The typical Catholic or Christian in America today is astounded by the dramatic upheaval of traditionally accepted morality and family values, widespread abortion, contraception, divorce, cohabitation, gender confusion and assisted suicide. 

How did things get so bad?

The new documentary The 1916 Project — which is streaming free Oct. 22-Nov. 14 on X, with additional screenings at churches — goes a long way in answering that question. It explores the chronology of the secular moral revolution and the architects and intentions of our current culture of death.

While many factors have played a role in the cultural downfall, the documentary explains that, for more than 100 years, one well-funded organization has been part of the equation: Planned Parenthood. The movie, which takes its title from the year in which its founder Margaret Sanger opened the first “birth-control center” in New York City, aims to expose the truth of Planned Parenthood’s devastating impact on our nation, even as it has now added transgender hormones to its list of “services.” 

Longtime pro-lifer Seth Gruber, founder of The White Rose Resistance,  set out to trace the history of the cultural revolution with this film.  

The movie chronicles the influence of a small number of eugenicists from the 1920s and ’30s, including Sanger, as the root cause of today’s decadent society.

Phrases that Sanger introduced into our language, including “birth control,” have become mainstream. She published The Birth Control Review for three decades, inviting other eugenicists throughout the world to publish their socialist articles. These included members of the Third Reich. 

Sanger dedicated herself to legitimizing what was considered perverse and immoral. With her own promiscuous lifestyle, she declared, “We need to free the libido, free women from the consequences of that libido by limiting birth.” 

It was Sanger who introduced the word “unfit” to describe anyone considered to have “bad genes,” saying they were “unfit to reproduce.” 

Today, so many people are shocked to hear that children with Down syndrome are routinely aborted; “leftover” babies of IVF procedures are discarded and the vast majority of abortions are for reasons of “convenience.” Schools are refusing to tell parents of a child’s “new identity,” and some states are threatening parents that they must “affirm” their child’s wishes no matter how they feel about it. 

Many churches and individuals want to stem the tide of immoral, sinful, perverse and even demonic behaviors bombarding society. But with family values openly mocked and pro-lifers in jail for merely trying to help young moms in unplanned pregnancies, naturally some are intimidated into silence: “Hey, don’t tell other people how to live!”

This film shows that those with traditional, biblical values are the ones being told how to live. 

The riveting movie shows that abortion isn’t just one issue among many. It’s really “the linchpin on which the liberal establishment spins,” observes Gruber in the movie. 

What was considered normal and healthy is now countercultural.

Looking at the words of revolutionaries including Sanger, viewers’ eyes are opened to the stated goals and steps that were taken in an evil plan of Marxism and totalitarianism, showing dramatic parallels between the steps that led to the evil of the Nazis and the corruption of today.

The movie was shown recently in Naples, Florida, through the coordination of Scott Baier, CEO of Community Pregnancy Clinics. Baier told the Register of Gruber, “He’s the No. 1 pro-life advocate out there today. When I heard he had a book and movie coming out, I knew we had to partner with him to help get people, especially the younger generation, educated about this important topic.”

“Two of our clinics are right next to a Planned Parenthood abortion mill, and one is on a major university campus (UF). The culture of darkness and death has really infiltrated our young people: It promotes promiscuity, normalizes sex before marriage, encourages contraception, pushes pornography, and praises abortion,” Baier explained. “As a result, we are seeing an increase not only in abortion-minded patients, but also STI (sexually transmitted infection) rates, divorce rates, unhealthy relationships, negative self-worth, anxiety and depression, and even suicide rates. It’s really a culture of brokenness, and abortion is another symptom of this brokenness. We’re trying to address the root cause of these symptoms so that young people have the knowledge to choose to live differently, to live virtuously.”

The most common reaction Baier has heard from movie viewers is, “‘Why have I never heard this information before?’ When people see the connection between the sexual revolution, which started long before the 1960s, and where we are today, they are amazed.”

As Gruber told the Register, “Sexualization of the culture is the sales funnel, contraception and abortion are their products, and our sons and daughters are the prospects for this evil industry.”  

Initially the movie was shown in a few local theaters to mostly pro-life advocates. “We have since shown the movie in local Catholic and evangelical churches with great success,” Theresa Barbale, The 1916 Project’s marketing director, told the Register. “People are hungry for this information.”

One positive outcome of the movie is motivating people to get involved in some way: To help counteract immoral sex-ed programs in public schools, Community Pregnancy Clinics promotes the the S.H.A.R.E. (Sexual Health and Relationship Education) program, developed by Catholic speaker Pam Stenzel, who is working to educate the hearts and mind of young people. 

“We are currently training young adults to go into classrooms, school auditoriums, church groups and other youth groups to share healthy messages around sexual integrity and human development,” explained Baier.

Gruber, speaking to author and radio host Eric Metaxas in an interview on the film project, said, “This is the battle for the soul of not just America, but for the world.” 

Unfortunately, Gruber also said in the Metaxas interview, the socialist revolutionaries exposed in the movie had “a far more robust commitment to their philosophy as a religion than most Christians have today.”

“If believers can be lulled into complacency or a place of fatalism, we’ve abdicated our role and that’s exactly how we got here.”

One viewer even commented to Gruber, “I’ve never heard a lot of this in my 50 years in the pro-life movement.”

The 1916 Project was shown in Manhattan on Oct. 16. Viewers Mike Sweeney and wife Collette, longtime pro-life sidewalk counselors at the Margaret Sanger Planned Parenthood in New York, expressed to the Register gratitude for the movie’s exposure of the sordid history of the organization responsible for so many deaths and so much suffering. “We’ve seen thousands of young women head into Planned Parenthood, listening to the lies of the culture. Sometimes we’re able to share the baby’s development with them and explain what abortion will do to them and they change their mind.”

 

LEARN MORE

WATCH: STREAMING FREE beginning Oct. 22 at 4 PM EST exclusively on X, through Nov. 14: (@1916projectfilm) / X

Or attend a screening.