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ITVS presents
Jane: An Abortion ServiceDocumentary Reveals Story of Secret, Women-Run Collective That Took Matters Into their Own Hands when Abortion was Illegal
November 8, 1997
In honor of the 25th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Independent Television Service (ITVS) presents Jane: An Abortion Service, a fascinating documentary about a secret, women-run abortion service that flourished in the midwest in the late '60s and early '70s during a time of illegal, and often deadly abortions. A Sundance Film Festival selection, Jane: An Abortion Service was produced and directed by Kate Kirtz and Nell Lundy.
For the first time, the story of Jane is told by those who operated and were served by the collective, most of whom have never spoken publicly about Jane before. "If you needed an abortion, for whatever reason, you took your life into your own hands and you were terrified, absolutely terrified," recounts a member of the collective of the late 1960s. "All you knew is that you might die, that this person didn't know what he was doing and you were going to pay hundreds of dollars...to bleed to death in some hotel room."
Personal appeal from ITVS
National PBS has declined to send this documentary out as a system-wide "feed" for the local stations to pick up at (roughly) the same date and time. Instead, we at ITVS are placing Jane on the satellite for the individual stations to schedule when they choose.
Local PBS programmers are very responsive to calls from individuals and community groups expressing interest in a show, and our best chance to get this important program on the air is for pro-choice people to call their local stations, encouraging them to run the show and and assuring their support for a successful broadcast.
We have material at our web site www.itvs.org/PTV1.html that can help with this project. Please encourage stations to run the program around the anniversary of Roe v Wade in January. Timing is key: stations are making their January schedules now, so calls are very important at this moment. A complete list of local PTV stations with addresses and phone numbers is on our website.
Heather Booth, then a student at the University of Chicago involved in civil rights and anti-war movements, found herself sought out by a few young women who were pregnant, scared, and desperate. They had somehow heard that Booth knew of a safe abortionist. Soon others began to call, prompting Booth and several other young feminists to found Jane, an anonymous abortion service hat provided counseling and acted as the go-between for pregnant women and doctors willing to perform the procedure.
Appalled at the exorbitant procedure fees and upon discovering that their main abortionist wasn't a licensed physician, the women of Jane learned to perform illegal abortions themselves. Eventually, the underground collective performed over 12,000 safe, affordable abortions. Word of the illegal alternative was spread through word-of-mouth, cryptic advertisements, and even by members of Chicago's police, clergy, and medical establishment.
Little remains to document the organization's clandestine existence. Most of Jane's records were destroyed to protect the participants, leaving the women themselves to tell their stories. Jane: An Abortion Service utilizes in-depth interviews, archival footage, and the few remaining personal effects to bare witness and illuminate this once-hidden refuge.
Jane was comprised of a cross-section of the political community of the early 1970s. They included members of the National Organization of Women, student activists, housewives, and mothers - a diverse group that shared one conviction that access to safe and affordable abortion was every woman's right. Now, almost a quarter of a century later, Jane: An Abortion Service powerfully documents a group of courageous women who were willing to translate their politics into action by providing safety and dignity to women of all backgrounds.
With the Supreme Court ruling of Roe v. Wade in 1973, Jane gradually disbanded. By then these ordinary women had assisted thousands of other women from all walks of life: matrons and teenagers, radicals and government wives.
Jane: An Abortion Service was made by Kate Kirtz and Nell Lundy, both of whom grew up after abortion was legal. Says Kirtz, "For us and others of our generation who grew up with choice, it's hard to comprehend both the reality of living with illegal abortion and the atmosphere that fostered as direct and radical a group as Jane. This film is a way to get us talking about our past and our power at a time when feminism has become a dirty word and choice remains fragile in the extreme."
Pamela Calvert
Communications Manager/Outreach
ITVS
51 Federal Street #401
San Francisco, CA 94107
(415) 356-8383 x 242 tel 356-8391 fax
Pamela_Calvert@itvs.pbs.org
Wed site at http://www.itvs.org.
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