The film, which has been enthusiastically received by anti-abortion activists, argues that the modern-day prevalence of abortion among African Americans is rooted in an attempted genocide or the maafa of black people.

[3][7] Critics have countered many of the film's points, arguing that Sanger was not a racist, that the eugenics movement was not especially focused on African Americans, that black women were largely in favor of birth control and were having abortions long before it became legal, and that instead of being a plot by Planned Parenthood, the high rate of abortion among African Americans comes from a correspondingly high rate of unplanned pregnancies.

[4] MovieGuide, an online database of movie reviews that uses a "Biblical perspective" in reviewing films for families, gave Maafa 21 a "quality rating" of "excellent" (4 out of 4 stars), describing it as a "very carefully reasoned, well-produced exposé of the abortion industry, racism and eugenics" and says that it "proves through innumerable sources that the founders of Planned Parenthood and other parts of the abortion movement were interested in killing off the black race in America and elsewhere.

"[13] Religious online news source Catholic.net also found Maafa 21 convincing, saying it "shows the connection from slavery and eugenics to birth control, abortion and black genocide today.

"[14] Loretta J. Ross, author of "African-American Women and Abortion: A Neglected History"[15] and founder of several human rights and reproductive justice organizations, wrote that Maafa 21 is a "pseudo-documentary" by white anti-abortion activists, and that, rather than being racial suicide, family planning formed part of a "racial uplift strategy" supported by African-American leaders and black women, as they believed that in smaller families, each child could have a better opportunity.

[8] Marcy Darnovsky, associate executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society, wrote that the film is a "shockumentary" used to support the activities of the black anti-abortion movement.

While rejecting the idea that Maafa 21 will have a lasting impact on African American culture, largely due to his apprehensions of the sincerity of the film's producers, Middlebrook said that he "believes the theory that Planned Parenthood may be attempting to limit black births to increase white dominance.

Political columnist and abortion rights advocate Michelle Goldberg notes that there were racist people on both sides of the eugenics debate in the early 20th century[3] [better source needed] and that Sanger wanted birth control and sterilization to be made available to anybody who wished to have it, without regard to race.