Activists condemn Canadian cinema chain for screening anti-abortion film

Cineplex Entertainment criticized for screening Unplanned, which is said to promote falsehoods about reproductive health

Tracey Lindeman in Ottawa
Tue 9 Jul 2019 18.25 BST Last modified on Tue 9 Jul 2019 20.05 BST

Abortion rights defenders in Canada have accused the country’s largest cinema chain of hiding behind freedom of expression laws in order to screen a controversial US anti-choice film which has been described as “anti-abortion propaganda”.

The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) said Cineplex Entertainment has “made a decision based on money, not freedom of speech” by choosing to screen Unplanned.

ARCC executive director Joyce Arthur said: “The movie theatres who are agreeing to show this film under the guise of free speech are publicly legitimizing anti-choice views.

She told the Guardian: “Why does much of civil society seem to think it’s still OK to allow public challenges of women’s rights in the name of free speech? That would never be tolerated if it, for example, were a white supremacist movie.”

Her comments came after the chief executive of Cineplex Entertainment defended his decision to screen Unplanned, a movie based on a memoir by Abby Johnson, a former director of a Texas Planned Parenthood clinic who has become a prominent anti-abortion activist.

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