Although some initially hesitated to appear on camera, all of them understood that these rights were slipping away and that these stories were relevant, said Tia Lessin, who co-directed the film with Emma Pildes. Students were required to read And They Were Wonderful Teachers, a book by Karen Graves, Ph.D., about the Johns Committees persecution of public school teachers. Columbia/SONY, Inc. Anita Bryant Orange Juice Advertisement BOISE The Idaho House State Affairs Committee passed a bill Friday making it illegal for an adult to transport a minor across state lines for an abortion, with the intent to conceal it from . On June 1, 2016 the film will be released to more than 70 local public television stations via APT. Almost daily, the Reproductive Health Services clinic in Montgomery, Alabama, receives several versions of the same call: Are yall still doing abortions?". Who are the Labrant family? "Pro-love" documentary sparks severe Three of the Janes - Heather Booth, Judith Arcana and Marie Lerner - say they hope their story inspires others. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. 11: New York allows abortion on demand up to the 24th week of pregnancy, as Gov. If you do not see your local station listed here, we urge you to contact them and ask them to air this film. SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE DAILY NEWSLETTER, FIRST TAKE. House committee sends 'abortion trafficking' bill to the floor Beginning in the late 1960s, signs hung up around the city and advertisements in underground newspapers offered a vague alternative: Pregnant? DEL BARCO: Until the Supreme Court decision in 1973, abortion was a felony in the state of Illinois, as in most of the country. Massachusetts Democrat resigns following backlash for comments about They would begin to engage in more cross-partisan efforts. Susan Geiger This story was originally published by Idaho Reports on March 3, 2023. (617) 923-1216, Ext 24, PO Box 400175, Cambridge, MA 02140info@whatisessential.org MARIE LERNER: We need to turn the anger, the fear, the concern we've got into protest. 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. 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. After the election of President Donald Trump in 2016,producer Daniel Arcana started developing a project about the Jane Collective, an organization his mother, Judith Arcana, was a part of in the 1960s and 70s. 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. Wes Moore, behind her, during a news conference in support of bills to protect access to abortion. WUCF-TV is now streaming The Committee for FREE on their website! That also means empowering through education, via practices designed explicitly to provide information. 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. Jennifer 8. FRONTLINE goes inside the fight over abortion, told through the stories of women struggling with unplanned pregnancies. Rebecca Hodges The Supreme Courts Dobbs decision has successfully overturned a womans federal right to an abortion; nearly 50 years later, Roe v. Wade is no longer the law of the land. MONICA MONTICELLO, MONICA MONTICELLO And for too long, the US has been able to avoid that type of international scrutiny, she said. They say that between 1968 and 1973, they provided free or low-cost abortions to more than 11,000 women. 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. Rev. Why the Abortion Movie Unplanned Is Factually Incorrect 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. Roewas egregiously wrong from the start, Alito wrote in his draft, which also takes aim at the 1992 Supreme Court rulingPlanned Parenthood v. Casey. Marcie Bianco is a writer and editor based in California. Jane was born first as a continuation of Booths referral service, and then as a counseling service. Call Jane.. JUDITH ARCANA: Women did awful things out of fear and desperation. Detailing the decades-long abortion debate, these docs give context to the historic Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. An abortion is a procedure to end a pregnancy. I cried with her: the diary of a doctor navigating a total abortion ban. The film tracked abortion opponents actions: lobbying state legislatures, looking to see where courts drew the line on what constituted an undue burden, then seeking to incrementally restrict abortion access within those evolving parameters. daniel@whatisessential.org 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. 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. After helping organize Black voters in Mississippi, she turned her activism to women with unwanted pregnancies. Many former members told their stories publicly for the first time in The Janes, which premiered this year at the Sundance Film Festival. Others turned to Chicagos organized crime syndicate, but its services were expensive and often unsafe. Washington D.C., Mar 1, 2023 / 16:45 pm (CNA). What we must remember is that the institutions that serve us are not broken. 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. Find out in the 2015 documentary Outbreak, newly available to stream on FRONTLINEs YouTube channel. COMMANDER MICHAEL CALDERIN AND THE YOU'VE REACHED YOUR MONTHLY ARTICLE LIMIT. On May 3, Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the documents authenticity, said that it did not represent a final court decision or the final position of any member on the issues in the case, and requested an investigation into the leak, which he called a singular and egregious breach of trust. SYLVANA FERNNDEZ Rather, to invoke Ijeoma Oluo, they are working according to their design. But when youre talking about people and their hopes to better themselves economically, you can tell some wonderful stories., Drawing a parallel to the U.S. House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack, Himes said, They radically changed the way a congressional committee communicates with the American public and we did the same thing with this documentary.. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. In 2009, one of the very few remaining providers of third-trimester abortions in the country, Dr. George Tiller, was shot to death. 833. DEL BARCO: The Janes say their clients included wives and girlfriends of police officers. Documentary filmmaker and video producer Aaron Hos, representing the UCF Center for Distributed Learning (CDL), was brought onto the project as Producer and Supervising Editor. Vessel | Home The students who made the film graduated, but stayed in touch with Cassanello and Mills about the films success. Access to Postabortion Contraception | ACOG Legislation across the U.S. indicates that states are bracing for the potential of a post-Roe world. In reality, the Jane Collective was not unique. Interviews with former members and with women who sought their services are interwoven in the documentary with archival footage from septic abortion wards in Chicago hospitals, where women who had illegal abortions or tried to induce their own often wound up with infections and sometimes took their last breaths alone. 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. Since Roe was overturned, such local ordinances have been identified as a tool for officials to control where patients can get an abortion, advocates and legal experts say. 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. This documentary, accompanied by dozens of in-depth interviews published as part of the FRONTLINE Transparency Project, examined then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells decades-long campaign to transform the nations highest court and its profound implications. None of the participants would change their minds, but the dialogues changed their lives. 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. Senate committee considers constitutional amendment on abortion rights These courageous leaders risked their personal safety and professional livesto meet secretly for six years under the guidance of Essential Partners co-founder Laura R. Chasin and mediator Susan Podziba. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and conservative allies to secure an ideological majority on the Supreme Court a successful push FRONTLINE chronicled in the 2020 documentary Supreme Revenge: Battle for the Court. Orlando Film Festival 2014 Capitol Police removed a pro-Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) protester from a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday after the woman interrupted a line of questioning from Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham. DORRIE BARRON: I was petrified. Do you understand that? Casey allowed states to restrict access, so long as they did not place an undue burden on women seeking the procedure. June 8, 2022. Screenings come with free resources, including the official ABORTION TALKS dialogue guide by Essential Partners. UCF Center for Distributed Learning, 2015 - University of Central Florida 'The Janes' before Roe v. Wade: HBO documentary on underground abortion 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. For information about screening the film as an individual, in a classroom setting or for your organization, please complete the following form and we'll be back in touch soon. Thirty-six years after FRONTLINE released 1983s Abortion Clinic, the documentarys producer returned to Pennsylvania to find a community more bitterly divided than ever. Maryland House of Delegates Speaker Adrienne A. Jones gestures to Gov. We tried to do it with as much respect and understanding as we could.. 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. Photos taken by Flip Schulke Flip Schulke While most of the Janes were white, middle-class women, most of those they served were low-income Latinas and Black women. In documentaries and related reporting, weve tracked developments related to this contentious issue including, in recent years, the Mississippi law at the center of the draft Supreme Court decision and the ways states have prepared for a potential post-Roe v. Wade world. That feminist history is the subject of The Janes, an HBO documentary set to premiere on the network and begin streaming on HBO Max at 9 p.m. The Florida Orange Growers Association, UCF Burnett Honors College LEARNING INSTITUTE FOR ELDERS (L.I.F.E.) Merrick Garland grilled on anti-Catholic, pro-abortion bias during Filmmakers Tia Lessin and Emma Peldes. Mississippi could renew initiatives but ban them on abortion Some would die. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. 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. The film was released theatrically in New York . But now, without having to pay Mike, they remodeled their payment service by reducing the price from $500 to $100 and offering a pay-what-you-can option. The House Oversight and Reform hearing came a day after the Senate Judiciary Committee held a similar hearing on the legal ramifications of a controversial Texas law. These documentaries offer context on how America reached this moment. Film Program in the School of Visual Arts and Design This was a pivotal shift within the collective, not only in the services they provided but whom they provided them to: They never turned any woman away, no matter her financial situation. DEL BARCO: Booth gathered an underground collective of women who called themselves Jane. University of Central Florida College of Arts & Humanities. The documentary featured the perspectives of women with unplanned pregnancies, as well as people who worked inside the clinic and members of the community who protested outside. Documentary shows how women ran underground abortion network before Roe v. Wade ruling, according to a 2019 BuzzFeed essay written by Allan Weiland. Editor's note: This review was originally published at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. 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. Connecticut Gov. Both projects wrapped up this month. Among the signatories are the Global Justice Center, Pregnancy Justice, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Essential Partners is a 501(c)3 organization, 2016-2023 Essential Partners |Site Credits. Florida Film Festival 2013 This historical context, now made contemporary in light of the Supreme Courts leaked draft opinion, has set the stage for The Janes, a new documentary premiering on HBO on Wednesday, June 8. Experts believe that the use of a law traditionally used against physical threats could change the landscape. U.S. lawmakers began a wide-ranging two-year investigation into U.S. strategic competition with China Tuesday night, with testimony from Chinese human rights activists and former U.S. national . RICHARD HARRISON The film, which premieres on HBO and HBO Max tonight (June 8) at 9 p.m., tells the story of a group of women who ranand were. Lets hope it incites us to action, and not to despair. Directed by Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes, this film spotlights the Chicago-based underground abortion network called The Jane Collective. As far as I can tell, theres a huge commonality of interests between radically different levels of affluence, he said. The class also watched the only documentary previously made on the subject, Allyson Beutkes Behind Closed Doors: The Dark Legacy of the Johns Committee. That said, Himes is committed to shaping policy that evens the playing field. ARCANA: I think that folks who watch this film will be prompted to ask themselves, what would I do? Students also interviewed Judith Poucher, Ph.D., who recently released her book State of Defiance: Challenging the Johns Committee's Assault on Civil Liberties. They drove women to and from appointments, explained how the process would unfold and babysat their children while they underwent the procedure. ARCANA: When abortion is not health care, it's felony homicide. Exclusive: letter from human rights groups says overturning of the constitutional right violates USs obligations as a UN member state. That is, until May 1972, when two women went to the police to report the collective, after attending a counseling appointment with their sister-in-law, who was seeking an abortion. We must care with compassion, and unlike in the male-dominated medical establishment, encourage collective care and knowledge. So we thought, We can be of use.. The experience would forever change how they speak to and about each other. Suncoast Emmy Award Nomination - Editor ACOG Committee Opinion No. Dorrie Barron tells us what it was like for her to get an abortion before the Janes and Roe v. Wade came along. Actress Sarah Jessica Parker narrates the piece, acknowledging briefly in the introduction that her own family faced financial difficulties during her childhood. The actions she took on became known as Women on Waves. At the center of two separate symbolic victories for pro-choice and pro-life advocates, McCorvey makes a deathbed confession that she was paid by anti-abortion groups like Operation Rescue to speak out against abortion later in life. Through contacts made at those hearings, the committee identified about 150 families whose stories they explored for the documentary. In the 2020 documentary AKA Jane Roe, the original anonymous plaintiff of Roe v. Wade, now known to be Norma McCorvey, speaks out about her 1995 decision to condemn abortion. DEL BARCO: Booth, who is 76 years old, has been fighting for women's reproductive rights since she was a 19-year-old college student. I asked if you thought it was OK. Copyright 2022 NPR. When a draft opinion from the Supreme Court leaked last month, suggesting the court could be poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the directors of underground abortion network documentary The Janes . ANDY HUSE, ARTSERVE FT. LAUDERDALE The film details how the women of the Chicago-based group worked and helped women obtain safe and affordable abortions. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. The organizing principle of the collectives work is care that all health care, fundamentally, should be based on compassionate care. Drawing on a landmark FRONTLINE film from the 1980s, the documentary takes a look at both sides of the abortion divide in a community still embroiled in the conflict. It chronicles the real-life story of a group of women who helped those seeking abortions in Chicago more than 50 years ago. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists 409 12th Street SW, Washington, DC 20024-2188. 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. Several decades after Roe v. Wade, the anti-abortion movement had successfully spearheaded campaigns in multiple states, passing laws that limited access to abortion including in Mississippi, where a single facility performing abortions remained. This renewed interest is of course not a coincidence. All rights reserved. Before there was Roe V. Wade, there was Jane, and the HBO documentary The Janes (on Crave in Canada at 9:00 p.m. Dont want to be? You'll receive access to exclusive information and early alerts about our documentaries and investigations. On Sept. 1, the state . Have you watched the film on your local PBS station? Get in the bathroom. Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation. After a Supreme Court draft opinion was leaked last month indicating that the justices are likely to overturn Roe v. Wade, it felt like the time for us to come together to give women a platform to talk about what it looks like when abortion is criminalized, Pildes said. The documentary begins with a cautionary tale. Michael Hugo resigned as the chair of the Framingham Democratic Committee in Massachusetts on Thursday following weeks of backlash for complaining about the cost of special needs education for . Im just enormously happy with the outcome of the committee, Himes said. 7 min read. / 54m. You can always mobilize to help one another, you can organize, and ultimately thats what matters most, Pildes said. Overriding nearly five decades of legal precedent, the Supreme Courthas overturnedRoe v. Wade, the landmark1973 ruling that legalized abortion in the U.S. Since Planned Parenthoods decision to remove itself from Title X, the federal program that provides reproductive care for nearly 4 million low-income Americans, thousands of health care workers and administrators have been scrambling. The Janes Review: Informative Look Back at Underground Abortion Group Cole and Savannah LaBrant, who run a family YouTube channel called "The LaBrant Fam" where they have over 13 million subscribers, have faced backlash for releasing a video on April 9 labeled a "documentary" about abortion. This Documentary About the Fight for Abortion Information and Access Is The Common Good: A Documentary (2010 Video) 21 min | Documentary, Short, Comedy Rate Two Catholic women who have reconciled their faith with their support of the right to choose travel across Wisconsin to spread their message. But people would be banned from using the process to change abortion laws. by removing unnecessary regulations on certain drugs. DEL BARCO: The film shows how the Jane Collective was different. ELIZABETH JENSEN-FORBELL, LOGAN KRIETE But for those who remained, as Jane member Judith Arcana put it, if he could do it, we could do it medical degree be damned. But for what it's worth, I didn't ask how often or when at all it might happen. Directors: Erik Cieslewicz, Brooke Sperry | Stars: Dino Corvino, Liz Hayes, Chrystina Head, Frances Irwin 9. Could I help her find someone to arrange for an abortion? FRONTLINEs latest documentary, "The Abortion Divide," paints a portrait of the complicated, personal issues surrounding abortion. Accuracy and availability may vary. Member states are obliged to protect and uphold the rights to life, health, privacy, liberty and security, along with freedoms from torture and inhumane, cruel or degrading treatment. In 1963, 280 deaths were recorded in the U.S. from induced abortions, and in 1965, they dropped to 235, according to Pew Research, which indicated that the numbers fell to single digits or zero every year after Roe v. Wade was decided. There is no moral or economic argument for taxing working people at average rates that are higher than people who are collecting dividends.