The Janes is a documentary film which premiered in 2022. The topic is abortion in the United States.
Jane is the name of an underground collective which provided a secret abortion service in Chicago (Illinois) over several years (1969-1972), while abortion was illegal in most American states, including Illinois.
The founding members of the collective were students at the University of Chicago, who wanted to provide a safe and affordable service to women who were in trouble and who needed help.
They advertised in an underground paper and posted flyers on bulletin boards across the university campus. The flyer had a phone number and a short message:
Are you in trouble?
Do you need help?
Call this number and ask for Jane.
The members of the collective who provided a secret and illegal service are the Janes.
This film explains how the collective was formed in 1969, how it worked for several years, and how the service was ended in 1973 when the Supreme Court issued the ruling known as Roe v. Wade.
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Directors: Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes
** Production and distribution: HBO
** Run time: 101 minutes
Several persons (mostly women) are interviewed in the film. Some were members of the underground collective. They are the Janes. Others were clients or customers who used the service of the collective.
The participants are identified only by their first name. In this way, they are half anonymous.
Archive footage is used between the talking heads. Archive footage is used to support and supplement the statements made by the participants.
THE PLOT
In the 1960s, many popular organisations were formed across the US, including Chicago, the largest city of Illinois. Civil rights groups, anti-war groups, and even women’s groups.
But the women’s groups tended to focus on women’s rights in the work place:
** Example # 1 = Women were often paid less than men who did the
same job. How is this fair?
** Example # 2 = Women with good qualifications were rarely
promoted, while men with average qualifications were often promoted. How is this fair?
In 1969, a group of female students at the University of Chicago decided to focus on the topic of abortion, which was and still is a very controversial and highly sensitive topic in the US.
Having talked about this issue for a while, they felt it was no longer enough to talk. They wanted to take action.
They established an underground collective which could provide a secret abortion service to women who were in trouble and who needed help.
The purpose was not to make money. The purpose was to help women. The service was affordable and safe.
The members of Jane wanted clients to feel safe and welcome. This is why they always had a counseling session before the operation and a follow-up session after the operation.
During the time from 1969 to 1972, Jane provided a safe and affordable service to thousands of women. While they operated in secret, many people knew what was going on. Clients included daughters, girlfriends and wives of police officers and lawyers. But nobody tried to stop them.
Apparently, the police officers and lawyers who could have stopped them felt that Jane provided a much-needed service, even though it was illegal.
Apparently, they turned a blind eye to Jane, because they understood what it was all about.
But in 1972, after three years of activity, the group was reported to the police. Here is what happened:
A young woman who wanted to use the service told her aunts about her plans. The aunts were very religious and opposed to abortion. When they learned what their niece wanted to do, they told her to drop this idea. When the niece refused. the aunts went to the police and insisted that the police take action to stop this operation.
They did.
Seven members of the collective were arrested and charged with eleven violations of the law. Each count had a penalty from one to ten years. If they were found guilty on all counts and if the maximum penalty was employed, each defendant faced a sentence of 110 years.
Fortunately, the defendants had a clever lawyer who knew that the ruling in Roe v. Wade was underway.
The lawyer Jo-Anne Wolfson (1934-2018) stalled as long as possible.
It worked.
In 1973, when the Supreme Court ruling was announced, the charges against the defendants were dropped.
In 1973, the service provided by Jane was
terminated because it was no longer needed. The collective was dissolved.
RATINGS AND REVIEWS
What do reviewers say about this film? Here are the results of three review aggregators:
66 percent = IMDb
83 percent = Meta
89 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the audience)
100 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the critics)
There are seven user reviews on IMDb. Five reviewers offer a rating of 100 percent. One review is positive but does not offer a specific rating. One review (which is extremely negative) offers only 10 percent.
Here are the headlines and the ratings offered:
100 = Valuable piece of history!!
100 = Amazing documentary
100 = Incredible, powerful, unfortunately timely!!
100 = Compelling documentary
100 = A must watch
No rating = The good old days
10 = Crinkle crack
When you look at Rotten Tomatoes, you can see that the rating of the general audience is almost as high as the rating of the professional critics.
This does not happen often when we are dealing with a documentary film. In most cases, the rating of the general audience is much lower than the rating of the professional critics.
But here they are almost the same: both are very positive. A remarkable situation!
CONCLUSION
What do I think about it? In my opinion, this is an important film about an important topic.
The story of Jane and the secret abortion service deserves to be told, and in this film, it is done very well.
If you ask me, the average rating on IMDb is too low. I understand the numerous positive reviews and I agree with them.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
PS. In June 2022, the US Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.
From now on, abortion is no longer a constitutional right for all US citizens.
From now on, the situation is the same as it was before 1973: abortion is a matter for the states to decide.
What will happen?
Several states will simply ban abortion. Some states will allow it, but add so many obstacles that it is effectively banned, while a few states will allow it.
REFERENCES
# 1. Books
** The Story of Jane: The Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service by Laura Kaplan (1995) (1997) (2019)
** When Abortion was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973 by Leslie J. Reagan (1996) (2022)
** Jane Against the World: Roe v. Wade and the Fight for Reproductive Rights by Karen Blumenthal (2020) (2022)
# 2. Historical dramas
** Ask for Jane (2018)
** Call Jane (2022)
# 3. Items available on the internet
** Marcia Froelke Coburn,
Chicago's Forgotten Pro-Choice Warriors,
Chicago, 19 March 2019
** Doreen St. Felix,
The Janes and the Power of Pro-Abortion Imagery,
The New Yorker, 8 July 2022
*****
On this blog
My review of
Ask for Jane (2018)
And four other items about abortion in the US
*****
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