Kickstarter on Rejecting Pro-Life Films: "We Made a Mistake"

Cortney O'Brien | April 24, 2014 10:30 AM

Last week, Katie exposed how the crowd funding website Kickstarter suspiciously rejected two pro-life films within two weeks. First came Gosnell the Movie, a documentary from filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney about America’s worst serial killer, abortionist Kermit Gosnell. That, Kickstarter claimed, was too “graphic.” Then they rejected Stolen Moments, Jason Vaughn’s film highlighting precious moments in life that are stolen by abortion. This time, the website claimed they don’t allow any films that offer “self-help.” Their excuses were poor, considering Kickstarter routinely allows porn on its site as well as films that give out health advice, which can certainly be classified as “self-help.”

Now, it seems the crowd funding website is apologizing for rejecting both McAleer’s and Vaughn’s pro-life based projects. Yancey Strickler, the CEO at Kickstarter, sent a message to Vaughn, explaining how they were in the wrong. Vaughn shared that email with The Federalist:

Hi Jason,

My name is Yancey, and I’m the CEO of Kickstarter. I came across a blog post this morning that reported your frustration at having a project rejected by us at Kickstarter. I took a look at the project, and think you’re right: we made a mistake. Your project is not in violation of our rules, and we would welcome it on the site.

I see that you’ve understandably launched your project elsewhere. I wish you the best with it. I’m sorry for the frustration and that you had a poor experience with us. We set very high standards for how we serve our community, and it’s frustrating when we fall short. I realize this is small consolation at this point, but it was important to me that we shared these thoughts.

Thanks for your time and all the best,

Yancey