What made you decide to do this film now?
Annie Sundberg: We have done social issue films in the past—one that comes to mind where the climate felt urgent was The Devil Comes on Horseback. When we first heard about this film, it was Election Day 2016 and to be perfectly honest I think many people felt that the presidency was going to go in a different direction. So we thought about the film and we thought, “Okay, it’s an interesting look and there’s a need to educate people,” but it didn’t feel quite as pressing. The next morning when we woke up and discovered that Trump was in office and knowing what that presidency might bring, it felt critical and urgent to make a film about the impact of politics on women’s reproductive rights. We jumped in immediately.
Ricki Stern: I would add that when the project came to us, it was a little more of a historical look as if: This is all in the past, let’s look at how the Roe v. Wade decision has had an impact on women. We refocused the film to look at where we are today in terms of the potential fragility of Roe and also to place the history in context: What are the rights and reproductive issues right now on the ground? How has the Roe decision been affected over the years by Supreme Court decisions? What is the implication for women in their everyday lives? The refocusing that ultimately came was to have Roe be the prism through which we looked at reproductive rights and abortion.
That’s really quite extraordinary that you were offered the film on the very day that many people thought that the country was about to elect its first woman president.
RS: It was striking for us. And I will say that even if, on Election Day, we didn’t feel the urgency of a historical look at reproductive rights in America when we met to talk with Lincoln Square Productions—since we’ve gotten into making this film, we’ve realized that for many women in many states that right is not taken for granted. There have been a lot of films that have looked at abortion from a pro-choice perspective and at the impact on women. It was important for us to focus on it from both sides and to really look at how it became so politicized.
AS: We kept asking ourselves, “What is the film we haven’t yet seen?” There have been some incredibly powerful films that have come out recently–After Tiller and Trapped–but we really hadn’t seen anything that gave context to the politicization of Roe as an issue and how it shaped the Republican Party.
You interview such a broad range of people in Reversing Roe: lawyers, politicians, doctors, activists, religious leaders, social historians. How did you decide who you were going to talk to for the film?
RS: In many ways we hit the ground running. There was a very well-developed proposal by a producer for Lincoln Square Productions so a lot of research had already been done on all of the people involved and we had an incredibly comprehensive list. It really came down to refocusing the film from abortion generally to Roe v. Wade specifically. There’s so much that the film doesn’t do. We don’t get into contraception. We don’t get into criticisms of history. We looked at who are the individuals who have led the fight on both sides around the Roe v. Wade decision, either before Roe came down from the Supreme Court or after. Roe had an impact on doctors, on patients, on politicians. It had an impact on legal issues coming through the courts. Overturning it became a mission for people in the pro-life movement. So it was a series of concentric circles that all came together around Roe.
Given how divisive abortion is, and how deeply at odds with each other many of the people in the film are, was it ever hard to get access to anyone? And once you did get access, was it ever hard to get people to be completely open and honest with you?
AS: When we approached people we made it clear that we weren’t coming at this issue with an agenda, we were coming at it with a real sense of exploration and wanting each side to be heard. For the most part we had pretty frank conversations. There were some people who were more cautious, and we did not get an interview with Marjorie Dannenfelser [president of the pro-life organization, Susan B. Anthony List], who I really would have liked to talk to. The pro-life side had more concerns about our agenda than the pro-choice side. I think everybody’s concerned about being misrepresented. It’s always daunting when you let somebody else have control of the ball. I think people who were initially wary ultimately came to trust us in the process, but we were very conscious of making people feel very comfortable, that we were looking to let people speak to the issues that concerned them. And I think that people looked at our past work. The Devil Comes on Horsebackis a film that was shown in many churches and temples because many religious organizations were very concerned about the genocide in Darfur and rallied their organizations to raise money. Our films try to give individuals an opportunity to speak their truth, whatever that is.
RS: We’re not journalists, we’re documentary filmmakers so there is going to be a point of view. But we didn’t go into this with any agenda other than to create a greater understanding of how abortion has become so divisive in our culture. You can’t fault people on either side for having strong convictions. You can become skeptical when people have used the issue for their own political gain. That’s when I think it really has devolved into this unfortunate thing.
What surprised each of you the most as you made Reversing Roe?
AS: I did not know that there are seven states in America right now that have only one abortion provider. That was a piece of factual information that really surprised me. Then to know that in those states the local government, the governors, are working hard to actually eliminate that one final abortion provider… and always with this idea that it’s for the health and safety of women, which ultimately would mean if you truly believe that, that you’re sending women out of your state to find a place to have a safe abortion that you’re not willing to provide within your state.
AS: Another thing that I found quite surprising was the perspective of the providers—people who are creating standalone healthcare clinics that provide the full range of services for women, including abortion care. A lot of focus is on the doctors, but the hoops that the providers have to go through and their relationships with their own communities are just as fraught and filled with struggle. It really gave me a great appreciation for the people who are willing to keep doors open—and I’m not talking about just the larger networks of Planned Parenthood, I’m talking about sometimes just individuals. They’re generally women and it is not easy. There were several interviews with providers that unfortunately we didn’t have time to include in the final film. But I was really struck by their commitment. They basically are the people who are running the show.
RS: One of the fallacies, to be honest, from the pro-life perspective is that these clinics are making money hand over fist. The reality is that there’s such a high cost to keep clinics open: for security, for legal costs, for sometimes having to fly in a doctor. And more often than not, our experience was that if a woman came in and couldn’t afford the abortion, the clinic was unlikely to send her away. There are funds that have been coordinated by the providers to help women who can’t afford the care.
AS: Another thing that I found surprising is that there’s an interesting collective that is a little bit of an underground network. We interviewed a young woman who is basically a travel agent out of Texas who works with donated money to help women who are often in impoverished circumstances and who have to travel to receive abortion care. Yet another thing that I was definitely surprised by is that there’s a definite culture of misinformation out there. Again, we didn’t have space for it in the film but I do think that it permeates a lot of the debates around abortion. It’s one thing to have moral convictions that drive you, it’s another to have a conversation that’s loaded and fueled with misinformation.
The film does a meticulous job of laying out the back story around abortion in the United States and as it does so, it offers more than a few revelations to those unfamiliar with that history—for example, the fact that the Republican Party was the party of choice before Ronald Reagan’s presidency; or that the first abortion clinic in New York was opened by a coalition of Protestant ministers and Jewish rabbis. How do you think audiences in 2018 will react to that part of the story?
AS: When we started on this project it was around the time of the Inauguration and the Women’s March. There was a lot of energy around what it meant to be a woman under this administration. With the younger women there was a certain naïveté in particular. It’s always easier to fight for something that you need than to defend that thing you already have: You relax and become a little bit complacent. I think for many women who are under a certain age, it’s inconceivable that you wouldn’t have certain rights. It’s a huge slap in the face when you’ve been brought up to have full equality in all sorts of aspects of your life. So I do think that there was a little bit of an awakening that was happening culturally even at the time that we started making this film. Still, there are things that many people who think that they’re educated don’t know: That seven states are down to one abortion clinic. The numbers of people who were having illegal abortions and complications from illegal abortions before Roe. I think those are still very shocking statistics.
RS: There are also the implications of this administration appointing not just Supreme Court justices but lower court district judges and circuit judges. Many of these cases will go through the lower courts first and these newly appointed conservative justices are really going to have an impact.
Given all that you’ve learned and seen over the course of making the film, what do you think is the primary driver that’s motivating those who are fighting to keep abortion legal?
RS: Gloria Steinem says it, Dr. Colleen McNicholas says it, Dr. Curtis Boyd says it. They believe that having autonomy over one’s body is a fundamental foundation to equal rights and democracy. It’s essential to determining one’s future. Without control over your own body, you don’t have the ability to do that.
AS: We have a history that shows that abortion will always exist. Always. You can look in the literature of antiquity. Abortion has always existed. And to take care of people in a humane, healthy, safe, legal, dignified manner is critical to how we want to be a society. I also think that there is room for people who choose not to support abortions. But we have a democracy. We’re looking at how we represent individual needs within a social construct. People who are very much in support of keeping abortion rights alive are looking at equality for women. We have come to a place now where women have come to rely on this right. Our economy has been changed by a woman’s ability to determine when and how she has children. And for the people have extreme moral concerns, it goes back to what Sarah Weddington [the attorney who argued Roe at the Supreme Court] would say, which is, “Who gets to make this decision? Is it a woman and her doctor and her family and her God? Or is this a decision that is made by a third party, specifically the government?”
And what do you think is the primary driver that’s motivating those who are fighting to make it illegal?
AS: Having spent a fair amount of time with people who are completely invested in this, I think of someone like Sam Lee in Missouri in particular. He really came to his own moral belief that life begins at conception. For him it’s really something that people in the pro-life community call “a consistent life ethic,” which is no taking of an innocent life. I would say that standard bears some hypocrisy because for some of these people it doesn’t always mean that there can’t be the death penalty. But I do think people who are coming from a pro-life standpoint firmly believe that this is a black-and-white issue. You either believe that life begins at conception or you don’t. And for the people who do, it becomes an incredible personal mission that informs the rest of their lives. That’s the passion and the mentality that drives them.
RS: I think that unfortunately what has happened is abortion has become so politicized that you have politicians who claim to have pro-life beliefs in order to be elected in the Republican Party. We see throughout the film that many people who are battling against abortion are not doing so out of a personal conviction or a true religious belief. They’ve taken a strong position for their political career. Trump was pro-choice. Bush Senior wanted both sides—pro-choice and pro-life—to be part of the Republican Party until he knew he had to take a strong pro-life stance to be elected. Gerrymandering plays into this. In certain states you have to have a strong pro-life position to get the votes but the outcome doesn’t necessarily reflect the one-to-one opinion of individuals in that state, it’s just the way the places have been redistricted.
AS: It’s also affected by the percentage of people involved in primaries, where there’s a lack of participation. It goes again to this idea of, “How do you get jazzed up about something that you feel is already secured?” In 2016 the evangelicals knew that most people wanted to stay home from the election because they weren’t happy with either choice. They went out and got their people to the polls to vote. They’ve created the mechanism and they’ve been very strategic. We always discussed in the edit room, “Well, if these people are winning and they’re pro-life, then America’s majority is pro-life, isn’t that right?” But the reality is that that’s not true statistically. The polls on whether or not Roe should be overturned have been fairly consistent over the past twenty or thirty years. Public opinion has not changed radically even though the politics have become way more entrenched. Results do depend significantly on the questions the posters ask, Americans’ attitudes are stable but nuanced. But consistently the majority do not want to see Roe overturned.
RS: The question that gets us is, “Are you pro-choice or pro-life?” That’s an example of how you structure a question to have a significant influence on the polling response. Even people who are pro-choice, who are supportive of abortion rights, consider themselves pro-life, however you want to define that.
Do you each have a favorite moment in the film?
AS: From an emotional standpoint we always responded to Wendy Davis’ filibuster. Wherever you are on the issue, it’s an incredibly powerful moment that shows how our governments work and what it means for people to have a commitment to represent the people who elected them. I also think Wendy is incredibly articulate in that scene, especially when it comes to the final vote. It’s a big emotional build. There was so much material from the filibuster it was challenging to bring it down so that it felt balanced in the overall structure of the film. Our goal was to really show its emotional power while at the same time showing the larger issues.
RS: I would agree that that’s the scene. What was a struggle for this film, quite honestly, was that we were making both an intellectual exploration of the Roe decision as well as providing moments where you could ride along emotionally with people who are passionate on both sides of the issue. It was always a balance. Our background is in making vérité documentaries where you experience what your characters are experiencing. Our challenge here was to explore themes and chronologies and have enough emotional resonance to keep the story moving.
AS: There are some great moments that are not in the final film and it just kills me. I’m thinking about filming we did with a young woman in Western Missouri and the struggles that she had with a late-term abortion because of a non-viable pregnancy. For her it was a very much wanted child. It’s always difficult when you look at how certain scenes do or don’t serve the larger narrative. We cast a wide net and finally we had to say: If it doesn’t serve the focus of the impact of Roe v. Wade directly, if it doesn’t reflect the title Reversing Roe directly, we have to let go of it. We had an amazing scene with Tanya Malik, who worked for Governor Rockefeller, and how she gave up on the Republican Party. It was a great emotional scene that we just had to let go. That was a difficult thing about this film: staying focused.
How was it to work together as directors on this project? What does each of you bring to a film project?
AS: We bring energy to each other when the other person loses it (laughs). We definitely trade off. Sometimes it helps to watch scenes separately and other times it’s helpful to be in the room together to make the decisions about what works and what doesn’t.
RS: Very early on we talked a lot about having some uniformity with our interviews. We said, “Let’s use windows as our theme.” So if someone is speaking historically and globally about the issue, you’ll see it’s a studio setting, very bright with lots of windows. When we were down in the trenches with the foot soldiers on both sides, we wanted to be in a more organic space. Dr. McNicholas we filmed at home and Troy Neuman at the Operation Rescue office. We wanted to create a language for the film because there’s so much mixed media in this project.
What are your hopes for Reversing Roe once it’s released?
RS: I really hope it’s a conversation starter. Netflix is amazing because it gets in to so many households. I’d like it to bring awareness to the idea that the Roe decision has been fundamental to women’s rights and women’s ability to enter the workforce. Not having that right, not having access, is really going to be harmful for women, not just physically and medically. It will also have an impact on their overall careers and futures.
AS: I hope people see it. We make films because we want to share stories and there’s something that we want to communicate about the world. Our goal with this film, as Ricki said, is that it will be a conversation starter. With Justice Kennedy’s decision to retire from the Supreme Court and the potential confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, we are at a time where our society may radically change. We may now have an incredibly conservative court for the next several generations. Some people may be very much in support of that and some people may feel very threatened by that, but I do hope that our film is a wake-up call for a lot of reasons, not just women’s reproductive rights. Hopefully it will engage people to look at our social history: where we were, where we are, and where we might be under a very different Supreme Court.