Frightening doco looks at America before Roe v Wade
The Janes (R16, 98 mins) Directed by Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes Reviewed by James Croot ★★★★
January 22, 1973. Despite what some may have tweeted more recently, this was one of the ‘‘great days’’ for freedom and free choice in America. The moment when the US Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v Wade rendered anti-abortion laws in 45 states ‘‘unconstitutional’’, protecting a pregnant woman’s right to an abortion as part of their ‘‘fundamental right to privacy’’.
It was a landmark and somewhat controversial decision that held sway for almost 50 years, until it was overturned last month.
As Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes’ fascinating and somewhat frightening documentary shows, the 1973 ruling, more immediately, prevented a group of seven women from facing jail time.
They had been part of an ‘‘outrageous undertaking by a lot of smart women’’ that had helped provide an estimated 11,000 safe, affordable and illegal abortions for the previous five years, most of the time under the radar of the Chicago Police Department and the city’s Mob.
Told through archival and contemporary interviews with key members of ‘‘The Janes’’ (the name given to prospective clients needing the group’s services, ‘‘because it was simple, nice and nobody was ever called that any more’’), we hear the harrowing accounts of what desperate young Illinois women would do before their establishment – and the sometimes tragic results.
One doctor recounts how Cook County Hospital’s ‘‘Septic Abortion Ward’’ was full every day and the morgue would have to be called every week.
Another interviewee tells of how her raped college friend went to student health seeking help, only to be given a lecture on promiscuity.
Contraceptive options were few and only available to married women. ‘‘I was told to buy a $5 ring from Woolworths – and pretend,’’ one woman reveals.
Determined that abortions must be ‘‘taken out of the hands of quacks and butchers’’, especially while it was treated as ‘‘simply a crime, not medical practice’’, Heather Booth and other likeminded women (many of them part of the Civil Rights Movement happening at the same time), decided that ‘‘sometimes you have to stand up to illegitimate authority. Sometimes there are unjust laws that need to be challenged’’.
Initially a referral service, which then grew into a counselling one, their operation moved up a gear when they found ‘‘Mike’’.
A skilled abortionist, he admits to being in it solely for the money, only latterly admitting that he didn’t actually have a medical licence. His involvement and testimony is particularly compelling and occasionally darkly hilarious, as he alludes to the fact he had to stop helping them because ‘‘the Outfit [the Mob]’’ wanted to ‘‘work with him’’.
As a parting gift to The Janes, he taught some of them how to use ‘‘the tools of the trade’’.
Not having to pay Mike meant they could now charge whatever the women could afford, a move that, at its height, saw them performing 30 procedures a day, three-times a week.
To evade detection, the women were shuttled between a ‘‘waiting room’’ and ‘‘the place’’ by a revolving set of drivers and vehicles.
‘‘We were a moving target. We could set up a clinic in 15 minutes and get out of there in five.’’
While a law change in New York in 1970 now made travelling there an option for Chicago women, The Janes’ services continued to be in demand, until two women complained to the police that their sister-in-law was about to get an abortion.
Somewhat reluctantly, the homicide division began surveillance, an operation that ended in a raid in May 1972.
The Janes details that in terrific, conflicting detail, offering perspectives from both sides as to what transpired (including an attempt by The Janes to eat their clients’ index cards to prevent their personal information falling into the authorities’ hands: ‘‘They were very fibrous’’, one admits).
But while leavened by these lighter reminiscences and the cadre of erudite, charming radicals on display, the documentary’s overall tone is sobering, even more so in light of recent events. Vital viewing for anyone interested in the history behind the headlines.