Female Film Critics 24/375
The Janes fills in women’s reproductive history. The revealing documentary, The Janes proves — if there were any doubt — that sisterhood is powerful. Sometimes the sisters have to go underground. Sometimes they have to develop a network of whispers and will. Sometimes they have to break the law and risk jail, but they do — all for the sake of their sisters.
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It would be nice if Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes’ documentary The Janes could be viewed strictly as part of the historical record — a detailed account of “how things used to be.” But with women’s right to choose still under relentless attack and Roe v. Wade seemingly on the brink of being reversed, this film about a group of young women who worked tirelessly in the late 1960s and early ’70s to help provide access to safe illegal abortions couldn’t be more timely.
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Filmmakers Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes’ compelling documentary is a deep dive into the lives and labors of a group of extraordinarily brave, generous and socially conscious activist women, collectively known as Jane, who worked clandestinely in Chicago to help women terminate unwanted pregnancies at a time when anyone seeking, facilitating and/or conducting abortions faced criminal charges and long term imprisonment.
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Filmmakers Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes’ documentary The Janes comes at a time of continued turmoil in women’s health care. With the leak of the Supreme Court’s opinion on Roe Vs. Wade, the likelihood that American women will be living in Margaret Atwood’s fictional world of Gilead doesn’t seem so farfetched. While disgusting anti-abortion bills pop up in Red states across the country, forced birth is on every woman’s lips. With this very predicament before them in 1969, a group of savvy and brave women calling themselves “The Janes” decided to protect their own.
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Co-directors Tia Lessin and Ema Pildes remind viewers of the importance of knowing our collective history in their timely new documentary The Janes. The film profiles the Jane Collective, a fearless, radical group of underground activists that believed in reproductive freedom, and came together to aid women of the pre-Roe V. Wade era in getting safe abortions. Between 1968 and 1973, they were able to make 11,000 safe abortions happen, when, without them, long term negative consequences or death was a distinct possibility for those who sought to end their pregnancies.
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Co-directors Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes remind viewers of the importance of knowing our collective history in their timely new documentary The Janes. The film profiles the Jane Collective, a fearless, radical group of underground activists that believed in reproductive freedom, and came together to aid women of the pre-Roe V. Wade era in getting safe abortions. It is a comprehensive look at a group officially known as the Abortion Counseling Service of Women’s Liberation. Between 1968 and 1973, they were able to make 11,000 safe abortions happen, when, without them, long term negative consequences or death was a distinct possibility for those who sought to end their pregnancies, beginning their work at a time when hospitals still had a dedicated septic abortion ward.
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Co-directors Tia Lessin and Ema Pildes remind viewers of the importance of knowing our collective history in their timely new documentary The Janes. The film profiles the Jane Collective, a fearless, radical group of underground activists that believed in reproductive freedom, and came together to aid women of the pre-Roe V. Wade era in getting safe abortions. Between 1968 and 1973, they were able to make 11,000 safe abortions happen, when, without them, long term negative consequences or death was a distinct possibility for those who sought to end their pregnancies.
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