Plan C co-founders Amy Merrill, Francine Coeytaux and Elisa Wells with filmmaker Tracy Droz Tragos (second from left). (Courtesy of Plan C) As abortion rights have rapidly deteriorated in recent years, reproductive health advocates and activist clinicians across the U.S. have been working hard to increase abortion pill access in all 50 states, even states … Read more
In the weeks since the fall of Roe v. Wade, people have supported abortion access and rights in many ways, including spreading information about abortion pills and defending brave doctors. My contribution has been thinking about TV and movies. Abortion has been represented on television and in film going back to the silent films of … Read more
Jenny Slate (center, holding a bouquet) anchors “Obvious Child,” a rom-com in which her protagonist has an abortion and makes a romantic connection. Chris Teague/A24/Courtesy Everett Collection During the making of “Obvious Child,” director/screenwriter Gillian Robespierre had a few balls in the air. Would Jenny Slate’s Donna, a fledgling stand-up comedian with a penchant for … Read more
Documentaries examining access to abortion, repression of political activism in Russia, climate change protests and religious persecution are just some of the features to be presented at the 2022 Human Rights Watch Film Festival, beginning Friday and running through May 26. Now in its 33rd year, the festival will present both in-person screenings in New … Read more
“Saturday Night Live” dug deep for its opening sketch this weekend, far into the text of a leaked draft opinion indicating that the Supreme Court has voted to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision, at the section where the draft opinion’s author, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., cites legal theory from 13th century England. As … Read more
Mother Teresa’s role in campaigning against abortion in Ireland is examined in a new documentary on the nun who became one of the recognised faces in the world. he befriended presidents, popes, and royalty but the programme puts a spotlight on the complex woman behind the blue and white sari. The Nobel laureate famously obtained … Read more
PARIS — “Happening,” Audrey Diwan’s film about a 1960s back-street abortion in France, isn’t for the fainthearted. In fact, audience members have fainted at several screenings, including at the Venice Film Festival last September, where it won the Golden Lion. “It’s often men who say the experience took them to the limit of what they … Read more
France in the 1960s is famous for its symbols of liberation: Bardot, Foucault, student rebellion (“under the pavement, the beach”). Yet nearly half the country lived with the ongoing threat of unwanted pregnancy, a looming dystopian nightmare. Contraceptives were illegal, as was abortion. In late 1963, Annie Ernaux, the first in her family to attend … Read more
The Rollins Theater near downtown Austin was only about half full, but the boldface names inside were big enough for the event to feel important. It was the world premiere of Shouting Down Midnight, a documentary about then–state senator Wendy Davis’s historic 2013 filibuster of a bill that sought to ban abortions in Texas after … Read more