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‘The Janes’ review: How an underground group of Chicago activists responded to the illegality of abortion Phillips, Michael . Chicago Tribune (Online) , Chicago: Tribune Publishing Company, LLC. Jun 8, 2022.

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FULL TEXT Then and now, Chicago was “a town where people did stuff.” It got things done, stirred up trouble, made no little

plans. That, says one of the underground abortion providers interviewed in the distressingly pertinent new

documentary “The Janes,” premiering Wednesday, was the “beauty” of the place.

The word “beauty” sounds jarring in this context, and the movie knows it. “The Janes” directors Tia Lessin and

Emma Pildes are well aware of how documentaries about our recent past have a way of anticipating our near

future. In 2022, a majority of U.S. citizens still support abortion rights. But with the 1973 Roe v Wade U.S. Supreme

Court ruling likely heading for its undoing this summer, in dozens of states the re-criminalizing of that right may

take us straight back to 1968 and before.

In 1968, a group of mostly white, mostly middle-class Chicago women formed the Jane Collective, with the Chicago

Women’s Liberation Union stepping in to help a year later. At the time abortion was illegal in 30 states, including

Illinois, and permitted in limited circumstances in the other 20. Jane operated a Hyde Park home called the Front,

with counseling provided to pregnant women. From there, women were driven to an apartment called the Place,

where the procedures were performed by a man with shadowy underworld connections identified in the

documentary only as “Mike.” (For Jane, he went by the handle “Dr. Kaplan” even though he wasn’t one.)

Spurred by a decade of protest and dissent, the women came out of the widespread anti-war and civil rights

movements. Those movements were largely dismissive of what one Jane member sarcastically characterizes as

“the woman question.” With so many women, and girls, dying from botched abortions amid grim, furtive

circumstances, they felt it was time to act.

The film does an unusually evocative job of mixing straightforward talking-heads interviews, conducted recently,

with archival footage of Chicago of the ‘60s and early ‘70s. With Chicago Police Department “red squad” officers on

their tail, the women took precautions and, across nearly five years, worked with an estimated 11,000 women in

every kind of unwanted pregnancy situation. Once abortionist Mike (an unlikely but, by the women’s accounts,

skilled colleague) left the collective, the women learned and performed the procedures themselves. The work, as

we hear, took its toll. A 1972 police bust brought it to a halt, but with a whiz of a defense attorney on the case, and

Roe v Wade on the national horizon, the Janes case was eventually thrown out as abortion became legal.

“The Janes” has a few unresolved tonal issues. We get hints of the difficulty and peculiarity of these double and

triple lives being led by the women interviewed, but only hints. The musical score by Max Avery Lichtenstein goes

into faintly satiric heist-movie mode at some awkward junctures. And ideally, with Roe about to be erased from the

books, “The Janes” would land on a more complex note of imminent, controversial change afoot.

Small matters. It’s a very fine film, and Chicago history that joined a long history of Chicago dissent. As one key

member of Jane identified as “Jody” says, simply: What they did was spurred by a crying need expressed by

thousands locally and millions nationwide —and their own willingness to “disrespect a law that disrespected

women.”

“The Janes”— 3 stars (out of 4)

Content rating: TV-MA

Running time: 1:41

How to watch: Now streaming on HBO.

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

mjphillips@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @phillipstribune

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Subject: Documentary films; Abortion

Location: Chicago Illinois; United States--US

Publication title: Chicago Tribune (Online); Chicago

Publication year: 2022

Publication date: Jun 8, 2022

Section: Entertainment - Movies - Michael Phillips

Publisher: Tribune Publishing Company, LLC

Place of publication: Chicago

Country of publication: United States, Chicago

Publication subject: General Interest Periodicals--United States

Source type: Blog, Podcast, or Website

Language of publication: English

Document type: Film Review

ProQuest document ID: 2673937534

Document URL: https://www.proquest.com/blogs-podcasts-websites/janes-review-how-

underground-group-chicago/docview/2673937534/se-2?accountid=35796

Copyright: Copyright Tribune Publishing Company, LLC Jun 8, 2022

Last updated: 2022-06-09

Database: U.S. Major Dailies

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