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The title of the movie, \u201cNever Rarely Sometimes Always\u201d is based on an intense scene in which the protagonist, Autumn, is being counseled at an abortion facility before her abortion. Those are the answers she\u2019s to offer to the questions. The counselor asked if she had ever been hit, slapped, or physically hurt. Autumn hesitated, and never answered. When asked if she had sex when she didn\u2019t want to, Autumn cried, but never answered. Then asked more bluntly: had she had forced sex ever, yes or no? She answered, \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nobody but nobody could watch that scene and not understand that this 17-year-old had been abused. Yet the counselor simply scheduled her abortion and never did any follow-up at all. The facility cleaned her up (so to speak) and sent her back into the abusive situation.<\/p>\n
That she\u2019s emotionally numb and troubled about the abuse is clear throughout the entire movie \u2013 and especially in the final scene, after the abortion, on the bus on her way home. Looking at her face (pictured) we see a crushed spirit.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/1-blog-sorrow.jpg\")
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Empowerment?<\/h3>\n
Yet that\u2019s not what the entire audience sees. Apparently, it\u2019s not what the writer and director of the film, Eliza Hittman, sees. Reviewers<\/a> refer to Autumn as on a brave journey, and being empowered.<\/p>\n This is my view of empowerment for a young woman in Autumn\u2019s situation: she gathers evidence, turns the sexual assaulter in, and if the police and courts aren\u2019t doing their job, rallies the press and public opinion behind her. If she already has reason to suspect the police will make things worse, she can come up with other nonviolent actions. Perhaps getting a group of her friends to picket the abuser\u2019s house. Or she could find (if needed, create) organizations that can work through restorative justice so the abuser can understand the harm he\u2019s doing and how intolerable it is.<\/p>\n An inspiring, empowering story is one in which a way is found to keep the abuser from going on to abuse others. If she\u2019s empowered, she does it. But if that\u2019s a lot to ask of a traumatized 17-year-old, at least have others around who can help her toward that goal.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not what we have here. This is a story of a young woman acquiescing to her abuse, being resigned to it, and being emotionally numbed by it.<\/p>\n There was even a point where she was offered help in finding a place to stay overnight and turned it down. This led directly to the cousin who accompanied her having to put up with an intense-kissing predator in order for them to get money they needed. She sympathetically held the cousin\u2019s hand, but offering sympathy for someone else who must succumb is so very inadequate. It was a weary resignation to their fates.<\/p>\n And once when Autumn was moping in the bus station, the cousin asked her, \u201cWhat do you want me to do?\u201d Her answer was, \u201cBug off!\u201d They reconciled soon after, but the tension is palpable. Another time, when she has the laminaria in as the first step in her two-day abortion process, at one point she starts vaginal bleeding. Autumn calls the facility, but when the woman answers, Autumn doesn\u2019t speak, and finally hangs up and leaves. These are not the marks of an empowered young woman driving her own fate.<\/p>\n So how is it that the reviewers don\u2019t see what seems so glaringly obvious to me? Because the idea that the abortion \u201cchoice\u201d is empowerment is a premise, not a conclusion. They start looking at the situation that way, and all evidence to the contrary is dismissed. The foundation is unshakable.<\/p>\n The view is that this promotes the pro-choice cause because it\u2019s demonstrating what\u2019s wrong with legal restrictions, by showing a young woman navigating obstacles:<\/p>\n So here are my questions:<\/p>\n That last point does mean we\u2019re hoping for a situation better than it was before Roe v. Wade<\/em>, or the methods of abortion legalization in other countries, when women got clandestine abortions as part of letting their abusers off the hook. But back then there were several additional astonishingly sexist parts of letting abusers off the hook, and for the future, we need to cut all of them out.<\/p>\n I\u2019d love to see this experiment, easily done in college classes once the Covid-19 crisis is lessened and we have those again: Show the movie in some classes and present it as a pro-choice movie. Show it in other classes and present it as a pro-life movie. In other classes, present it as an interesting story to make people think. Then give them a questionnaire, which includes asking the students their own position on abortion.<\/p>\n My prediction is that the pro-choice students would love it as a pro-choice movie and be utterly outraged by it as a pro-life film. And it could be presented as pro-life. It\u2019s entirely believable that way.<\/p>\n In fact, I recommend that it (or pertinent clips from it) be used in training people working at Pregnancy Help Centers. The realism is notable, and it would make an excellent case study for discussing how to deal with a young woman whose own numbing at her victimization makes her impervious to the cheerful information about the baby and offers of options.<\/p>\n I think the movie helps the case against abortion even for those who don\u2019t understand it that way. All assurances that abortion is an easy no-big-deal thing are out the window. I suspect no one watching this film is more likely to get one, and plenty of people who buy the writer\u2019s premise that restrictions are a terrible thing are nevertheless less likely to think of getting one when it\u2019s that much trouble. It\u2019s a lengthy anti-advertisement.<\/p>\n This is a movie that would have much more of an anti-abortion impact if we pro-lifers were able to see how very much this realistic film documents one crucial aspect of how abortion is so very bad for women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Rachel MacNair With the initial theater release interrupted by the Covid-19 closing of theaters, this movie was offered online April 3, 2020. The title of the movie, \u201cNever Rarely Sometimes Always\u201d is based on an intense scene in which the protagonist, Autumn, is being counseled at an abortion facility before her abortion. Those… <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/consistent-life.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/1-blog-movie.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA \u201cPro-Choice\u201d Movie?<\/h3>\n
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Or a \u201cPro-Life\u201d Movie?<\/h3>\n