The beauty of life and adoption

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, September 9th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a new pro-life movie.

In their new feature film Lifemark, Christian filmmakers Kirk Cameron and the Kendrick brothers tell the true story of a boy who was almost never born.

EICHER: The movie touches on the important themes of adoption and choosing life over abortion. But it doesn’t quite do justice to the true events that inspired the film. Here’s WORLD’s life beat reporter Leah Savas with a review.

LEAH SAVAS, REPORTER: High School student David Colton’s parents adopted him as a baby, and he doesn’t like to talk about it. Sure, he loves his adoptive mom and dad and has a happy life, but he’s afraid of being different. So when his parents receive a voicemail from the adoption agency soon after his 18th birthday, it rocks his world. His birth mom, Melissa, has updated her records, and he’s now old enough to contact her. David has to decide what to do.

Jimmy: Well, I um—She's right. You're old enough now.

Susan: David, what do you think?

David: I don't know.

Susan: We need to talk about this. I mean, do you think you might want to meet your mom?

David: I don't know, okay? It's a lot to think about.

Jimmy: Yeah, well, you don't have to do anything right now, David. It's okay.

David: I don't even know if I want her back in my life. I don’t even know her.

The movie follows David as he connects with his birth parents on social media and later travels to meet them for the first time. In the process, he comes to terms with what it means to be an adopted child.

The movie dramatizes the real-life story of David Scotton. A Louisiana couple who couldn’t have children of their own adopted David in the 1990s. He traveled to meet his Indiana birth parents in 2013. The 2018 documentary I Lived on Parker Avenue captures that reunion and features interviews with David and both sets of parents.

In a lot of ways, Lifemark stays true to David's story, but it makes some changes, mostly related to characters’ backstories. To my mind, the most notable change was how David learned that his birth parents almost aborted him as a baby. In the movie, his birth mom Melissa reveals the truth to David at the very end, about ten minutes before the credits roll.

CLIP: Those few seconds, you wouldn’t be standing here. I would have killed you. I’m so sorry.

Don’t be. You let me live. There’s nothing to be sorry for.

But in the 2018 documentary, it’s clear David knows about the almost-abortion before meeting Melissa. After watching Lifemark, I had a Zoom call with David’s adoptive mom, Susan Scotton, and she said she knew about Melissa’s visit to the abortion clinic almost from the beginning. She and her husband met with David’s birth parents over dinner during their trip to pick up baby David.

SUSAN SCOTTON: And it was there that she shared with me that she had been an abortion clinic. So I knew at the beginning. David, I mean, we were always so open about adoption. Adoption was our life that we celebrated and, but understanding abortion, I started mentioning it to him. Well, my mom and dad was so active in right to life, they would walk in front of the abortion clinics. So he knew they were doing that. And you know, but probably he didn't grasp the idea of what an abortion was until maybe 13, I guess. But he, he knew.

Without this knowledge, David’s struggle to decide if he wants to connect with Melissa and the thanks he extends to her when they first meet don’t have as much meaning.

The filmmakers here missed an opportunity to show David’s long-term attitude of forgiveness towards his birth mom. And to let characters and viewers process the significance of Melissa’s decision to choose adoptive parents for her baby.

David: Thank you. I’ve had a great life.

Melissa: I know you have.

David: That’s because of you. You gave that to me.

I first saw the documentary about David last summer and have since re-watched it and recommended it on this podcast. In it, we see real-life David sob as his adoptive parents reassure him that they don’t love him any less because he’s not their biological child. We see more tears from Melissa as she tells the story of being a teen at the Indianapolis abortion facility. David’s initially distant birth father, Brian, expresses pride that his son looks like him, and we can see the similarities in the nose, the forehead, the mouth.

After seeing the documentary and the real people behind the story, it’s easy to see that the movie falls short. In comparison, the movie feels like a cheap reenactment with too-well-dressed characters living in too-well-decorated houses. Add to that cringey acting, and the story loses its rawness.

Nate: I don’t know, just don’t hold anything back alright? Just give it all to me.

David: Okay. Sure.

Nate: Are you ready? And—action.

David: I didn’t want to be different! I just wanted to fit in!

Nate: Dude are you kidding me? Alright, that’s a cut. That’s a cut.

David: What is wrong with me right now?

But the movie still made me cry because it shows the power of choosing life over death and the beauty of adoption. Viewers who have seen the documentary I Lived on Parker Avenue will notice cameo appearances in Lifemark by David, his adoptive mom, and his birth mom. Those cameos are a reminder of how, in this case, the choice of one teenage mom has influenced a multitude.

I’m Leah Savas.

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