00:01My mother grew up in New York City in Harlem in the 1950s.
00:07Her father was a physician and a surgeon at Harlem Hospital.
00:11I only knew a little bit about this part of my mother's life,
00:14so I asked her to tell me more about it.
00:17Well, as you know, my family was the first family to move into our building.
00:23I was, I think, about two years old, and that was my world.
00:30My grandfather had a cousin who was a doctor living in North Carolina.
00:53Cousin Albert had more work than he could handle, and he asked my grandfather to come south to help out.
01:03So my grandfather moved his family to sleepy Wadesboro, North Carolina, where he worked as a local country doctor.
01:13My time in Wadesboro was very different than my time in New York.
01:19Most of his clients were very poor.
01:22People paid him in corn and butchered hogs, and so we had lots of food.
01:31My bedroom faced over a highway. It's up on a hill.
01:35And one night, all of a sudden, I see, like, on the highway, all these cars, like, in a row.
01:44And there's a trail of white sheets.
01:49I didn't know what the Ku Klux Klan was, but I knew that everybody in the house was afraid.
01:55And one night, the sheriff came, Albert poured drinks, they sat around chatting for a while, and then they took him away.
02:08He was arrested.
02:10He was arrested because a white woman reported that he had performed an abortion for her.
02:17I never knew about this part of my family history.
02:25I knew that the issue of abortion in America has always been racially charged.
02:29But until I started making Trapped, my feature documentary about abortion,
02:34I'd never really considered how the experience of having an abortion might be different for black women.
02:39My friends, it is a baby! It is a child!
02:44According to the Center for Disease Control, black women have abortions at five times the rate of white women.
02:51Certainly the reasons are complicated, but experts point to barriers like a lack of access to education,
02:57reproductive health care, and income disparity.
03:00You pretend to be a Christian. When are you going to come back to Christ?
03:10Dr. Parker, much like my grandfather did, travels across the South, providing women with access to medical care, including abortion.
03:19He's become a well-known advocate for access to abortion care.
03:23They're trying to wipe out the black race, if you've noticed. They're trying to wipe them out.
03:28I was prepared for protesters, but it was still shocking to hear the protesters call Dr. Parker a filthy Negro abortionist.
03:36They were even disgusted with me from my position while making this film.
03:41Are you pro-choice?
03:42I am pro-choice.
03:43It's easy to be pro-choice, because you're not the one being killed.
03:47That's right. Amen! Oh, yeah! What do you got to say to that?
03:50That's all I have to say.
03:51Hey, were you pro-choice about slavery, too? Because that was a privacy issue back in the 1800s.
03:56You pro-choice about that?
03:57Do you think slavery and abortion are equivalents?
03:59Yeah.
04:00Pro-choice about slavery? Dred Scott, all that?
04:03I don't understand your point.
04:04Good job.
04:05Is I pro-choice about slavery?
04:07I just wonder why you keep injecting race into the conversation.
04:10Oh, you know, because we like black babies. Black babies matter to us, but apparently not to you.
04:15And you don't care one bit, because you're pro-choice.
04:17You stand beside those folks. Good job. Good job. You're a disgrace to your race.
04:24You too, bro.
04:27It was absolutely surreal to hear older white men lecture me about the impact of abortion on the lives of black women.
04:35Meanwhile, I was interviewing real women inside the clinics, hearing their painful stories and how hard their choices were.
04:43It made me realize just how infrequently black women's stories are really ever told.
04:50You're going to sign a date here.
04:51Nobody is forcing you to have this done. You do have 48 hours to change your mind.
05:05We did an ultrasound to find out how far along you are. You are less than 19 weeks pregnant. Do you know what your blood type is?
05:25No.
05:26Okay.
05:27Questions?
05:28No.
05:29Alright.
05:30Is there a reason why you didn't give me an emergency contact?
05:34I don't have family here.
05:37Okay.
05:38Anybody?
05:39Friend?
05:40Church member?
05:41Boyfriend?
05:42Nobody?
05:43Okay.
05:44On the day of the procedure, you're going to have to give me someone, and it doesn't have to be someone in this vicinity.
05:49But if something happens to you here in the clinic, I need to be able to notify someone.
05:53Okay?
05:54So whether it be your mom, if she lives in another state, that's fine, but I still need an emergency contact.
05:58Okay?
06:01And what are you going to do as far as a driver on the day of the procedure?
06:04A cab.
06:06Maybe.
06:07Okay.
06:08You're going to have to have someone with you. I can't put you in a cab sedated with someone that you don't know and that I don't know.
06:13Okay.
06:14What we can do is talk to the volunteers maybe.
06:16Sometimes they will assist if you don't have a driver because I'm not comfortable sending you with someone that I don't know.
06:32I'm 20.
06:33What do you do?
06:34As far as work?
06:35Yeah.
06:36I'm a cashier at Walmart.
06:37Okay.
06:38I make $9 an hour.
06:40Being a single parent is not easy.
06:43I'm studying to become a paramedic.
06:45I just feel like with another child and what I'm trying to do right now, I don't feel like I can do it.
06:52I'm just trying to pursue my dreams so I can just have better for my son.
06:56How old is your kid?
06:57My son is 19 months.
06:59He's a great kid.
07:02I just wanted to take care of him and I don't really think I can do a second child not by myself.
07:09How do you feel about your decision?
07:11I'm like a bad person.
07:13Say more about that.
07:14Why do you feel bad?
07:15Are you a religious person?
07:16I try to be.
07:17What does your religious understanding say to you about abortion?
07:25I know that God don't want this from me but I did pray on it.
07:30I just want him to understand it.
07:32I feel like I should go through with it.
07:35I just want him to understand it.
07:37I don't want him to be upset with me because if I do it.
07:41Ten years from now what I would want for you is that you'd be able to say, you know what,
07:47that was a jacked up situation but if I had to do it all over again I'd make the same decision
07:51because I made the best decision I could make.
07:54And that way you don't have to second guess yourself.
07:56And nobody who's walking in your shoes can question you because they're not in your shoes.
08:07I'm not a good person at all.
08:09I just, I just feel like a bad person.
08:12A bad female.
08:16Okay, the only rule I'm going to give you is you may not say I'm not a good person anymore
08:21because that is not the case.
08:23An unintended pregnancy is an unintended pregnancy.
08:26That's all it is.
08:27That's all it is.
08:28So, no more.
08:32Okay?
08:33Okay.
08:34Okay?
08:35I'm not kidding.
08:36It's crazy as it sounds.
08:38I said, well, I would rather an abortion than to give the baby up to a family I don't know.
08:44Because if I, when I hold it then, that's love.
08:48And I don't want to, you know.
08:59I'm not going to give that love away.
09:01Deciding to have an abortion is never easy.
09:15But in many places, it's also incredibly logistically difficult, especially for Black women.
09:21In June of 2016, the United States Supreme Court determined that so-called trap laws,
09:27which have resulted in the closure of so many abortion clinics, are illegal.
09:31But there is still only one abortion clinic in the entire state of Mississippi.
09:37Luckily, there is also one woman there who always listens.
09:40I live in Jackson, Mississippi, and work at Jackson Women's Health, an abortion clinic.
09:54Getting ready to walk through those doors is the hardest part.
09:59And she's probably torn so many different directions.
10:03By the time she gets to me, she's fairly sure of what she needs to do for herself.
10:10A lot of the private counseling that I do, I hear interesting stories,
10:13and most of them is about being torn one way or another.
10:18My name is Betty. Everybody around here calls me Miss Betty.
10:22And what I do is I am available to you to talk to you about whatever's going on with you.
10:29What we usually do is do a group counseling where I tell you what to expect on surgery day.
10:36For me, being a mother is everything.
10:38Not only am I a mother to my two boys,
10:42I'm a mother to the rest of the women in this clinic.
10:45I think the protesters think that these women just get up in the morning and decide to go have an abortion.
11:03When they have put their heart and souls into their decisions
11:06and have to walk through that gauntlet out there to even come in and discuss with us the process.
11:19Oh, I hate to think about what will happen to the women of Mississippi if this clinic closes.
11:24It's tough for women right now.
11:31Miss Betty is like a mother to her patients.
11:44But over and over in the three years of making the film Trapped,
11:48I heard so many women tell me about their shame
11:51and how they felt they were letting their own family down,
11:54particularly their mother's.
11:56And even though I was making a documentary about abortion
11:58and interviewing so many women,
12:01I realized I'd never asked my own mother
12:03if abortion had impacted her life.
12:07I was afraid to specifically stay
12:08segúnum ve life.
12:08I have about to have a community
12:11in my life as well.
12:13I have about to have an English tip
12:15but there was aties that I was about to bless
12:16with so many women from having to have
12:18at least two hundred years,
12:19so there is a lot of principalmente
12:21in one for a lot of people
12:22by getting to our children.
12:23Inbuci Sciences
12:26subsidizing также illuminating
12:27within the shooting
12:31of her parents
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