Jane: An Abortion Service

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Jane: An Abortion Service

A film by Kate Kirtz and Nell Lundy

1996 | 58 minutes | Color | 16mm/DVD | Order No. 99579

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SYNOPSIS

This fascinating political look at a little-known chapter in women's history tells the story of "Jane", the Chicago-based women's health group who performed nearly 12,000 safe illegal abortions between 1969 and 1973 with no formal medical training. As Jane members describe finding feminism and clients describe finding Jane, archival footage and recreations mingle to depict how the repression of the early sixties and social movements of the late sixties influenced this unique group. Both vital knowledge and meditation on the process of empowerment, Jane: An Abortion Service showcases the importance of preserving women's knowledge in the face of revisionist history.

JANE: AN ABORTION SERVICE was funded by the Independent Television Service (ITVS) with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

PRESS

"This wonderful film is necessary viewing for an understanding of this period and a rousing example of ordinary people making history."

Marlene Gerber Freid Hampshire College

"Polished, revealing...a powerful message of self-determination."

Stephen Holden The New York Times

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

National Educational Media Festival, Silver Apple
Atlanta Film and Video Festival, Best Documentary
Chicago INTERCOM Video Festival, Silver Hugo
Sinking Creek Film and Video Festival, Award of Excellence
Nominated for Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Kate Kirtz

Kate Kirtz is a writer, director, script doctor and instructor of narrative theory for screenwriting.

Kirtz attended the Columbia graduate film program, where her screenplay 'Jealous' was honored as a Faculty Selects Script. Kirtz co-wrote the screenplay for the ensemble dramedy GABI ON THE ROOF IN JULY, which was the Opening Night Film and won the Best Picture and Best Actress awards at the 2010 Brooklyn Film Festival. Gabi has since won Special Programmer's Awards at the Sidewalk and IndieMemphis festivals and screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival, among many other awards and screenings.

Kirtz is producer and director of the documentary feature film JANE: AN ABORTION SERVICE, which played in competition at the Sundance, Edinborough and New York Film Festivals, and was broadcast on PBS and internationally. JANE received the Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media Distribution Grant, the ITVS Production Grant, the Center for New Television Post Production Access Grant and the NEA Regional Artists Fellowship Production Grant. It has been honored with the Silver Apple Award for Best Educational Video at the National Educational Media Festival, among many other awards.

Kirtz was story consultant on director Eric Drath's feature documentary RENEE, which premiered at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, and went to HotDocs, Los Angeles, and Frameline Film Festivals, among others. She also consulted on WE ARE THE HARTMANS, which premiered at the Atlanta Film Festival, THE HOLLOW TREE for filmmakers Ruben Amar and Lolas Bessis, Randy Dottin's INDELIABLE and Liz Hinlien's GETTING TOMMY LAID, among others.

Kirtz's thriller screenplay HEARTBEAT made the second round of consideration for The Sundance Institute Screenwriter's Lab, and was a second round pick in the 2011 Austin Heart of Film Screenplay Competition. Kirtz is currently developing her dark comedy script BE THE MONSTER as her fiction directing debut. (8/14)

Nell Lundy

Nell Lundy, co-producer/director of JANE: AN ABORTION SERVICE, is a documentary videomaker from Chicago. She co-owns a multimedia production company, and is currently an assistant professor of time arts/design at Northern Illinois University. She produced the documentary No Rights Implied, and served as assistant producer on Rosa Mystica, and Times Beach, Missouri. Her work has been shown at festivals and venues across the U.S., and broadcast on PBS. (09/09)

Subject Areas

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At the Philadelphia abortion helpline, counselors field nonstop calls from women and teens who are seeking to end a pregnancy but can’t afford to, illustrating how economic stigma and cruel laws determine who has access to abortion in America.

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I Had an Abortion

Underneath the din of politicians posturing about "life" and "choice" and beyond the shouted slogans about murder and rights, there are real stories of real women who have had abortions. Each year in the US, 1.3 million abortions occur, but the topic is still so stigmatized it’s never discussed in polite company. Powerful, poignant, and fiercely honest, I HAD AN ABORTION tackles this taboo, featuring 10 women – including famed feminist Gloria Steinem – who candidly describe experiences spanning seven decades, from the years before Roe v. Wade to the present day. Filmmakers Jennifer Baumgardner (author of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future) and Gillian Aldrich insightfully document how changing societal pressures have affected women’s choices and experiences. Cutting across age, race, class and religion, the film unfolds personal narratives with intimate interviews, archival footage, family photos and home movies. Arranged chronologically, the stories begin with Florence Rice, now 86, telling without regret about her abortion in the 1930s. Other women speaking out include Marion Banzhaf, who, inspired by both the Miss America protests and the Stonewall rebellion, fundraised on her campus to pay for her abortion, and Robin Ringleka-Kottke, who found herself pregnant as an 18-year-old pro-life Catholic. With heartfelt stories that are never sentimentalized, I HAD AN ABORTION personalizes what has become a vicious and abstract debate.

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62 Days

62 DAYS is an urgent examination of a growing trend of laws that seek to control a pregnant woman's body.

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Birthright: A War Story

BIRTHRIGHT: A WAR STORY examines how women are being jailed, physically violated and even put at risk of dying as a radical movement tightens its grip across America.

Read Civia Tamarkin's director's statement here.

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Heather Booth: Changing the World

Renowned organizer and activist Heather Booth began her remarkable career at the height of the Civil Rights movement. Through her life and work, this inspiring film explores many of the pivotal moments in progressive movements that altered our history over the last fifty years, from her involvement with Fannie Lou Hamer and the Freedom Summer Project, to her founding of the JANE Underground in 1964, to her personal relationships with respected leaders such as Julian Bond and Senator Elizabeth Warren. Featuring interviews from close friends, clients, political colleagues and current Midwest Academy students, HEATHER BOOTH: CHANGING THE WORLD explores Heather’s legacy in progressive politics and organizing. At a time when many are wondering how to make their voices heard, when civil and women's rights are under attack, Lilly Rivlin’s acclaimed documentary is an empowering look at how social change happens.

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A Girl Like Her

From 1945-73, 1.5 million unmarried young American women, facing enormous social pressures, surrendered babies to adoption. Lacking sex education and easy access to birth control, they were forced into hiding while pregnant and then into “abandoning” their infants. In her latest film, Ann Fessler, Professor of Photography at Rhode Island School of Design, reprises the subject of her award-winning The Girls Who Went Away (National Book Critics Circle; Ballard Book Prize), which Ms. readers named an all-time best feminist book. Drawing on interviews with 100 women, Fessler lets them have their say and brings hidden history to light. We hear only their voices, which detail wrenching experiences against images from vintage newsreel and educational films reinforcing stereotypes of women’s roles following WWII. This gripping documentary will help today’s students grasp what life was like before the sexual and feminist revolutions had fully dawned.

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Middle of Everywhere

South Dakota is America’s heartland—waving cornfields, hard-working farmers, family values and a population of 750,000, the majority of whom identify as conservative and anti-abortion. Native daughter Rebecca Lee returns home in 2006 on the brink of a historic state vote: House Bill 1215 could make South Dakota the first state to outlaw most abortions since Roe vs. Wade passed almost 30 years earlier. In The Middle of Everywhere, Lee discovers the debate to be complex, with both sides claiming compassion for women and the same desire to stop the need for abortion. When 1215 fails to pass, Lee sets out to uncover what would make a self-proclaimed pro-life state vote against the very measure that would end most legal abortions. South Dakotans appear conflicted in their beliefs: passing the Pharmacist Refusal Law, allowing pharmacists and doctors the right not to dispense birth control if doing so goes against their religious views, yet voting along pro-choice lines to keep abortion safe and legal. Was the vote a simple misunderstanding of what it means to be pro-choice? Was it a deeply-held resentment against government intrusion into people’s private lives? Whatever the final reason, The Middle of Everywhere reveals that the issue goes beyond the simple choices of being for or against abortion to the much deeper question of what values we hold dear as Americans and as humans beings.

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I Had an Abortion

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OUR CATALOG