12th & Delaware directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp) is a really good documentary. It’s interesting, provocative, engaging and very well shot.
The film tells the story of what happens at the intersection of pro-choice avenue and anti-choice lane (this one in Fort Pierce, Florida) where one side of the street is an abortion clinic and the other side is a so-called crisis pregnancy center. These intersections are where the battle for choice is happening nowadays and are becoming more and more common in the abortion debate.
Here’s the rub. The film also shows how the pro-choice movement is losing the war. Did you know that there are only around 800 abortion clinics in the country compared to over 4000 crisis pregnancy centers? When did this happen?
For those in the pro-choice movement this is a great film to rile up the troops. As a person who has done her share of marching and protesting the anti’s led by the crisis pregnancy center executive director Anne Lotierzo come off as zealots. The movie shows how they lure women and girls who are in crisis to their center (lots of times the women think they are actually making an appointment at the abortion clinic which is exactly what the crisis pregnancy center wants) and ply them with food and false information. They do everything they can to make sure these women don’t get an abortion even lying to them about the status of their pregnancy. They are horrible. The propaganda that they distribute made my blood boil. Young women walk in for information and the truth and walk out with a pamphlet that says that abortion causes breast cancer.
But then you get to the other side of the street to the clinic and I shocked at the lack of security and precautions taken to protect the clients as well as the employees and doctors. Don’t they know that an abortion doctor has been murdered in Florida? You can tell by the protesters who spend day after day on the streets outside that this clinic is going to have trouble. Soon. I kept thinking to myself haven’t they read any of the reports on clinic safety? How can the door to the clinic not be locked so anyone can walk in?
And, in a moment of abject shock, Arnold the clinic director’s husband (and it seems the person who is in charge of security) pulled out of the garage on his way to pick up the doctor to perform abortions in a bright yellow mustang that you can hear blocks away. Way to be discreet. While the doctor does cover him or her self up with a sheet, the antis don’t have a really hard time in tracking down where the pick up and drop off happens. The film shows one of the protesters following the mustang. He is clearly getting ready to take the harassment of this doctor to another level which he freely admits.
The film scared the crap out of me because the filmmakers chose to let the two sides speak for themselves. They didn’t have any experts or choose to refute any of the misinformation. I understand why they did that as filmmakers, but as a pro choice person it makes me really anxious to have a lot of false info floating around. I hope that there is some way to clarify the truth vs. the lies cause we are already so far behind.
Film airs on HBO in August.
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The film looks interesting but I am with you when you say “as a pro choice person it makes me really anxious to have a lot of false info floating around” Letting both sides say their piece isn’t actually being fair but is allowing lies to go unchecked. Plus anti choice messages are better funded and more pervasive. This is a continuing problem that pro choice organisations and individuals have to fight against.
I’m unlikely to get to see the film but I’m hoping that the “horrible” behaviour of anti choicers comes through clearly.
I thought it was an incredibly well-made film, especially given what it took to get the kind of access the filmmakers ultimately had. I understand and deeply respect the rigors of verité documentary, letting the story speak for itself with no outside commentary, but I had the same kind of uneasiness as Melissa about the information that was offered up by the pregnancy center.
In my case, the uneasiness was directed towards the women in the film, as the filmmakers’ cameras unblinkingly captured them being lied to and manipulated with not only misinformation but the promise of money when the baby was born (that never came). I felt the same way when the filmmakers captured on film the doctor unknowingly being ID’d by the antis.
Is there any responsibility to protect subjects of the film when the filmmakers have the vital information that is being kept from them? I wanted to scream at the screen to a young girl and many others: The people at the pregnancy center are lying to you!! Or to the abortion clinic workers: Your doctor is in danger!! I asked the filmmakers about this at Sundance and they said they didn’t feel the doctor was in real danger. As for the young women, I think it pained them to see how the pregnancy centers’ lies were going to ruin their lives, tricking them into having babies they could not care for, but again they didn’t seem to feel they could do anything.
I saw the film in January and it pains me to this day. If anyone is interested, I wrote more about it at http://bit.ly/bXMPoA
Thanks for the review, and Therese – thanks for your link too.
A big problem is the “not in my practice” stance of up and coming doctors. Women should know that in most states, providers are not legally compelled to give them accurate information about birth control or abortion, if it conflicts with the provider’s religious beliefs. It is NOT against the law in many states for a doctor to withhold information from tests or an ultrasound if he or she believes it would lead you to chose abortion.
Don’t forget that a Catholic hospital recently excommunicated a nun who was a hospital administrator on an ethics committee who voted to allow a woman to have an abortion to save her life. Women do not know that when they go to a Catholic hospital, their lives are in danger, because given the choice, the hospital leadership is compelled to let the woman “go down with the ship” because that is what good women do. Those that go against that put their career AND salvation at risk.
Too many people have a belief that don’t object to choice, but it should be a “don’t ask, don’t tell” relationship to their politics or their open support of choice. They believe it will be there if they need it and their kindly homespun doctor will just refer them or do it, if they “really need it.” Nope. Many have a hands off approach — kinda like most people who don’t want to get too involved. And a huge problem is that you have a narrow window to get set up with a provider – hours, days, weeks. You can be lying in a hospital with your life on the line and still be in danger.
You had some nice points here. I done a research on the topic and got most peoples will agree with you
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