“Life is winning again,” Vice President Mike Pence gloats in the trailer for “Reversing Roe” — but women’s rights are not. As Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings rage on, and protestors continue to voice their opposition, Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern’s new doc chronicles how Roe v. Wade — the 1973 Supreme Court decision that ensured legal abortion in the U.S. — has been systematically weakened in recent decades. The film also stresses that a woman’s right to choose is endangered and argues that another anti-choice Justice on the bench could mean its extinction.
“Reversing Roe” includes interviews with activists and lawmakers from both sides of the fight. “It’s the basis of democracy, that you control your own body,” Gloria Steinem declares. Meanwhile, an anti-choice advocate details how targeting abortion providers and closing clinics are the most effective ways of eradicating abortion. Tellingly, most of the anti-abortion commentators in the trailer are men, and most of the pro-choice voices are women.
“I’m a mother. I loved my pregnancies. It’s beautiful, but it’s not that way for everyone,” a woman testifies as (white male) lawmakers try and fail not to look bored. “There’s no reason to make it more and more difficult and to drive women back into the shadows of illegal abortions.”
The fight for reproductive rights and access to legal abortion are also the subjects of Dawn Porter’s “Trapped” and Tracy Droz Tragos’ “Abortion: Stories Women Tell,” among other documentaries.
Sundberg and Stern’s previous films include “Marathon: The Patriots Day Bombing,” “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work,” and “The Devil Came on Horseback.”
“Reversing Roe” made its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival this past weekend. It will begin streaming on Netflix and open in NY and LA September 13.