Last month I had the pleasure and privilege to see the documentary 12th & Delaware at the Maryland Film Festival. Filmmakers Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing, who brought us Jesus Camp and The Boys of Baraka, debuted the film at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The film’s namesake is an intersection in the town of Fort Pierce, Florida, shared by an abortion clinic and an anti-choice crisis pregnancy center (CPC). Initially they had only planned to film at the CPC, but after a while they felt there was another side to the story that begged to be told.
The filmmakers do not add commentary to the film; they let the activity in- and outside the two buildings speak for itself. The abortion clinic is owned by a middle-aged couple. They peek out their windows to see protesters with signs and tiny plastic baby figurines, calling out to the women heading towards their door. Candace, the woman, treats her patients with kindness and compassion. Their faces are obscured as they explain that they already have three kids to care for, they didn’t want to get pregnant again, or they don’t feel like they have the power to demand that their partners use protection. One says she considers herself a murderer, and Candace tells her not to go through with the procedure if she doesn’t want to.
Every day, the husband drives to a separate location to pick up the clinic doctor. When they return, the doctor’s face is concealed by a sheet inside the passenger side window. The protesters holler at the car and often stand in the driveway as the it pulls in and out. At the end of the day, the husband drives the doctor back to the second location and the doctor drives himself home. One protester makes it his mission to learn the doctor’s identity and find out where the pick up and drop off takes place. He reclines in his car, staking out the local WalMart parking lot until his suspicions are confirmed. Filming took place in the same year as Dr. George Tiller’s murder. The fear is palpable.
Across the street, the literature misinforms patients that abortion causes breast cancer and that 95 percent of women who abort regret their decisions. Anne, the woman who heads up the operation, does whatever it takes to convince women and girls to continue their unplanned pregnancies. She tells one woman with an abusive partner, “For all you know, the baby changes him.” I wanted to cry. Some patients fall for the manipulation. Another laughs bitterly after Anne buys her lunch to butter her up.
I went to the screening with my boyfriend, who was more shocked by what he saw than I was. I read about it every day. The filmmakers took questions after the movie, and I was pleasantly surprised by the pro-choice vibe in the theater. An old man asked how the woman from the CPC could get away with lying to pregnant patients about the ineffectiveness of condoms. People were clearly disturbed by what they’d seen.
The experience affected the filmmakers, as well. Grady remarked that the struggle between the pro-choice and anti-choice camps “has nothing to do with babies. It’s about control, it’s about the power of women and women’s roles, what the purpose of the female gender is, the absolute core of the identity of a woman. It’s so profound and so deep.”
12th & Delaware is an expertly crafted documentary that looks at abortion in a sensitive way. I hope it has as much of an impact as the pair’s earlier films, and I would absolutely recommend seeing it if you have the opportunity.
That movie sounds amazing/terrible just like Jesus Camp. Thanks for the review, I’ll look for it on netflix in the future.
Thanks for the review, SarahMC! I’m looking forward to seeing this film. I’m relieved to know the Q&A session was pretty relaxed. These days I expect anti-choice hecklers to show up at any event that deals with abortion.
I read a review of the film yesterday and what struck the reviewer most was how the film demonstrated that for some anti-choice activists, being a protester or running a CPC really is their whole lives because they have little else going on. Meanwhile most pro-choice women and men have jobs, school, etc. and can only volunteer or donate money when they actually have the time.
Great review — I will look for the film! It is interesting that your bf was more appalled than you were…we have quite a bit of that phenomenon going on at our house also. Mr. ausgezeichnet has no idea a lot of this goes on. I am happy to say that he is appalled at appropriate times. It is good of us to educate the menz, one at a time if we must.
Most of the passion (zealotry) is on the side of the anti-choicers. As crazy as I think they are, many really believe “abortion is murder” and act accordingly.
I’m pro-choice but am not so motivated as to risk my life or even my time counter-protesting a bunch of maniacs for the right to choose.
Men get to walk away from women and their babies and children all the time. Often no one even attempts to get them to even financially support these children. This doesn’t seem to be viewed by the majority of society as “evil.” Just irresponsible.
We will never be free and equal people until everyone understands that both genders need to be responsible for raising children, and that since women bear the largest burden we need to be able to control our ability to reproduce – or not to. And that there’s nothing evil about it.
This is playing this weekend at BAM cinema in Brooklyn, and it’s going to be on HBO too I think. I’m really looking forward to seeing it. Sarah, is it graphic at all? I’m overly sensitive these days.
Spark, what do you mean by graphic? I wouldn’t say so but I could be overlooking something. There’s no footage of abortions or anything like that.
Oooh, BAM! Thanks, Spark!
SarahMC, yes, I meant abortion footage/images. Thanks!
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This film sounds very impressive and very persuasive-and there is no way in hell I’m going to see it. Dealing with it in real life is quite enough, thanks.
I don’t know what the filmmakers intended with this project, but they took away the correct message. As we’ve said on this site over and over, the abortion issue is not about babies, never was and never will be. It’s an expression of the rage of the male gender that they can’t have the ultimate say over procreation. And that is why there is no compromising with antis. We must demand our rights, and do it clearly and firmly, and do it everywhere.
It’s absolutely true that a lot of antis make harassment their life’s work. They’re retired or employed by the Church or students-all people who have large amounts of time to devote to this. We, on the other hand, have actual lives, actual relationships and an entire world we are concerned with.
@charlemagne: You do have a way with words. Just to be clear, no one counter-protests at either abortion clinics or CPCs that I’m aware of. If anyone tries at our clinics, we send them home. We do escort at clinics, but that is not protesting in any way. I would discourage protesting at a CPC unless it could be done in such a way as not to further upset pregnant women.
@ sybann—That is, provided that the people in question are a traditionally monogamous heterosexual couple…sorry to get this off track, but I’ve always found the old “a child needs both a mother and a father” argument (not that I’m accusing you of saying that, just stating for the record) to be logically bankrupt.
And although I agree with the concept about the root of anti-choice activism being patriarchal control (which is why the arguments of so-called men’s rights activists who say that the presence of their sperm in a woman gives them the right to have an equal say in her reproductive choices REALLY make my blood boil) as opposed to babies, how do you explain the fact that so many of the most vehement anti-choicers, at least in my experience, that I’ve come across are women? Sure, they’re tools of the patriarchy, but they really do believe that they are saving babies from the jaws of death. I just hate how tasteless their advertising is, especially on roadside billboards…even though fighting fire with fire is never the answer to anything, it almost makes me want to create a billboard with a woman on one side and a microscopic image of a just-fertilized zygote—in other words, something that the anti-choicers equate with a “human”— on the other, with the caption “Whose life would YOU rather save?” It’s just as tasteless and tactless, sure, but it would sure get people to show their true colors.
I just wish there were a way to reclaim the term “pro-life” from the anti-choicers. (To me, life in utero is really only a half-life as long as the fetus is fully dependent on its mother.) I’m pro-lives of wrongfully convicted criminals, young working-class people cajoled into the army, and absolutely anyone whose mere physical or mental attributes puts them at risk for hatred…why can’t those lives be the ones someone is “pro?”
That sounds really good, thanks for the review. I’ll have to see if I can find it when I’m in the States next month.
Wow- while I’m impressed by the making of the film and the message, I don’t think I can watch it. I’m a little too sensitive to the idiocracy of the anti-choicers and I think it will only rile me up and make me a hater. I am thrilled to hear that it will be on HBO, though. Hopefully a decent number of people will watch it.
I live in Fort Pierce and drive by the intersection of Delaware & 12th once or twice a week. I can’t remember ever having seen anything like protests going on there. Just another quiet corner in town. Is the unique coincidence of pro-life and pro-choice facilities being situated across the street from one another a reason to make a documentary?
@cat: We see a lot of women too. They are generally fanatic Catholics or fundies, so being anti is part of their fear-laden, self-hating ideology. There’s certainly some Stockholm syndrome-type behavior going on as well. Being an anti at this level is a way to gain and keep a community, and not doing what everyone else does would mean losing that community. These are women who have been taught to despise their own sexuality and to believe that their bodies are vessels of sin. If they’ve had abortions in the past, publicly repudiating that gives them credibility in their group.
Remember, though, that anti groups are run by men. If women are spokespeople, they are doing what they’re told (not that that makes them any less culpable of the detestable behavior in which they engage). Women are tokens in male-driven organizations, to be used for pr purposes but never actually listened to.
And, of course, there is the stupidity factor. I really can’t say in all honesty that I’ve encountered many antis who were, shall we say, rigorous thinkers.
Frankie, did you even read what SarahMC wrote, or are you just trying to derail the conversation?
PhDork, not only did I read it, I just re-read it. So what did my comment about that intersection being quiet and generally uneventful do to derail the conversation? Nobody is looking to kill any doctors down here, there still haven’t been any protesters on Del & 12th and yes, we all know that people lie. Perhaps you’ll enlighten me instead of posting another cryptic one-liner that says basically nothing.
Shorter Frankie: “I haven’t noticed something, therefore it doesn’t exist, and can’t exist, and why are all you feminazis lying?”
I don’t doubt that you’ve never seen protests, but since you’re just passing through an intersection, rather than seeking medical attention for an unplanned pregnancy, I’m not surprised. I’m not sure what to make of the fact that you’re more interested in defending the peaceful reputation of a streetcorner than the rights of women to access a legal medical procedure.
Actually, I am sure. And it isn’t terribly flattering to you.
You are an idiot. What could make anyone think that I was trying to defend the reputation of a peaceful street corner by what I wrote in my post?
Stick with the cryptic one-liners, PhDork. You’ve heard the old adage “Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt”?
You got it, Frankie-baby. I will stick to “cryptic one-liners” like “did you read the post?” Perhaps someone will be able to decipher my profound meaning and answer my question rather than name-call. Bye now!
Frankie, Frankie, Frankie. Take your own advice, willya? You’re just embarassing yourself.
Lest either of you feel I’m on one side of the abortion issue or the other, I am sympathetic to both sides.
That said, there’s still no activity at either building at Delaware & 12th other than one car in each lot. The coincidence of a pro-life and a pro-choice facility situated practically next door to one another might be novel, but it doesn’t have the makings OF a novel. Not a good one, anyway.
People should feel free to film, document or write about anything they want. I should have the same freedom to say “duh”, OK? Fair enough?
@Frankie: I should have the same freedom to say “duh”, OK? Fair enough?
Sure, fair enough. In that case, however, you should not call author of this post “an idiot” and say “You’ve heard the old adage “Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt”?
I’m sure you’ve heard the old adage “Do unto others as you’d have done to you.” Don’t expect to have your opinions treated with respect if you can’t show the same respect.
The author of the post, PH Dork, was inferring something ridiculous, that I was trying to derail the conversation and then, in a later post, that I was trying to defend a peaceful street corner. What does that even mean? I’m sorry but there is the rare occasion where using a word such as “idiot” is appropos. In the world of abortion discussions I’m certain it’s relatively tame.
As someone who can provide a physical perspective, I wanted to describe the scene at Delaware and 12th. Neither you nor PHDork can possibly obtain this view without my eyes and my willingness to take the time to write.
Should I see anything unusual ever happening at that intersection I’ll be the first to let you and your buddy know about it.
Thanks, Frankie. Perhaps in the future you’ll be able to participate respectfully and thoughtfully in the conversation.