Is Kickstarter kicking out pro-life projects?

For the second time, producers of a planned pro-life film effort have had to switch from Kickstarter to IndieGoGo for their crowdfunding efforts. Filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McIlhenny took their Gosnell Movie project to IndieGoGo after Kickstarter insisted that they could shut down the effort at any time if they didn’t like the language used to promote it, and another pro-life project called Stolen Moments has gotten a rejection letter from Kickstarter as well. The rejection, nearly two weeks ago, was on the basis of the campaign being, er … “self help” (via Katie Pavlich):

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For the life of me I can’t figure out how anyone could consider our project self help. Let me briefly tell you about the project.

The project, Stolen Moments, is something I’ve been working on for the past few months with my friend, Andrew Koch.

It’s a simple idea. Everyone has a story to tell. Our stories are made of a special moments throughout our lives. Stories come from both the good and bad moments. Yet, due to abortion we’ve lost millions of potential moments in our lives. Moments that would be part of our story. Moments that were stolen from all of us.

We want to share through a series of short videos some of those moments we’re all missing because of abortion. It’s an idea I’ve fallen in love with and I think once you see what God has laid on our heart to create you will as well.

It’s thrilling to be at the point where we have a great crew assembled and to be ready to raise the funds. We were all set to launch and then got this upsetting news.

I love Kickstarter. If you look at my profile then you’ll see I’ve backed over two dozen campaigns in the last couple of years. They pioneered crowdfunding.

Self-help? Only in the sense that crowdfunding is all about self-help for filmmakers looking for independent sources of capital. That applies to literally everything Kickstarter and IndieGoGo does. If a documentary about the regrets of abortion doesn’t have any other purpose than self-help, then it’s mystifying how any other documentary on social issues from any point of view isn’t similarly disqualified.

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Fortunately, Stolen Moments appears to have gone well on its way to raising its money. With 23 days left in the cycle, the filmmakers are just shy of halfway to their modest goal of $1500. The news is equally good for Gosnell Movie, where funding has gone over $820,000 — almost 40% of the goal with 27 days left in the campaign. The film picked up a couple of Hollywood endorsements in the last few days, too:

Nick Searcy and Kevin Sorbo have cut YouTube videos in support of a crowdfunding campaign to finance a TV movie about convicted killer and former abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell.

Nick Searcy, better known as U.S. Marshal Art Mullen on the FX television show Justified, is asking fans to donate money to some filmmakers who are producing a TV movie he says Hollywood would prefer not be made.

The movie is called Gosnell and is the true story of abortion doctorKermit Gosnell, who is serving life in prison for multiple murders. The funding for the movie will come by way of a $2.1 million IndieGoGo crowdfunding campaign. If filmmakers Phelim McAleerAnn McElhinney and Magdalena Segieda are successful, it will be the biggest campaign for a TV or movie project ever hosted at IndieGoGo.

Searcy, who leans right and often wades into political controversies via Twitter and other outlets, has cut a YouTube video in support of the Gosnell project that is set to go live today.

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Anyone who follows Nick Searcy on Twitter knows that he has a great sense of humor and a pugnacity to say what he thinks at all times. The introduction of this endorsement video demonstrates the former, while the rest of it demonstrates the latter:

Kevin and Sam Sorbo offered an endorsement video two weeks ago:

I’ll be discussing Gosnell Movie on tomorrow’s Ed Morrissey Show with Phelim McAleer, but be sure to add your contribution to the crowdfunding effort now.

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