MONICA MONTICELLO, MONICA MONTICELLO Footnote 1 The chair of the Republican National Committee, Mary Louise Smith, supported abortion rights, as did First Lady Betty Ford, who declared Roe v. Wade a "great, great decision." Likewise, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, who had taken a leading role in the fight for abortion rights in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s . After Tiller is an essential watch to understand the emotional and misunderstood elements of the late-term abortion debate. Will they matter? I cried with her: the diary of a doctor navigating a total abortion ban. DORRIE BARRON: I was petrified. Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas, outgoing chair of the USCCB's Committee on Pro-Life Activities, presents pro-life initiative Walking with Moms in Need to the U.S. bishops in . DEL BARCO: The Janes say their clients included wives and girlfriends of police officers. Madeline McComish (top row, center), a retired chemist, is past president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. DEL BARCO: Until the Supreme Court decision in 1973, abortion was a felony in the state of Illinois, as in most of the country. Ending the constitutional right to abortion has had far-reaching, and in some cases life-threatening risks, the authors write including for those seeking miscarriage care, those forced to travel across state lines for abortion, and those denied care for potentially fatal complications such as ectopic pregnancies. Republican. It also details cases of several patients who had to travel out of state for an abortion after being refused care for an ectopic pregnancy, and others who were denied chemotherapy care due to pregnancy. The development of medication abortion has vastly changed the landscape. The committee was tasked with producing a report with policy recommendations, but Himes wanted to go further than that. You need an abortion. TIA LESSIN: There's audacious women who outmaneuvered the Chicago Police and the Catholic Church and the Chicago mob to help other women in need. Nicki Nichols Gamble (top row, right) was the President of Planned Parenthood League of MA at the time of the clinic shootings and throughout the six yearlong dialogues. The films stories of womens desperation are haunting and ominous. And in addition to offering a deeply personal window into choices the women faced in unplanned pregnancies, the film examined the steadfast belief of the anti-abortion community that there should be no choice at all. The letter sent on Thursday was addressed to a number of UN agencies and officials, including the Working Group on Discrimination against Women and Girls; the Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment; and the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy. The organizing principle of the collectives work is care that all health care, fundamentally, should be based on compassionate care. When someone suggested Parker, Himes said, I was a little concerned initially that people would see it and say, What in the world is Carrie Bradshaw doing in this documentary? referring to her character in the long-running HBO series Sex and the City. But, he said, She does a wonderful job of telling her own story, and its a remarkable story.. The Dobbs ruling pushed the US even further out of line with its human rights obligations, including its obligation to ensure access to abortion and to eliminate structural racism and discrimination, said Annerieke Smaak Daniel, womens rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. Documenting evidence of potential war crimes in Ukraine. AT UCF The abortion debate has long dominated political discourse on Capitol Hill, particularly in recent years. Charges were dropped after Roe v. Wade was decided the following year. CHUCK WOODS Directed by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg, the film documents how even conservative presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush supported abortion rights, which changed by 2018 when Republican. Weve seen consistent lip service from the Biden-Harris administration, but not enough action, she said. The couple said they wanted to send a message of being "pro-love" rather than "pro-choice" or "pro-life," but viewers have . Inspired by Depression-era photographer Walker Evans whose iconic work documented rural poverty on behalf of the Interior and Agriculture departments the committee assigned itself some creative extra credit: producing a documentary movie. Members of the public gather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on May 2, 2022, after a leaked draft majority opinion signaled the likely end of Roe v. Wade and nearly 50 years of abortion law. Where is the money? The Fight For Women's Bodies Contains some upsetting scenes. Members of the Jane Collective, an underground . Essential Partners is a 501(c)3 organization, 2016-2023 Essential Partners |Site Credits. Anybody can be a catalyst for change. The film traces the committee's origins in the era of McCarthyism and anti-gay propaganda while detailing the personal stories of those intimately involved with its activities. Anita Bryant "I Believe" Album Cover used by permission and protected by the We knew that some would be injured. Abortions happened long before Roe v. Wade, and they will continue to happen long after its apparently imminent demise. After Tiller documents how four remaining third-trimester providers have continued carrying Tillers legacy. Explore FRONTLINEs collected and ongoing reporting on Russia's war on Ukraine. Cassanello, Mills, Hos and their former students launched a fundraising campaign to cover the cost of licensing images and music in the film. daniel@whatisessential.org Florida Film Festival 2013 That also means empowering through education, via practices designed explicitly to provide information. With lower costs and more scheduling availability (they could sometimes perform up to two dozen abortions a day), women of color from the South Side and West Side of Chicago quickly became their main clients. We would like to thank the following individuals without whose advice and assistance the broadcast version of this film could never have happened: Colleen Hamilton (The reason, he alludes to on camera, is that the Mafia was closing in on him.). And at that point, I realized we better set up a system. ET June 8), takes you inside an underground network of women providing access to affordable, safe and illegal abortions in Chicago, in the 1960s and 1970s. In the ward at the former Cook County Hospital in Chicago, now John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, death was a common occurrence, according to a 2019 BuzzFeed essay written by Allan Weiland, who worked in the ward as a medical student and appears in The Janes.. JOHN TILESTON ET Wednesday, featuring the voices of more than a dozen former members of the group, informally known as Jane, who recount their experiences helping women get access to abortions when they were illegal. A new documentary tells the story of "The Jane Collective," a group that helped women with nowhere else to turn for a safe abortion, in the days before Roe v. Wade. Directed by Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes, this film spotlights the Chicago-based underground abortion network called The Jane Collective. Many people around them, including children that they already had, would suffer. Accuracy and availability may vary. Of course it felt complicated, Peaches, a white woman in the collective, observed. Some women tried to self-induce abortions using objects or chemicals, which often led to infection and sometimes death. Overriding nearly five decades of legal precedent, the Supreme Courthas overturnedRoe v. Wade, the landmark1973 ruling that legalized abortion in the U.S. ACOG Committee Opinion No. I asked if you thought it was OK. The description of the arrest of seven Janes is almost comical. They were unable to fathom that the women could do the work themselves. The experience would forever change how they speak to and about each other. All rights reserved, WUSF Knowledge (16.4) Select screening events will also have an opportunity to host the filmmakers, an Essential Partners representative, and/or participants from The Abortion Talks for a post-screening Q&A or panel conversation. To prepare for the Supreme Court's current term, we recommend brushing up on the issues with six FRONTLINE documentaries. U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., speaks during the pro-abortion rights rally at the Ruth Steinkraus Cohen Bridge in downtown Westport, Conn. Sunday, May 8, 2022. N. ADAM WATSON Through contacts made at those hearings, the committee identified about 150 families whose stories they explored for the documentary. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Park Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen. You'll receive access to exclusive information and early alerts about our documentaries and investigations. NPR's Mandalit del Barco has this report. With intimate access, The Abortion Divide featured interviews with women with unplanned pregnancies, doctors and nurses who provided abortions, and those who counseled women against the procedure. 7 min read. The documentary provides a somewhat chronological account of their work, ending with the public arrest of several of its members, the threat of long prison sentences, and the interventions of their attorney. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. After the genocide in Rwanda and atrocities in Srebrenica, Bosnia, in the 1990s, the world vowed never again. Then came the conflict in Darfur, Sudan, which began 20 years ago. Vessel premiered at SXSW Film Festival in 2014, winning the Audience Award for Documentary in Competition and a Special Jury Award for Political Courage. BOOTH: And word spread, and someone else called. Nelson A. Rockefeller signs a bill repealing the state's 1830 law that banned abortion after quickening except to save a woman's life. As a result of the Johns Committees efforts, more than 200 gay and lesbian students and teachers were expelled or fired. Click here to learn more about hosting a screening. The film points out that Black women and Latinas suffered the most from the criminalization of abortion in Chicago and nationally because they often could not afford to travel abroad or to other states that legalized abortions beginning in 1970. And many documentary filmmakers have used their medium over the years to reflect on what led to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and what historical and political developments have led to the continued debate over a womans right to choose. Interviews were conducted with members of the Florida public school system, survivors of the Johns Committee, a retired police officer who worked with the committee, and former Florida governor and retired U.S. Copyright Laws of the United States, FRONTLINE is a registered trademark of WGBH Educational Foundation. Out Twin Cities Film Festival 2014 Jane, nonetheless, is having a moment. Two forthcoming films based on the collective Amazon Studios This Is Jane, starring Michelle Williams, and Roadside Attractions Call Jane, starring Elizabeth Banks, come out later this year in addition to the 2018 feature film Ask for Jane.. Any exceptions allowing abortion in very narrow circumstances for example, where an abortion is necessary to save the life of the pregnant persons life, or when the pregnancy is the result of rape are practically unworkable, the signatories write. Three of the Janes - Heather Booth, Judith Arcana and Marie Lerner - say they hope their story inspires others. The Idaho House State Affairs Committee moved forward a bill on Friday that would make it a felony crime to transport or recruit a minor for an abortion without parental consent. Click here to download the complete press kit. Released in 2018, Just after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court, Reversing Roe examines how the abortion debate became more heated than ever before. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: The person who was doing the abortion came in. BOOTH: I'm hoping that it's actually a call to action. FRONTLINE goes inside the fight over abortion, told through the stories of women struggling with unplanned pregnancies. The system is tilted in favor of people who have already made it, and we need to be really serious about addressing that, he said. Documentary shows how women ran underground abortion network before Roe v. Wade ruling, according to a 2019 BuzzFeed essay written by Allan Weiland. They are joined by a broader coalition of groups and individual advocates for human rights and racial and economic justice. Even before last year's Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade, a recent international surge in films about abortion rights and the endangerment thereof from period pieces like . So we thought, we can be of use. Since its first season in 1983, FRONTLINE has been covering the battle over abortion at both the national and state levels. to meet secretly for six years under the guidance of Essential Partners co-founder Laura R. Chasin. And while showing how the collective was informed by the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the documentary misses an opportunity to situate the Janes work within both a historical and global context. In fall 2011, professors Robert Cassanello and Lisa Mills taught an Advanced Documentary Workshop class at the University of Central Florida. Taking the lead in the red state race to make The Handmaid's Tale a documentary, South Carolina Republicans have introduced a bill that would impose the death penalty on women who get abortions. UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA BURNETT HONORS COLLEGE, RUTH JENSEN-FORBELL The documentary serves as a cautionary tale, with its release just weeks after a leak from the U.S. Supreme Court suggested the landmark 1973 ruling that established abortion rights nationwide . Rarely has a documentary been quite so timely as The Janes. Abortion is a common procedure ( one in four American women will have one, according to the Guttmacher Institute) that has been so flattened into an "issue" that it can feel revelatory to just. The assurance, the trust, the respect I got when I tell you they changed my life, they changed my life., She added, holding back tears, When I saw women caring about women it was a whole new world for me., The Jane Collective is estimated to have provided around 11,000 abortions from 1969 to 1973. Florida Senator Charley Johns chaired the committee, and its aim was to root out communist and homosexual teachers and students from state universities. Fifty years ago, Floridas Legislative Investigative Committee, led by Senator Charley Johns sought to remove homosexuals from Florida's state universities. South Carolina introduces bill to punish women who have an abortion by executing them Taking the lead in the red state race to make The Handmaid's Tale a documentary, South Carolina Republicans have introduced a bill that would impose boingboing.net - Mark Frauenfelder 17h Read more on boingboing.net Abortion South Carolina Reproductive Rights They drove women to and from appointments, explained how the process would unfold and babysat their children while they underwent the procedure. Same-sex marriage became legal in Florida in January, 2015. Watch documentaries chronicling Americas abortion battle and the transformation of the U.S. Supreme Court. SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE DAILY NEWSLETTER, FIRST TAKE. Prior to the Roe v. Wade case, the so-called Janes built the underground organization and assisted an estimated 11,000 women. Served with the US Army in the Philippines in World War II. The authors say the curtailment of abortion rights in the US is of a piece with the countrys history of devaluing the lives of Black women, who are hit worst by abortion restrictions. Her civil rights activism also introduced her to Dr. T.R.M. This interdisciplinary seminar was a cooperative effort between the History Department and the film program in the School of Visual Arts and Design. Click here to find a screening in your area. Pervasive sexual assault by the men conducting abortions. "We went old school to find one of the . University of Central Florida College of Arts & Humanities. Thirty-six years after FRONTLINE released 1983s Abortion Clinic, the documentarys producer returned to Pennsylvania to find a community more bitterly divided than ever. Call Jane.. In 1965, Heather Booth received that call for help a friends sister was suicidal for want of an abortion. DEL BARCO: Booth gathered an underground collective of women who called themselves Jane. Washington D.C., Mar 1, 2023 / 16:45 pm (CNA). 833. Debating an amendment on Tuesday in the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) graphically described what a partial-birth abortion is, and talk-radio host Mark Levin played the clip and commented that the media will never show Americans the procedure, adding that it is "Mengele-like" and that the Democrat Party fully supports such barbarism. Nearly 50 years later, Roe v. Wade could be overturned. ELIZABETH JENSEN-FORBELL, LOGAN KRIETE We were done. According to the media gossip platform Def Noodles, the video received more than 33,000. THE ABORTION TALKS follows the crimes, trial, and murder of John Salviand the story of six women, all of them leaders in the pro-life and pro-choice movements, who sought to ensure that it would never happen again. "We've been telling you for the last 20 years, no one wants that! The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation. GEOR, IOWA, KAET, KBDI, KCET, KCPT, KCTS, KENT, KENW, KLRU, KLVX, KNME, KOOD, KPBS, KQED, KQEH, KRCB, KRMA, KRSU, KTOO, KTWU, KVCR, KWSU, NDAK, NEWH, NEWJ, OREG, SDAK, WCET, WCFE, WCVE, WEDU, WFSU, WGBY, WGCU, WILL, WITF, WJCT, WKAR, WLIW, WMHT, WMVS, WNED, WNIN, WNIT, WNMU, WNPT, WOUB, WPBA, WPBT, WPTD, WPTO, WQED, WQPT, WSRE, WTIU, WTVI, WUCF, WUSF, WXXI. Officials from the US mission to the UN and the US Gender Policy Council, a White House office established by the Biden administration, did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication. As a new U.S. Supreme Court term begins, revisit FRONTLINE documentaries that show how conservatives gained a court majority and give context for last term's major decisions on abortion, guns & more. They just left. Her first book, "Breaking Free," will be published on September 5, 2023. Although these doctors are followed by constant threats of violence, these providers compassionately assist women who have to make the decision to terminate advanced, and often wanted, pregnancies. The law was rendered unconstitutional after the passage of Proposal 3 in November. Rather, to invoke Ijeoma Oluo, they are working according to their design. Abortion had been illegal in Illinois since the early 19th century, and few doctors were willing to defy the law. BROWARD COUNTY SHERIFFS OFFICE New HBO documentary 'The Janes' examines pre-Roe v. Wade underground abortion network The group helped an estimated 11,000 women in Chicago get access to safe, affordable abortions in the late. In 1994, John Salvi, a radical young abortion opponent, opened fire on two clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts, just outside Boston, and killed two women: Shannon Lowney, a receptionist at Planned Parenthood, and Lee Ann Nichols, who worked as a receptionist at PreTerm, the clinic down the street. I was just laying there trying to, you know, get my breath, and I knew I was bleeding. EMMA PILDES: They want people to feel like they could do this, too. Do you understand that? The documentary premiered this week in Washington, and its available to watch on the congressmans website as well as on YouTube. None of the participants would change their minds, but the dialogues changed their lives. Filmmakers Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes wish their new HBO documentary, The Janes about a group of Chicago women who covertly helped thousands safely obtain abortions in the late . And how they are designed, to maintain the white-supremacist patriarchy, means that they will continue to harm and criminalize women, queer and trans and racially marginalized people no matter what the law says. Lessin said the group treated women with care and concern leading up to and during their appointments and stayed in contact with them after their procedures, in contrast to many back-alley male doctors, the worst of whom performed abortions while drunk and sometimes sexually assaulted their patients. Seven of the women were arrested in a police raid with charges of abortion and conspiracy to commit abortion in 1972, just before the historic Supreme Court decision. The 8-5 vote along party lines in the House Judiciary Committee came shortly before a Senate Health Policy Committee also voted Wednesday to repeal longstanding Michigan abortion policies. Directed by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg, the film documents how even conservative presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush supported abortion rights, which changed by 2018 when Republican politicians continued to use anti-abortion as an organizing cause and voting incentive for citizens. later, the body is removed and disposed of as medical waste. Connecticut Gov. The 30-minute documentary, "Grit & Grace: The Fight for the American Dream," features three families facing varied economic challenges a North Carolina man grieving his parents while working to finish college, a family caring for twin sons with special needs in West Virginia and an immigrant mom in California who struggled to keep her business Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th District, was tapped last year to lead the U.S. House Select Committee on Economic Disparity and Fairness in Growth, an issue he said is in my face every single day in his southwestern Connecticut district home to one of the nations highest concentrations of millionaires and some of its most economically distressed communities. DEL BARCO: Posting the phone number on bulletin boards and underground newspapers, the Janes set up a clandestine system. Efforts to revise the ending of the film began shortly thereafter and WUSF-TV in Tampa agreed to pitch the film to the American Public Television Exchange for national distribution.