America’s War on Abortion provides invaluable insight into the fight for (and against) abortion access in the United States, and belongs in both public and private documentary, social justice, and gender studies film collections. Written and directed by award-winning filmmaker Deeyah Khan, this documentary is both difficult to watch and impossible to look away from.
Released in October 2020, the BAFTA-winning America’s War on Abortion was near completion when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away. Watching the documentary now, in the aftershocks of the June 24 reversal of Roe v. Wade, is a bit like watching a familiar horror movie. No amount of shouting “Run! Get out of there!” can change the trajectory, yet we have to watch, transfixed. While it is gut-wrenching to look back before the fall of Roe v. Wade, Khan has captured a pivotal moment in US history.
Khan’s work is exemplary in part because she roots her examination of the issue at hand firmly in the storytelling of her many varied subjects. The feminist ideal that “the personal is political” seems to inform Khan’s filmmaking style.
From behind the camera herself, Khan speaks with many women who have had or are in the process of obtaining abortions. In hearing these women’s personal stories, the viewer is exposed to the many kinds of women who seek the procedure: a woman who was looking forward to motherhood, but whose fetus was inviable; young women who have neither the desire nor the resources to become mothers and support children; and, a survivor of sexual assault who had to travel ten hours to reach the nearest clinic. These women relay the obstacles to obtaining an abortion including cost, mandated wait times that unnecessarily prolong the process, and societal stigma and shame.
One patient, Morgan, made it clear that getting an abortion would be much easier if not for the vitriol of anti-choice advocates, especially those protestors hurling insults and threats at patients as they come into clinics.
“People should be comforted through this, not judged and hated,” she says.
Khan brings further depth to the film through her work with abortion providers and other clinic staff. Much of the documentary focuses on the Alabama Women’s Center for Reproductive Alternatives, one of only three abortion clinics in Alabama at the time of filming, and one of the only POC-owned clinics in the US. Khan speaks with clinic director Dr. Yashica Robinson, who owns the clinic with her partner. Khan, Robinson, and others in the film highlight how abortion restrictions will disproportionately impact women in poverty and women of color, the communities Robinson’s clinic serves.
Robinson speaks to the challenges she and her staff face every day while trying to provide their patients with the care they need.
“There is no other medical specialist that has legislators constantly challenging the care they provide to their patients,” Robinson says.
Robinson and other providers also face daily threats to their personal safety. Khan reports that since 1977, there have been 11 murders, 26 attempted murders, 42 bombings, 189 arsons, and thousands of other lesser crimes directed at abortion providers in the United States.
With these horrifying actions in mind, it can be hard to stomach Khan’s decision to also interview anti-choice protestors, and include their testimonies in the documentary; however, Khan makes it clear that she is not entertaining these people’s ideas nor trying to promote them, but rather, she is documenting them so that she and others might be able to understand them.
In a piece for Grazia, Khan writes, “I spoke to them then and tried to understand their motivation and their behavior, and while I’m sure they are completely sincere in their beliefs, they are so utterly misguided that it’s both terrifying and incredibly sad.”
A disappointing absence from the film is any mention of, let alone interviews with, trans or nonbinary people seeking abortion care. Though it’s possible that Khan did not encounter any trans or nonbinary patients at the clinics she visited while filming, it is essential that they are included in all discussions of abortion access. When the focus is on threats to “women’s rights,” trans and nonbinary people only become further marginalized. Khan might also have included interviews with male partners of women seeking abortions, as men are too often absent in those conversations.
That being said, the interviews Khan does capture are incredibly nuanced, and the film pulsates with the tension between the many stories Khan so carefully entwines. America’s War on Abortion is a worthy addition to any library’s collection and is essential viewing for anyone invested in the continuing fight for abortion access in the United States.
What public library shelves would this title be on?
This film belongs in any library’s documentary, social justice, contemporary issues, gender studies, or health and wellness collection.
What subjects or college majors would benefit from the content covered in this film?
This documentary would be beneficial for political science, gender studies, and film studies majors, as well as any healthcare-related field of study.
What can this educational documentary be used as a resource for?
America’s War on Abortion would be an excellent addition to the curriculum in college classrooms as well as in high school students' political science or health and wellness classes.
Read Khan’s piece for Grazia here: https://graziadaily.co.uk/life/in-the-news/america-war-on-abortion-deeyah-khan-miscarriage/