virtual PC-media blackout that – is now available in Walmart and other retail outlets. The  package includes a booklet with a devotional from Save the Storks, interviews with Abby Johnson, a making-of featurette, deleted scenes and trailers, and Matthew West’s Unplanned official music video.

In a statement, the movie’s co-directors Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman said “We know that this movie will continue to impact thousands of men and women; many who wouldn’t want to see the movie in public will now have the opportunity to see what Abby saw in the privacy of their own homes…The pain and shame associated with abortion is raw, even years after the fact. Our hope is that this movie will help women and men heal and come to know the forgiveness and redemption that Abby experienced.”

That’s an important point. The issue is opening hearts and minds through information (i.e. the availability of uncoerced sonograms) and making it easier for women to choose life, not shaming people who have had or participated in abortions. Life can be hard. Whatever our mistakes, the whole world is in God’s hands who makes our crooked paths straight so that we may go forward and not be crushed by guilt.

Worth noting: Unplanned opened at No. 1 on Amazon’s bestselling DVD list. Not bad for a low-budget, politically-incorrect movie.

On a side note..I think those who consider themselves to be pro-life or pro-choice should consider getting behind something like Andrew Yang’s universal income proposal which – from a financial standpoint at least – would make the choice of life easier for low-income women. A lack of income should not be the factor that pressures a mother into an abortion. It’s to start thinking out of the box on these issues.

Encourage one another and build each other up – 1 Thessalonians 5:11