HBO documentary The Janes sends an important warning signal

Last May, America was rocked by the leak of a document indicating that the Supreme Court of the United States had reversed the decision rendered in the famous Roe vs. Wade to have the lawsuit dismissed. In 1973, this decision stipulated that women in the United States had the right to an abortion (in the Netherlands, this has only applied since 1984). Pro-life organizations have been trying to take that right away from American women for fifty years – and now seem to be taking a step closer to their goal. This is where the documentary comes in. The Janes (2022) at an extremely timely moment: it shows the ways American women had to squirm until the 1970s to terminate a pregnancy. From the opening scene, the horror stories of dealing with the mob, dates in seedy motels, and doctors with gripping hands fly around your ears. Even more horrific are the brutal treatment sometimes suffered by women; many ended up in hospital with medical complications, some of which they even died of.

At the end of the 1960s, twelve young women in Chicago had had enough: in 1969 they founded a secret abortion practice under the meaningless name of “Jane”. Until 1972, they helped about 11,000 women to have safe abortions, women they first reached with leaflets and advertisements in underground newspapers (‘Pregnant? Call Jane’), and later by word of mouth, in which even GPs with desperate patients participated.