Irish filmmaker aiming to raise $2.1m online for documentary

Phelim McAleer has already raised $573,000 through crowd-funding for abortion film

Phelim McAleer and his wife Ann McElhinney (pictured) are hoping to make a film about convicted Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell. Photograph: David Sleator/The Irish Times

California-based Irish journalist and documentary filmmaker Phelim McAleer has raised $573,000 (€413,000) of a targeted $2.1 million on a crowd-funding website for a television movie about convicted Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell.

McAleer, with fellow filmmakers, his wife Ann McElhinney and Magdalena Segieda, is aiming to raise the money in what would be one of the biggest amounts targeted in a crowd-funded project.

Gosnell, a septuagenarian doctor, was convicted last year on three counts of first-degree murder for killing babies born alive in botched abortions in a west Philadelphia clinic which prosecutors called a “house of horrors”.

His last film, the pro-fracking documentary Frack Nation , raised $212,000 from more than 3,000 people.

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The Co Tyrone filmmaker became embroiled in a row with Alec Baldwin after the actor criticised the pro-gas industry position he took in the film.

Simon Carswell

Simon Carswell

Simon Carswell is News Editor of The Irish Times