the story of jane the legendary underground abortion service

She stayed with the girl all day and then drove her home. She was already five months pregnant, and Arcana performed the procedure on her living-room floor. As one of the few Black women in the group, she said, “I knew that Black and brown people wouldn’t partake of the service if they couldn’t see themselves involved in it.”Įven all these years later, Arcana can still see the face of a 16-year-old girl who came to her home with her two friends asking Arcana for help. She offered up her apartment for the procedures and occasionally held the hands of the women who came through. “I decided I wanted to do something about it.” “I just thought it was atrocious that these women didn’t want to carry the babies but they felt this was their punishment for being in love or being sexually involved with someone,” she recalled.

At a community center on the West Side of Chicago, she ran a program for teenage mothers. Marie Leaner, now 80, was raised Roman Catholic and taught to believe that abortion was a sin. It was certainly too much for one person,” she added. After a few years, Booth, by then a mother working on her graduate degree at the University of Chicago, recruited others to fulfill the growing need. Booth found herself negotiating fees and learning the intricacies of the procedure so she could counsel women. “I made what I thought was a one-time arrangement,” she said in an interview. Booth, active in the civil rights movement, found a doctor willing to help and passed along the information. The Jane Collective was formed when a college student, Heather Booth, now 76, received a desperate call from a friend looking for an abortion. Love the film, hate the film,” she said before Pildes jumped in: “Talk about the issue.” But I really hope it moves people to engage in conversation.

“Do I hope that people’s takeaway will be ‘let’s not go back there’? Sure. Lessin added, “It’s a real life story about what happened and the lengths that women went to to have abortions and to enable other women to have abortions.” Arcana’s son, Daniel, and Pildes are producers on the film. “This is a glimpse at history I don’t think it’s an advocacy film,” said Tia Lessin, who directed with Emma Pildes, whose father used to be married to Arcana. The makers of “The Janes” hope those with differing views will allow themselves a look at life before Roe v.

The story of jane the legendary underground abortion service