'Trapped' Video Game Promoting Teen Abortion Blasted for Not Showing What Really Happens to Girls
A controversial browser-based video game allows users to control characters in their quest to obtain an abortion, sparking condemnation from pro-life voices.
The Daily Dot reported last week that "Trapped" purports to show how "difficult" it is for women to obtain an abortion, even when they have legal access to it.
Players control pregnant characters, some teenagers, as they make the decision to have an abortion but face obstacles, such as the cost clinics charge and ensuring they have transportation to get home after the procedure.
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"Trapped" is based off the card game "Walk in my Shoes," created by the Women's Health Specialists of Sacramento, a healthcare group that provides and advocates for abortion, and against pro-life pregnancy centers.
"I know lots of us support the 'right to choose,' but don't often get exposed to why so many people can't ever choose, including being boxed out by the expense or delayed past the time where it's an option," said Kate Bertash, the programmer behind "Trapped."
"I hope then that even people who know they support abortion already, who maybe already call their legislators or take other actions, can know just how much immediate impact it can have if we give to abortion funds as well."
Many pro-life organizations are now speaking out against the game.
"Killing babies is not a game," Students for Life of America wrote on its Facebook page Sunday.
User Donna Patterson added in the comments section: "I notice in this video game, they don't show a video of an ultrasound of the baby whose life they are about to terminate. They also don't show a video of the actual abortion procedure, nor do they show the potential risk of the procedure, or the lifelong psychological anguish many of these mothers experience."
Patterson continued: "This virtual reality game seems devoid of important realities of abortion."
LifeNews described "Trapped" as a game that "lets you help a pregnant woman kill her baby in an abortion."
"Abortion activists keep finding sick new ways to promote the killing of unborn babies," the group warned.
"The creators' extreme pro-abortion agenda comes through loud and clear in the game," LifeNews added, pointing out that in some cases women in America are able to schedule late-term abortions as soon as 24 hours following a call to an abortion facility.
There have been other abortion video games in the past as well, including one developed in 2013 titled "Choice: Texas, A Very Serious Game," which allowed players to navigate past Texas' abortion regulations and have the procedure.
The game was also slammed by critics, such as Emily Horne, a lobbyist for Texas Right to Life and a Texas native, who said it "reduces abortion to a dry, simplistic view and it completely ignores the voice of the unborn baby, who obviously has no voice or perspective in this at all."
Pew Research Center found in July 2017 that 57 percent of the American public say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 40 percent say it should be illegal in all or most cases.
Those without a religious affiliation are most likely to support abortion, at 80 percent, while white evangelical Protestants were found to be the least supportive, at only 29 percent.
The "Trapped" video game trailer can be seen here: