Screenwriters have been quietly raising the alarm over a shift in access to abortions in the US, showing both the difficulties and the history that’s led us here
The supreme court’s leaked draft opinion overturning Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision protecting a woman’s right to an abortion in the US, is not official yet, but the ink might as well be dry. At best, Roe will be gutted to the point of near meaninglessness; it is very likely that come June, the ruling will be overturned entirely, allowing so-called “trigger laws” in 26 states to ban abortion as soon as possible. The US in 2022 will suddenly resemble the US in 1972, when a handful of states had legalized abortion and twomen sought out shadow networks of illegal providers – some dubious and dangerous, some not.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as a conservative majority solidified on the court, and as Roe’s vulnerability became more clear, a handful of recent films have focused on the tense days just before legalization. Happening, the French director Audrey Diwan’s film based on Annie Ernaux’s memoir, is a spare, haunting portrait of a young woman’s search for an illegal abortion in 1960s France. (The film, which premiered at Sundance in January, is out in the UK and arrives in US cinemas this weekend.) Phyllis Nagy’s Call Jane, which also premiered at Sundance and will get a wide release in October, stars Elizabeth Banks as a late-60s suburban housewife who goes from patient to provider within the Jane Collective, a real underground abortion network in Chicago. The Janes, an HBO documentary recounting the history of the Jane Collective, will premiere in June, probably coinciding with the court’s final decision.
