Chicago-based filmmaker Faith Pennick is unapologetically pro-choice, but her new documentary film, Silent Choices, deals specifically with black women's experiences with abortion and includes commentary from both pro-choice and pro-life experts and activists. The attempt to present a balanced documentary has brought criticism from pro-choice advocates -- they really hate anything but unbridled enthusiasm for abortion -- but simply shining a light on the abortion crisis in black America is quite controversial. The media is silent on the matter as are most black leaders but even the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute admits that black women are almost four times as likely to have abortions as white women.
"The idea that abortion doesn't touch us -- it was dead wrong," says Pennick. And she adds, "It was never my intent to make a pro-choice film. That would be very myopic of me. This film is supposed to represent a sample of the African-American experience."
Pro-life activists know that getting people to look honestly at abortion, to talk openly about its realities, is ultimately helpful to the cause of the sanctity of life. Faith Pinnick's Silent Choices might represent a new opportunity for just such a conversation.
