Hollywood continues to champion abortion, assaulting traditional family values and the inviolable right to life. 

In “Revolutionary Road,” the long-awaited movie reuniting Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, a young married couple struggles with suburban life and the angst of unfulfilled dreams. Based on the best-selling novel by Richard Yates published in 1961, “Revolutionary Road” chronicles the lives of Frank and April Wheeler, a young up-and-coming married couple yearning to live the American Dream. April, an aspiring actress has hit rock bottom, floundering in her latest performance, while Frank begrudgingly goes to work every day at Knox Business Machines to pay for the mortgage of their beautiful suburban home on Revolutionary Road.

Years of married life and children soon proves to be the death knell for true living. In order to escape the monotony and conformity of life, April concocts a plan to move to Paris where Frank can “find himself” and where she can support him and the family by working as a high-paying secretary for the government. But their plans are thwarted by April’s unexpected pregnancy. Frank begins to have second thoughts about moving; his decision to stay in Connecticut is further cemented by a promotion at work. Frank’s decision devastates April who is now three months pregnant. She believes the only way out of her misery is to perform a high-risk abortion on herself. Given April’s thought processes, this is a logical conclusion since it was the birth of their two children which initially led them to move to the suburbs and to stop pursuing their dreams. April successfully kills her baby but dies as a result.

In the climactic scene when April performs the abortion, the movie portrays her as walking down the stairs towards the bright sunlight radiating through the window. She is bleeding profusely, and yet, she has a serene, calm smile upon her face. The Hollywood message is clear: The ultimate enlightenment is killing a baby so that you can fulfill your dreams—even if this means killing yourself in the process and abandoning your husband and two young children.

Hollywood has been no stranger to promoting abortion. Movies such as “Citizen Ruth,” “The Cider House Rules” and “Vera Drake” are but a few that have unabashedly promulgated a woman’s right to choose. But “Revolutionary Road” pushes the envelope by portraying abortion as the epitome of fulfillment. The film touts John Givings, the insane son of the Wheelers’ local realtor, as the voice of reason. Played by Michael Shannon, he champions the Wheelers’ decision to go to Paris to escape the “hopelessness and emptiness” of suburban life. Upon learning that they have changed their mind, he curses their unborn child and the miserable life he or she will have with such cowardly parents.

The San Francisco Chronicle has hailed “Revolutionary Road” to be “a great American film” that must “be seen more than once.” With rave reviews, the film has grossed more than 27 million in the United States and more than 46 million abroad. It garnered four Golden Globe nominations and four Oscar nominations, with Winslet clinching the Golden Globe and Oscar for best actress for her performance. These accolades for Winslet reinforce the false notion—as DiCaprio said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey—that April is the hero of the film because she wants more out of life and is willing to take risks. As April bluntly tells Frank, “It takes backbone to live the life you want.”

For Yates, his novel was an indictment of American life in the 1950s and the prevalent conformist attitude during the Eisenhower administration.  In 1999, Yates told Boston Review that “most human beings are inescapably alone, and therein lies their tragedy.” But both Yates and April have it wrong. The real tragedy is April’s narcissistic and hedonistic worldview that perceives family, children and a comfortable life as anathema to true living. During the current economic crisis where experts predict more than nine million Americans will fall into poverty, April’s whimsical fantasies seem absurd. More absurd is the illusory shackles of family values that stifle her. But as April sees it, reneging on your responsibility as a wife and mother and fulfilling your own needs, takes precedence above all else. This is true courage. Or as echoed more succinctly by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning of the universe and the mystery of human life."

Since Roe v. Wade was established in 1973, nearly 50 million babies have been aborted—all in the name of a woman’s right to choose. Hollywood has no problem assaulting the dignity of life and encouraging the mass murder of children to promote self-fulfillment. Despite Hollywood’s mantra, the true American Dream for any mother is achieved not by killing her unborn child, but through daily hard work and sacrifice for her children and family. In his thought-provoking encyclical, Gaudium et Spes, the late Pope John Paul II said, “Man cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of self.” It is in striving towards this self-realization that both men and women—and in particular, mothers—become truly human. It is in this striving that they discover their feminine genius. Don’t let Hollywood tell you otherwise.