*****Doc,“Trapped,” and more. Why I Scream for Reproductive Rights!
Review for “Trapped,” doc available to-rent on Prime, Apple. I watched Trapped on the big screen at the Full Frame Film Festival at the Carolina Theatre in 2016.
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“Trapped” Review by Emily Cox, September 2, 2021 (Durham, NC).
5/5 SISTERS rec the documentary TRAPPED: : The Sundance award- winning documentary “Trapped,” by Dawn Porter. Be transported inside a beautiful, sometimes painful, even funny, complex true story about how the “trap law” effectively de-funded planned parenthood clinics to block access to gynecology clinics across the U.S. This documentary features a number of clinics from Misssippi to Louisiana and Texas. Instead of writing a full documentary review, I am excerpting this excellent “NonFics.com” review BELOW. Note: The SisterScene needs someone to design an emoticon with 1-5 sisters.
Why I Recommend Trapped from 2016 Today?
This film is so important for people to watch, no matter what opinions you have about Planned Parenthood or abortion or reproductive rights. I believe ART is an essential function in the effort to shift the mindset of Americans toward open-mindedness. One of the greatest things that touch us deeply and move us emotionally (besides human relationship) is the performing arts. Film, theatre, video, tv, poetry, music can change our hearts and minds, over time and sometimes instantly.
#ArtIsEssential #sisterscene #ReproductiveRights #PrivacyRights #Trapped.
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My Visit to Planned Parenthood in Louisiana in 1984:
My first visit to a gynecology clinic was to the Planned Parenthood clinic in Lake Charles, Louisana (my home town, population 80,000 in 1984). I went alone because I wanted to start birth control around my 18th birthday, it was part of my vision of becoming an independent adult. HA! independence to me is a cultural pressure point that pushes people away instead of including or supporting them. I was too uncomfortable (scared) to talk to my parents or any teachers or elders. My mother had taught me about Margaret Sanger’s work to save the lives of pregnant women. And she told me how we have a public clinic called Planned Parenthood that gives women, teen girls access to private consultations, medical care and assistance with sexual, domestic violence, reproductive needs. By the time I was 20 years old, attending Loyola University in New Orleans with a keen interest in healthy society (e.g. I cared about racism and poverty and sexism and domestic violence. I went to the Desire Housing Projects for meetings with a nun who supported the needs of women and children exposed to inhumane conditions and irrevocable harm; government assistance was more like hell than anything. I attended a Green Party meeting because I believed in the principles of humanism, antiracism and environmentalism—I was appalled to a tiny, all-white male group in a church basement, and I feared the party would never have any impact on the needs of the poor, women, children or the planet.
Privilege Not Same Thing as Rights
Back to my Planned Parenthood experience. When I was a teenager, my mom told me about the history of public policy and laws and the ongoing deaths of pregnant women and girls because of government and male-dominated control of human rights around the world. How the shame, domestic abuse, psychological and physical control of girls and women kept them away from safe information, advice and treatment for menstrual cycle, infections, STDs, planned and unplanned pregnancies. Even though she talked to me so respectfully and passionately about all of that, it wasn’t at the moment when I finally got up the courage to want advice and a pregnancy prevention plan for myself. My American History and Civics teachers taught the difference between human rights and privilege. My mom didn’t didn’t address that angle, but as Americans I fear way too many people dispute this key function of our society, culture and government. The Catholic Diocese of Lake Charles made it mandatory that our class watch documentary films on the dangers of fornication, birth control, and abortion. I was a strong enough critical thinker to recognize the conflicting actions of teaching us about the rights of Americans to life—survival—and the demonizingcondemning, brutal, shame of normal human biology and behavior, sex, pregnancy and self-care .
Alone Not Horrified
When I got up the courage myself to seek support for my gynecology needs, I silently and ALONE made a plan to go to Planned Parenthood and figure out what to do. Why do people feel ashamed to get condoms or the pill, when it is just a healthy, smart thing to do? I was not told openly by my parents that whenever I needed health information I could go to (or speak to) a doctor independently. And, I can’t get birth control pills off the rack, I had to get a prescription. And wow, are condoms cheaper?!
Maturity Not Motherhood
Everyone throws around, “mature, immature” judgmentally, unsolicited, without regard for the ridiculous traps that maturity brings. Adults who are honest know that we are never fully mature. The environment I grew up in transmitted the messages: “be a good girl,” “find a good guy,” “sex is sexy,” “motherhood is beautiful.” Bullshit. I saw myself as part of the public, a part of the population of American women who need advice and so I made a plan and took a morning off from high school and went to the Planned Parenthood clinic. I did not want the intrusion on my decision-making of parents, boyfriend, or even my girlfriends. I had waited, as best I could, to the point in my teenage, young adult life, to make a plan to start having sex with a trustworthy person I loved (who did not necessarily think that we should have sex or that I should go on birth control). From my high school P.E. health class, I knew that a guy wearing a condom would not prevent pregnancy 100%. And I had already decided by the time that I was 12 years old that I would not be a young mother like my mother was (she was 18 when she married). Please share whatever assumptions and questions you have about my adolescent life—I am practicing wearing “thick skin,” and I believe the way I “perceived other people’s opinions, questions, ideas” is precisely the reason that I had to go alone to do such an adult thing. This is how sexism, racism, homophobia, and the umbrella system of white supremacy works to control aspects of people’s personal life. Controlling information and not challenging messages promotes cruelty. Cruelty.
SisterScene strives to positively impact public discourse through conversation, increasing interest and turnout in the arts and cultural and social justice world. We want to change cruel policies and help people stretch their comfort zone and be role-models for open-mindedness.
Four Essential Films to Watch While Reproductive Rights Are Under Threat
A look at the recent wave of abortion documentaries 'Trapped,' 'After Tiller,' 'Vessel,' and '12th & Delaware.'
https://nonfics.com/four-essential-films-to-watch-while-reproductive-rights-are-under-threat-d843d1d3704c/
Excerpt>>Just last week, Senator Paul Ryan pledged, along with repealing the Affordable Care Act (which is the exact same thing as Obamacare, really!), to defund Planned Parenthood. This is because Republicans don’t believe that Planned Parenthood should receive federal funding, because they provide abortion services.
Except, guess what: those federal funds go to everything but abortion services, like testing for sexually transmitted diseases, providing contraceptives, screening for breast cancer. You know, basic healthcare.
‘Trapped’
If defunding Planned Parenthood wasn’t horrifying enough, some state governments are also actively working to shut down abortion clinics through TRAP (targeted regulation of abortion providers) laws. The impact of these laws throughout the southern states in particular is the focus of Dawn Porter’s 2016 documentary Trapped. She gained impressive access to clinics in Alabama, where there are only three left; Mississippi, where there is just one (and you thought it was bad in Alabama); and Texas, where the number of clinics dropped from 44 to six after new legislation passed in 2013.
This is perhaps one of most striking things about Trapped: how it manages to tackle the complex law side of the issue while still feeling intimate and human. “When I was there, the nurses and doctors just worked so hard to make the women feel safe, and they recognize and understand how emotional the women can be, so I really wanted to just show how normal the people are and how professional and brave they are,” explains Porter in an interview at The Moveable Fest.
