ANALYSIS/OPINION:
In this masterfully realized HBO documentary from director Tracy Droz Tragos, the subject is undeniably abortion, but it also a film specifically about women. To wit, not a single male is captured in sit-down interviews, with Ms. Tragos relying instead for the stories of her subjects — both pro- and anti-abortion advocates, as well as those who have undergone the procedure, and some of whom regret it — as told by the members of the sex who actually bear children.
Which is not to say that men are nowhere to be found. Fathers, health care workers, supportive (or not) husbands and boyfriends are seen, as are activists who harangue patients outside clinics. But Ms. Tragos has made the right decision for her film. For an issue that defenders, often rightly, say those without uteruses have no business weighing in on, it is a breath of fresh air for director and subjects to speak about with little male interference.
Ms. Tragos focuses on her home state of Missouri, which has passed some of the most restrictive anti-abortion laws in the nation, forcing women to drive hundreds of miles — many come from surrounding states — for counseling. Most of them are poor or working poor. Many already have children. Some have abusive mates; one subject recalls grimly how her gem of a boyfriend planned to “beat the baby out” of her womb.
If you fall on one side of the abortion debate or the other, “Stories Women Tell” will likely not change your mind, but it does put a face onto statistics and counterarguments that it is solely poor and minorities who undergo the procedure. (One interview subject wryly observes of a culture that simultaneously decries sexual enjoyment and abortion in the same breath.)
Perhaps the most riveting sequence sees a Planned Parenthood worker heatedly arguing with a pro-life advocate, the former saying the organization provides far more than abortions: birth control, STD and other health screenings. Yet it is always abortion to which its enemies cling. The situation of the infamous undercover videos — barely touched on here — has made the situation that much tenser.
Applause must be given to Ms. Tragos for truly finding voices from across the spectrum and the debate. While the greatest number of interviewees are those who seek and provide abortions, Ms. Tragos gets views from the other side as well. One woman is shown at an anti-abortion rally, but later admits that she herself had three. How, she is asked by many of her own fans, can she decry a practice of which she herself availed? It’s a strikingly human moment that exposes not so much hypocrisy as it does a latter-life look back at previous choices in the hopes that others may select differently. (The rightness or wrongness of such are beside the point.)
Another woman is brought to tears near the end, thinking of all of the love the world could show to aborted babies.
“I want to do justice to the people and their stories,” Ms. Tragos recently told The Washington Times. “What I hope the film will do is change the conversation and the tone of the conversation.
“It has been co-opted by politicians, and often male politicians, and it’s incredibly barbed and ugly in what is said. My hope is that this film can bring a lot more understanding and empathy from audiences.”
The usual arguments are raised and lobbed back and forth in the doc, with who will care for all those unaborted children chief among them.
“It’s so personal,” Ms. Tragos said of the decision to keep or abort a fetus, “that it really desrves to be taken out of this political sphere and back into the personal, private family place.”
As mentioned, your point of view will likely not change after “Stories We Tell” reaches its end, but this is documentary filmmaking at its finest, and Ms. Tragos gives a voice to those who most need it — not to politicians or demagogues or lobbyists but to those whom their policies most directly affect.
“Abortion: Stories Women Tell” will play at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, Thursday at 4:15 p.m. as part of this year’s AFI Docs film festival. For more information AFI.com/afidocs.
• Eric Althoff can be reached at twt@washingtontimes.com.
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