Retro-Abortive

Cambridge, MA -- The film Speak Out: I Had An Abortion, a film sponsored by Women Who Make Movies is a unique look at women who are willing to speak on film about the abortions they've had. Women who first fought for abortions and had them before they were legal seem more willing to talk about them. There's a sense of solidarity among older women. Before the pill, it was actually quite common. One woman describes fearing having to tell her mother that she'd had an abortion (that was actually her second) and her mother simply looks at her and says, "I had two" and moved on with the day. To them, it was a form of civil disobedience.

Now that everyone is on the pill, abortions seem much more rare, and less public. The right-wing movement has been very successful in creating a shadow of shame. But this reminds us that to some women, a pregnancy can feel trapping, and an abortion can be liberating.

One woman who lived in Texas in the '60s said that many women went over the border to have abortions, but "a lot of them didn't come back."