“People telling their stories is so important because we keep those things locked inside of ourselves and they kill us,” says one of the characters in a new trailer for “Abortion: Stories Women Tell.” The HBO documentary is giving women a platform to do just that — to tell their stories, and have their voices heard.
In a country where a group that looks like this can — and does — determine women’s reproductive rights, the film is essential viewing. The doc, directed by Emmy winner Tracy Droz Tragos, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival last year.
“In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade gave every woman the right to have an abortion,” the film’s official synopsis reads. “Since 2011, more than half the states in the nation have significantly restricted access to abortions. In 2016, abortion remains one of the most divisive issues in America, especially in Missouri, where only one abortion clinic remains open, patients and their doctors must navigate a 72-hour waiting period, and each year sees more restrictions.”
Tragos “sheds new light on the contentious issue, with a focus not on the debate, but rather on the women themselves: those struggling with unplanned pregnancies, and the providers who show up at clinics to give medical care, as well as the activists on both sides of the issue, hoping to sway decisions and lives.”
“If I had had a child with that man, I would have killed myself,” one woman reveals in the trailer. Another tearfully says, “I can’t believe that I am a citizen of a country that says it’s OK to kill a baby.”
“What I discovered is that it is very hard to have a rigid ‘side.’ When you start to break down the realities that women face, whether they consider themselves pro-choice or pro-life, things get very gray and blurry,” Tragos told us. “I spoke to so many ‘pro-life’ women who had multiple abortions. Many women working in abortion care have never had abortions themselves. Women shared their complicated feelings — while still knowing that they had made the best decision they could make. There was little remorse on both ‘sides.’”
Tragos won an Emmy in 2004 for “Be Good, Smile Pretty,” an installment of PBS’ “Independent Lens.” The doc centers on a woman whose father died in Vietnam when she was three months old, and her journey to know the man she doesn’t remember. Tragos also helmed the Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner “Rich Hill,” which explores rural poverty.
“Abortion: Stories Women Tell” premieres on HBO April 3.
