Members of the Barcelona chapter got together Sunday evening at a member's home to watch The Janes, an Emmy award-winning HBO documentary on abortion-rights movement and women-helping-women activism in 70s-era Chicago. This was the kick-off of a film series on activism and politics being held to raise funds for our GOTV efforts.
It tells the story of a group of courageous women who arranged clandestine abortions for desperate women in a world without reliable access to contraception and no legal abortion. They eventually learned how to perform the procedure themselves and helped some 11,000 women before Roe v. Wade ended the need for their services. Directed by Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes, it was released in 2022 at Sundance, 49 years and two days after the landmark, recently reversed, Supreme Court decision was handed down. One of the participants who had lived in Chicago in that time period and been involved in the movement shared her memories of the era and the city.
The next film, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed will be shown on Sunday, November 19.