Stream the documentary on HBO Max and stay
tuned for 3 screenings in March at local venues.
tuned for 3 screenings in March at local venues.
In the spring of 1972, police raided an apartment on the South Side of Chicago where seven women who were part of a clandestine network were arrested and charged. Using code names, fronts, and safe houses to protect themselves and their work, the accused had built an underground service for women seeking safe, affordable, illegal abortions. They called themselves “Jane.”
“Until the Supreme Court decriminalized abortion in 1973, there was a section of Chicago’s Cook County Hospital called the septic abortion ward.
It admitted as many as 20 patients a day, women ailing from botched back-alley procedures or self-administered ones. Their injuries were grievous, and there were deaths every week. Against this dire backdrop, along came Jane, a collective of second-wave feminists who made it their mission to provide another option for women in need. For about five years before the Roe v. Wade decision, they administered an estimated 11,000 safe abortions.”
Directed by Oscar-nominee Tia Lessin (HBO’s Trouble the Water) and Emmy-nominee Emma Pildes (HBO’s Jane Fonda in Five Acts), The Janes offers first-hand accounts from the women at the center of the group, many speaking on the record for the first time.
The Janes tells the story of a group of unlikely outlaws. Defying the state legislature that outlawed abortion, the Catholic Church that condemned it, and the Chicago Mob that was profiting from it, the members of The Janes risked their personal and professional lives to help women in need. In the pre-Roe v. Wade era –– a time when abortion was a crime in most states and even circulating information about abortion was a felony in Illinois –– The Janes provided low-cost and free abortions to an estimated 11,000 women.