Roe v. Wade legalized abortion everywhere in the U.S. up to the point at which the fetus is viable outside the womb, but determining when this transformation actually takes place is up to the states. Forty-one states place prohibitions on abortion at some point in the pregnancy, meaning late-term abortions come with substantial caveats and requirements; eight states have banned abortions after 20 or 22 weeks. Of all abortions, fewer than 1 percent take place in the third trimester. Another statistic: the percentage of Americans who think third-trimester abortions should be legal is around 14 percent, quite small compared to those who think that second- and first-trimester abortions should be legal (27 and 61 percent respectively).
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Only four doctors in the U.S. perform third-trimester abortions, and all of them are prominently featured in Martha Shane and Lana Wilson’s new documentary, After Tiller, screening through Thursday at Music Box. Shelley Sella, who works at a clinic in Albuquerque, wonders aloud why she has the power to hear a woman’s story and decide whether it merits this rare procedure, which is almost always devastating, in one way or another, for the mother. “What if she’s not a good storyteller?” muses Sella.
After Tiller, as its title suggests, begins with Dr. George Tiller, who headed a women’s health clinic in Wichita, Kansas, and performed late-term abortions until he was gunned down during a church service by an antiabortion activist on March 31, 2009. From the beginning, then, Shane and Wilson frame the late-term abortion issue as a fight between abortion doctors and evangelical wing nuts. Stories and threats of violence abound: LeRoy Carhart, who moves his clinic from Nebraska to Maryland in the course of the film, recounts how terrorists burned his family’s stable to the ground, killing all but three of their horses. Warren Hern, who’s based in Boulder, Colorado, asks his mother, a gritty old woman who inches around her house, how often she receives threatening phone calls. She replies that she doesn’t know; she’s so used to it that she just hangs up.
Directed by Martha Shane and Lana Wilson Tue 10/22, 5 and 7 PM, and Wed-Thu 10/23-10/24, 3, 5, and 7 PM Music Box 3773 N. Southportmusicboxtheatre.com $9.25
