Since its launch on YouTube on September 26, the pro-life documentary 180, produced by Christian apologist Ray Comfort, has gone “viral,” receiving nearly 1.4 million views in just a little over one month. The 30-minute video features man-on-the-street interviews in which Comfort manages to change the minds of several “pro-choice” young people as he confronts them with undeniable parallels between Hitler’s Holocaust, which claimed the lives of over six million Jews, and America’s own abortion holocaust, which has killed more than 53 million babies in nearly 40 years.

But the video, which is garnering attention worldwide for how effectively it reveals the murderous truth about abortion, is not only a YouTube phenomenon. Comfort said that his ministry is using it on college campuses, and pro-life activists have been purchasing DVDs to distribute to others. “It’s not only being watched online, people are buying it to give away,” Comfort said in a recent press release. “We have sold more than 150,000 copies in a matter of weeks. One small church purchased 16,800.”

In late October Comfort’s Living Waters ministry organized a one-day campaign during which volunteers distributed 200,000 DVDs of the video on more than 100 college campuses across the U.S. Comfort said the university giveaway “was very special because it put the physical DVD into the hands of the youth of America, and engaged many in healthy dialogue.”

One of the schools selected was the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA), where the project’s coordinator, Tony Miano, helped Comfort and others distribute some 2,000 copies of the impacting movie. “We are receiving all kinds of reports and e-mails from students who received the documentary,” Milano told the Christian Post of the distribution effort. “The types of responses run the gamut of everything from high praise to the worst kind of vitriol you can imagine. The majority of the responses, probably 10 to 1, has been positive towards the documentary.”

One student who received a DVD e-mailed: “I just was on campus and a friend of mine and I watched this video and in a matter of seconds both of us realized how important the topics in this document truly where. I never really put things into focus until I watched this video. I have a lot of questions and now I’m taking the time to seek answers.”

Another individual recalled receiving a DVD while walking to class. “It made me not only think of the issue in a way I hadn’t before, it made me think of the issue to begin with,” she said. “Identifying as ‘pro-life’ was one of the last things my thankful heart could commit to. Now that I’ve watched this simple DVD, I’m finally able to say I’m Pro-life and really mean it!”

With the positive reception the movie has gotten on college campuses, Comfort said that he has now set his sights on high school audiences, noting the dearth of knowledge young people in the United States have on the historic Holocaust. Comfort told LifeSiteNews that he came back to the studio after filming footage for 180 “with 14 interviews with people who thought that [Hitler] was a communist, or an actor, or they had never even heard of his name. These young people are rather ignorant as to perhaps the darkest period of human history, because the American education system has failed them.”

He expressed concern that the United States may become like the U.K., “where some schools dropped teaching about the Holocaust for fear of offending Moslems, some of whom deny that the Holocaust even happened. So we are giving hundreds of thousands of kids a free documentary.” While some have criticized 180 for its comparison of abortion to the Holocaust, the “amazing thing is that people who watch it change from pro-abortion to pro-life,” Comfort said.

One high school student in West Virginia sent an e-mail to Comfort’s ministry telling how the video had helped change her entire class’s mind about abortion. “This past week in our civics class we were writing essays about laws that we wish would change in America,” the girl wrote. “After seeing this video I chose to do mine on abortion, and how I wished it would be illegal. After I had finished reading my essay, a discussion arose in class ... about how they thought abortion should be a choice, especially if the child is unhealthy or was caused because of rape. But once we started to compare it to Hitler and the Jews everyone’s minds started to change.” She said that 180 helped her to “turn around the entire class opinion about abortion and by the end of the class, 25 of the 25 students and my teacher as well had all raised their hands agreeing that abortion should be illegal.”

Pro-life activists have also expressed their appreciation for the movie. One sidewalk counselor related how she showed 180 to two women she met at an abortion clinic. “One was four month’s pregnant, the other was three,” the counselor recalled. “They were both going there for an abortion; they were both in tears, hugged my neck and decided to give their babies life and choose adoption instead. I cried too.”

Such responses energize Comfort in his campaign to see an end to abortion. “I will not rest as long as the horror of killing babies is a legal reality in our nation,” he promised. “But political change will only come if those who care about the unborn speak up.” He emphasized that 180 was created “to help those who care talk confidently about the subject in a way that makes sense. Anyone can change someone’s mind about abortion as I did on 180, if they have a loving heart and if they are willing to learn a few simple principles.”

Comfort told OneNewsNow that in order to help facilitate the distribution of the movie, he is making it available for purchase in bulk quantities at the low price of one dollar per DVD at HeartChanger.com. There is also a 64-page “180 Course” booklet that will help individuals learn how to effectively present the message on the video.

Comfort explained that people can “either get the physical video, learn how to share these principles yourselves, or get on the Internet and use social media by sending the link all over the world.”

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George Tolhurst said:

... I've watched The Silent Scream. Now I need to watch 180 as well. This well written article brought a tear to my eye. We really do need the electable very pro-life Doctor Ron Paul for our next President. I believe that he will do his upmost to stop the murder of these unborn babies and certainly work harder than any of the other candidates.

November 07, 2011

Marcy Fleming said:

RON PAUL IS OPPOSED TO ANY FEDERAL ANTI-ABORTION AMENDMENT He opposes Federal amendments period. His mentor, Murray Rothbard, had the best pro-abortion choice argument ever in The Ethics Of Liberty (pages 98-100) available from Amazon and elsewhere. Check it out and ignore emotionalistic agit-prop disinformation flicks by the fetus fetishists.

November 14, 2011

Ken E. said:

@ Marcy Fleming - Have you even watched the movie, Marcy? That's what this article is about, after all. BTW, I've read some of your comments on related stories at this site in the past. You've certainly made your viewpoint well known here. And you know how to express it forcefully. But for the life of me, when I read your comments, all I really hear from you is, "I have the right to sex without consequences!" Well, ... all of our actions have consequences, some more so than others. I can't change that. Us right-wingers didn't make that up. And sex has big consequences, it seems. For you, that includes the possibility of becoming pregnant. For me, it includes possibly getting someone pregnant. Why not then just abstain from sex until you can handle becoming a mother? Faced with the possibility of impregnating someone, and knowing that I'm not ready to be a father makes me choose to 'keep it in my pants'; why can't you just choose to 'keep your pants on'? Knowing that that choice exists for you is what makes me conclude that what you really want is sex without consequences.

November 17, 2011

Marcy Fleming said:

KEN E Totally Misses The Point I never wrote that there were no consequences for having sex. Since only women can get pregnant from sex they are the only ones that the right to decide whether to carry to term or not. If men could become pregnant these laws would never have existed. Your libelous insinuation that I must be promiscuous because I advocate the individual rights of the woman to bear or not is an ad hominem fallacy. You don't play the game, pregnancy, and you don't get to make the rules. If I drink too much I can abort it with two glasses of water before I go to bed and that is the responsible thing to do. The irresponsible thing is for loose women to have children because they are slipshod about sex. Furthermore, why shouldn't any woman abstain from sex unless you regard procreation as the only purpose of sex ? But it's not. You can use birth control and not get someone pregnant. You present us with a false dichotomy, having children or abstaining from sex. Most people most of the time do not have sex to have children. Those who do are free to do so. I never used vulgar language like 'keep it in your pants.' I wouldn't presume to dictate to you and I appreciate the same courtesy back.

November 19, 2011