The silent scream

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Movie
German title The silent scream
Original title The Silent Scream
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1984
length 28 minutes
Rod
Director Jack Duane Dabner
script Donald S. Smith
production Jack Duane Dabner, Donald S. Smith
music James Gabriel Stipech
camera Roger Boller
cut Dan R. Fouts
chronology

Successor  →
Eclipse of Reason

The Silent Scream (English original. The Silent Scream ) is a pro-life film from 1984. It was directed by Jack Duane Dabner. The narrator was the gynecologist Bernard Nathanson , an activist of the rights movement. The film was produced in collaboration with the National Right to Life Committee .

The film depicts the process of an abortion through ultrasound images of the uterus . During the process it is described how the fetus seems to grimace, as if it were screaming in pain. The video was a popular tool for the Rights Movement's fight against abortion, with many doctors criticizing the portrayal as misleading.

content

Bernard Nathanson appears as a medical expert and narrator who describes the steps of an abortion in order. He states that he reports "from the perspective of the victim" and repeatedly emphasizes his conversion from an abortion doctor to a "pro-life" activist. Nathanson first presents plastic fetal models and demonstrates the instruments that were commonly used in abortions at the time. Then follows a composite sequence of ultrasound scans of the abortion of a twelve-week-old fetus from the 1980s, which Nathanson describes as a "child". In front of a screen he shows ultrasound images of a fetus in the womb. As the images of an abortion appear on the screen, Nathanson describes step by step what is happening and explains the instruments that are inserted into the uterus. Nathanson holds a pair of pliers in front of the on-screen ultrasound images, demonstrating the movement the forceps supposedly use to crush the fetus's skull - the scene is not shown in the ultrasound images. A suction cannula is described as a deadly weapon that dismisses and destroys what Nathanson calls a child. He explains that the fetus, unprepared for foreign bodies to enter the uterus, tries to avoid the cannula and describes him as a child being torn apart by the callous steel instruments of the abortion doctor. Nathanson attributes feelings and intelligence to the fetus, which he describes as a "child". B. claims that the fetus feels the "aggression in its refuge" and is aware of the "deadly danger". Nathanson mentions how the heartbeat of the fetus accelerates and how it seems to open its mouth in a scream, the eponymous "silent scream".

Following the ultrasound scans, Nathanson shows photos of dismembered fetuses along with exterior shots of women's clinics. Nathanson closes the film with a discussion of the consequences of withholding this material from women. He believes the film is necessary to educate women about abortion issues.

Controversy and criticism

The silent scream was seen by its producer and the right-to-life lobby as a means of turning public opinion against abortion. The film premiered on television preacher Jerry Falwell's programming and was shown five times on major television networks within a month. It was later distributed in large numbers to high schools, colleges, churches and politicians and, according to Time Magazine, "was welcomed by life rights organizations as an effective propaganda tool". The then US President Ronald Reagan even had the film shown in the White House. Reagan said, "If every member of Congress could see this movie, they would end the abortion tragedy quickly." Reports indicate that the film's producers planned to send copies to all members of Congress and to the United States Supreme Court . Some anti-abortion opponents promoted the film as proof that their point of view was scientifically sound.

Medical profession

Medical professionals criticized the film as being misleading and a deception. Richard Berkowitz, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Mount Sinai Medical Center , described it as "factually inaccurate and unfair". John Hobbins of the Yale School of Medicine described the use of special effects as misleading and a form of technical fraud. He stated that the ultrasound scans were presented slowly at the beginning and later accelerated as the instruments were inserted in order to give the impression that the fetus was thrashing about in fear. Hobbins also questioned the term "scream" because a fetus would often open its mouth and the "scream" could also be a yawn. Furthermore, what was identified as the “mouth” on the blurred ultrasound could also be the place between the chin and chest of the fetus. Edward Myer, chairman of the pediatric department at the University of Virginia , described the claim that the fetus could feel pain as ridiculous. The experience of pain implies cognition and after twelve weeks the fetus has no brain to receive the information.

Experts on the development of fetuses said that, contrary to Nathanson's portrayal in the film, a fetus cannot perceive danger or make purposeful movements. David Bodian , a neurobiologist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine , testified that doctors had no evidence that a twelve-week-old fetus could feel pain, but believed that a reflex movement from external stimuli from surgical instruments was possible. The size of the ultrasound image and the fetus model shown are also misleading, as they are the size of a fully grown baby, while a twelve-week-old fetus is less than 5 cm. Hart Petersen, director of pediatrics at New York Hospital , and Robert Eiken of the American Society for Child Neurology, distinguished between a reflex and a subjective experience. According to Petersen, the assumption that a 12 week old fetus can experience discomfort is wrong.

The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists responded to the film with a statement that there was no scientific evidence to support the claim that a fetus could experience pain by the twelfth week of pregnancy. The development of the neurological pathways does not begin before the 24th week of pregnancy. The fetus felt no pain at 12 weeks of age. The American Medical Association wrote that the film (and Planned Parenthood's response to it) contradicted scientific findings and was designed to elicit emotional responses.

Proponents of the right to abortion

Ron Fitzsimmons of the National Abortion Rights Action League stated, "That forced us to respond." In 1985, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) responded with a pamphlet entitled "The Facts Speak Louder than" The Silent Scream "" (German: "The facts speak louder than" The silent scream "), who described the film as" interspersed with scientific, medical and legal inaccuracies as well as misleading statements and exaggerations ". The PPFA hired what it called a “Committee of Internationally Known and Respected Doctors” to critically evaluate the film and refute the allegations made, including the sensation of pain and the purposeful movements of fetuses and the possibility of a “scream”. She produced her own film in which women, doctors and other experts responded to the claims in The Silent Scream and criticized the portrayal of pregnant women as childlike and incapable of deciding on their reproductive rights.

Writer and journalist Katie Roiphe called The Silent Scream "extremely suspicious propaganda" and "basically a horror film that uses overt distortion." The political scientist and pro-choice activist Rosalind P. Petchesky spoke of “visual distortion and verbal fraud” and assigned the film “more to the area of ​​cultural representation than […] medical evidence”.

Representation of women

Women do n't have their say in The Silent Scream and are rarely shown. Nathanson makes little direct statement about women other than claiming that women are victims of the medical establishment. According to communication scholars Randall A. Lake and Barbara A. Pickering, women are represented on a visual level as passive, pregnant objects that are defined and limited by their ability to reproduce. Shown is a woman on an examination table who smiles at the ultrasound scan of her fetus. The next woman shown is in an abortion and can only be seen from the waist down. Finally, close-ups are shown of young white women looking sad and deep in thought, one of the women is crying, another is holding a children's rattle. According to communication scientist Robert James Branham, the three picture sequences in which women appear are organized in such a way that the impression of a chronological sequence is created: Before the termination of pregnancy (smiling woman), during the procedure (woman shown only from the waist down will) and after the termination (sad, crying women). The film suggests reactions that the makers of The Silent Scream consider appropriate and that pregnant women should imitate. Branham believes the portrayal of women in the film is degrading.

Follow-up films

In 1987 Nathanson produced a follow-up film Eclipse of Reason (German title: Unborns want to live ), which describes a late abortion after the "intact dilation and extraction" procedure.

reception

With the film, recordings of an aborted fetus were available for the first time as an electronic medium and no longer only in printed form. In the United States, the film has been credited with turning many viewers into anti-abortion through its shocking graphics. He has helped "draw public attention from the horror stories about women having backyard abortions to a horror film about a fetus undergoing an abortion." The film was of great importance for the rights-to-life movement and is in many places available for purchase or download . The film was in a Doonesbury comic book, The Silent Scream II: The Prequel , parodied . In it, the narrator, who mimicked Nathanson, reports on a twelve-minute pregnancy. He points to a point on the screen and claims that it is "Timmy", a person like "you and me". According to the narrator, “Timmy's” last words were “Revoked Roe v. Calf ”. The comic sheds light on the position of life rights activists who equate an embryo with a child from the moment of conception.

The film was also referred to in Germany. The NDR showed Der stumme Schrei 1985. Der Spiegel reported in the context of the § 218 debate in 1985 and saw the film as an attempt to declare women and doctors to be child murderers. In 1991, Der Spiegel took up the film again. The then Federal Minister for Youth, Family and Health Rita Süssmuth warned against using the film in pregnancy counseling, as it exerted precisely that pressure on women that had to be avoided.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Rosalind Pollack Petchesky: Fetal Images: The Power of Visual Culture in the Politics of Reproduction . In: Feminist Studies . 13, No. 2, 1987, pp. 263-92. doi : 10.2307 / 3177802 .
  2. ↑ a b c Katie Roiphe: Choice words . In: The Guardian , Guardian News and Media, February 26, 2005. Retrieved July 7, 2013. 
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Claudia Wallis: Medicine: Silent Scream . In: TIME , March 25, 1985. Retrieved July 7, 2013. 
  4. ↑ a b c W. Grimes: BN Nathanson, 84, Dies; Changed Sides on Abortion . In: New York Times , February 21, 2011. Retrieved September 20, 2013. 
  5. ^ A b Allison Yarrow: Ronald Reagan, The Silent Scream, and the Slow Rise of Fetal Pain . In: The Daily Beast , May 30, 2012.
  6. ↑ a b c Robert James Branham: The role of the convert in eclipse of reason and the silent scream . In: Quarterly Journal of Speech . 77, No. 4, 1991, pp. 407-426. doi : 10.1080 / 00335639109383971 .
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h Randall A. Lake and Barbara A. Pickering: Argumentation, the Visual, and the Possibility of Refutation: An Exploration . In: Argumentation . 12, No. 1, February 1998, pp. 79-93. doi : 10.1023 / A: 1007703425353 .
  8. ^ A b c Robert T. Zintl: Abortion: New Heat Over an Old Issue . In: TIME , February 4, 1985. Retrieved September 20, 2013. 
  9. ^ B. Pickering, R. Lake: "Visual Images as (opposed to?) Reason: The Argument of Eclipse of Reason." Conference Proceedings - National Communication Association / American Forensic Association (Alta Conference on Argumentation), 1999, p. 253 -261. Taken from: Communication & Mass Media Complete database.
  10. ↑ a b Jason DeParle: Beyond the legal right; why liberals and feminists don't like to talk about the morality of abortion . In: The Washington Monthly , April 1989. Retrieved January 1, 2008. 
  11. ↑ a b c Tom Braden: 'The Silent Scream' is not accurate . In: Gadsden Times , February 28, 1985.
  12. ↑ Jerrold S. Greenberg, Clint E. Bruess and Sarah C. Conklin (eds.): Exploring the Dimensions of Human Sexuality . Jones and Bartlett, Sudbury (MA) 2011, ISBN 978-0-7637-7660-2 , p. 282.
  13. ↑ Elizabeth Mehren: Medical Group Cites Flaws in 'Silent Scream,' Response . In: Los Angeles Times , December 3, 1985.
  14. ^ Sara Dubow: Ourselves Unborn: A History of the Fetus in Modern America . Oxford University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-532343-6 , p. 160.
  15. ^ N. Stafford: Bernard Nathanson . In: BMJ . 342, 2011, p. D1358. doi : 10.1136 / bmj.d1358 .
  16. ↑ a b The Facts Speak Louder than "The Silent Scream" (PDF), Planned Parenthood Federation of America. March 2002. Archived from the original on July 17, 2012. Retrieved September 20, 2013. 
  17. ^ Lawrence R. Frey: New directions in group communication . SAGE, 2002, ISBN 978-0-7619-1281-1 , p. 153.
  18. ↑ Sandra Matthews, Laura Wexler: Pregnant pictures . Routledge, 2000, ISBN 978-0-521-30014-8 , p. 10.
  19. ↑ Michael J. New: The Pro-Life Legacy of Dr. Bernard Nathanson . In: National Review . February 22, 2011. Retrieved September 20, 2013.
  20. ^ Nancy Gibbs: Can a Fetus Feel Pain? . In: TIME , December 6, 2006. Retrieved September 10, 2011. 
  21. ^ D. McBride: Abortion in the United States: A Reference Handbook . ABC-CLIO, 2008, ISBN 978-1-59884-098-8 , p. 278.
  22. ↑ The Silent Scream II: The Prequel . In: Slate (magazine) . Retrieved July 23, 2013.
  23. ↑ a b Sarah Vaughan Brakman u. a. (Ed.): The Ethics of Embryo Adoption and the Catholic Tradition: Moral Arguments, Economic Reality and Social Analysis . Springer, Dordrecht 2007, ISBN 978-1-4020-6210-0 , p. 161 f.
  24. ↑ Georg Stözel, Martin Wengeler: Controversial Terms: History of Public Language Use in the Federal Republic of Germany , de Gruyter, 1994, ISBN 978-3-11-014106-1 , p. 580
  25. ↑ Abortion: Biological Compulsion , Der Spiegel 34/1985, August 19, 1985
  26. ↑ Neither dead nor alive: The dispute over the question of when the embryo becomes human , Der Spiegel 20/1991
  27. ↑ P. Lersch, U. Kosser: Punishment is the last resort: SPIEGEL conversation with Bundestag President Rita Süssmuth (CDU) about a reform of Paragraph 218 , Der Spiegel 20/1991, May 13, 1991