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    ‘The Janes’ Review: Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands

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    This HBO documentary spotlights the women activists who banded together to form Jane, a clandestine group providing safe abortions in the years before Roe v. Wade.“The Janes” is a straightforward, talking-heads documentary from HBO that provides a brief history of the Jane Collective, a clandestine abortion group working out of Chicago in the late 1960s and early ’70s.Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that protected a women’s right to an abortion, had not yet been handed down, meaning the procedure was illegal in most states, forcing women with unwanted pregnancies to turn to exploitative abortion providers (like the Mafia) or resort to dangerous methods to self-induce an abortion.This situation — and the can-do spirit of the times, cultivated by the civil rights and women’s liberation movements — sparked the members of Jane into action.The documentary, directed by Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes, relies primarily on testimonies from the Jane Collective’s women volunteers, tracing their efforts from the beginning — when the group was merely a referral service — to their final days contending with law enforcement.Ultimately, the Jane Collective provided close to 11,000 abortions by the time Roe v. Wade came into effect, at which point the group ceased its activities. (Though the renewed push for restrictive abortion laws today, and reports of the present Supreme Court’s ruling on a case that could overturn Roe, casts a sense of bleak uncertainty over the film’s otherwise triumphant conclusion.)Cookie-cutter though it is, “The Janes” does have something going for it: its interview subjects, the former Janes, who all speak about their beliefs and shared past with striking clarity. They remind us that their work — their commitment to ensuring the safety and well-being of other women — was not really all that radical, but a measured, intelligent response to the inadequacies of a system that refused to fend for its own.The JanesNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. Watch on HBO platforms. More

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      At Sundance, Two Films Look at Abortion and the Jane Collective

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      In the years leading up to Roe v. Wade, a Chicago group helped thousands of women obtain the procedure safely. A documentary and a feature tell their story.Judith Arcana was 27 and recently separated from her husband when she began driving women surreptitiously for safe — but illegal — abortions. The year was 1970, she was an out-of-work teacher on the South Side of Chicago, and she was spending her days counseling women in need.“I don’t think we were crazy,” said Arcana, now 78. “I don’t think we were stupid. I think that we had found something that was so important, so useful in the lives of women and girls.”“We were radicalized in the arena of women’s bodies,” she said. “We knew that what we were doing was good work in the world. And we knew that it was illegal.”Arcana was part of the Jane Collective, a disparate, rotating group of women who ensured safe abortions for thousands of women in Chicago between 1968 and 1973. Despite the law, women were still getting abortions. But they were often performing them on themselves and winding up in the hospital, or paying the mob with no guarantee of survival.During these years, because of Arcana and other women, if you lived in Chicago and needed help, you could call a number and talk with a woman who would offer a safer alternative. Members of the collective provided counseling and arranged the procedures, which they eventually administered — 11,000 all told during that period. But then in 1972, Arcana and six other members of the group were arrested, each charged with 11 counts of abortion or conspiracy to commit an abortion with a possible 10-year sentence for each charge. Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision issued in 1973, saved them all.Mugshots of members of the Jane Collective who were arrested in 1972. HBONow, close to 50 years later, members of the collective are sharing their stories in a pair of movies at the Sundance Film Festival, which begins Thursday: the HBO documentary “The Janes”; and a fictionalized account titled “Call Jane,” starring Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver, and looking for distribution.The movies are debuting at a particularly crucial time for abortion rights. The Supreme Court heard arguments in December over the legality of a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks; it is expected to issue a decision this summer. Should the court uphold the law, the ruling would be at odds with Roe v. Wade, which declared abortion a constitutional right and forbade states from banning the procedure before fetal viability (23 weeks). The Sundance filmmakers make no secret that they support abortion rights but say they want their work to show the complexity of the subject.In “Call Jane,” Banks plays Joy, a mother and housewife who seeks out an illegal abortion after learning that her pregnancy is life-threatening — her attempt to secure one legally having been denied by an all-male hospital board. The movie’s director, Phyllis Nagy (whose credits include the screenplay for “Carol”), said she wished she could show it to the Supreme Court’s conservative justices. “I would sit there and say, ‘Now, talk to me,’ and it wouldn’t make any difference, probably,” she said. “But artists need to start having the kinds of political conversations with society that aren’t didactic,” she added. “Nothing else has worked.”Elizabeth Banks in “Call Jane,” about a woman trying to terminate a life-threatening pregnancy. Wilson Webb, via Sundance InstituteThe makers of “The Janes” hope those with differing views will allow themselves a look at life before Roe v. Wade. “This is a glimpse at history; I don’t think it’s an advocacy film,” said Tia Lessin, who directed with Emma Pildes, whose father used to be married to Arcana. Arcana’s son, Daniel, and Pildes are producers on the film. Lessin added, “It’s a real life story about what happened and the lengths that women went to to have abortions and to enable other women to have abortions.”“Do I hope that people’s takeaway will be ‘let’s not go back there’? Sure. But I really hope it moves people to engage in conversation. Love the film, hate the film,” she said before Pildes jumped in: “Talk about the issue.”And there is plenty to discuss.The Jane Collective was formed when a college student, Heather Booth, now 76, received a desperate call from a friend looking for an abortion. Booth, active in the civil rights movement, found a doctor willing to help and passed along the information. “I made what I thought was a one-time arrangement,” she said in an interview. Soon another woman called. Then another. Booth found herself negotiating fees and learning the intricacies of the procedure so she could counsel women. After a few years, Booth, by then a mother working on her graduate degree at the University of Chicago, recruited others to fulfill the growing need.“I was working full time. The number of calls were increasing. It was certainly too much for one person,” she added.Marie Leaner, now 80, was raised Roman Catholic and taught to believe that abortion was a sin. At a community center on the West Side of Chicago, she ran a program for teenage mothers. “I just thought it was atrocious that these women didn’t want to carry the babies but they felt this was their punishment for being in love or being sexually involved with someone,” she recalled. “I decided I wanted to do something about it.”She offered up her apartment for the procedures and occasionally held the hands of the women who came through. As one of the few Black women in the group, she said, “I knew that Black and brown people wouldn’t partake of the service if they couldn’t see themselves involved in it.”The State of Abortion in the U.S.Card 1 of 5Abortion at the Supreme Court. More