The Janes
★★★★
frenzy

When directors Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes began working on this moving documentary in 2018, they probably never imagined that the fight at the center of the film – that historic fight for access to legal abortion – would be happening again. topical four years later.

The Janes is the story of a group of Chicago women who created an underground network to provide women with low-cost abortions in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the procedure was considered criminal homicide in Illinois. even simply discuss abortion was a crime. There were, of course, people offering the procedure, but it was a risky avenue – and prohibitively expensive.

The film opens with a woman recounting an abortion facilitated by the Chicago mob. She called a number she had been given and was asked if she wanted a Cadillac, Chevrolet or Rolls-Royce. “Cadillac was the cheapest, around $500, Chevy was around $700, and the Rolls-Royce was $1,000,” the woman says. This was at a time when the average monthly rent was $150. After paying, she was taken to a motel room, the procedure was done and she was left there with another woman, bleeding, barely a word exchanged with the ‘provider’. And yet this woman was lucky compared to the others.

At that time, many hospitals had dedicated “septic abortion” wards, with the sole purpose of treating women who had attempted self-administered abortions or who had been harmed by clandestine providers. An obstetrician who worked at a major Chicago hospital at the time said the ward was admitting between 15 and 20 patients each day, many with “horrible” injuries.

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Most of the women who formed The Janes had their own abortion experiences, and all came from other areas of activism such as the anti-war and civil rights movements, where they found themselves shunned by male leaders. . Banding together to help any woman in need, no matter how much they could afford, they used a member’s phone number, with the simple instruction to ‘call and ask for Jane’, on posters and leaflets. It was, one Jane says, “an outrageous undertaking…to travel under the radar of the Chicago Mafia and the Chicago Police Department. A case of men underestimating women’s abilities worked really well for us.

Jane’s knowledge spread by word of mouth, leaflets and advertisements in alternative newspapers, and soon the women, who had a sophisticated system (code names, shelters, even on-site childcare for clients) were quick to offer abortions, first by sympathetic men. doctors, then themselves, to several women a day.

Their customers – details of many still listed on index cards with notes such as ‘has no money’, ‘father is a cop’ and ‘terrified’ – totaled more than 11,000 by the time they were raided by police in 1972. 110 years in prison each, these unlikely outlaws were saved by defense attorney Jo-Anne Wolfson, who managed to buy time until the Roe v . Wade makes progress in the Supreme Court; the timing of the raid was fortuitous.

Even if you are familiar with the story of Roe v. Wade, this movie will probably shock you. Especially since half a century later, the cultural, religious and political war around abortion is still raging. As one Jane said of Roe v. Wade: “We were thrilled – and we thought It was finished.”

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