After Tiller explores late abortions through the eyes of the four remaining doctors trained in the procedure and their patients. It will do for the abortion debate what Michael Moore has done for the gun control and health care issues, only with a subtly and a powerful truth that might actually lower the temperature and inject rationality and compassion. It is a must-see for anyone interested in abortion rights, women's rights and facts.
If you use the phrases, “late-term abortion” or "partial-birth abortion", you won’t ever again once you have seen After Tiller, a thoughtful, intimate film about four doctors, all former colleagues of Dr. George Tiller, who was murdered in 2009 by an anti-abortion fanatic. One of the things you learn in this non-confrontational and tremendously powerful film is that “late-term abortion”, like to term "partial-birth abortion" is a phrase manufactured by anti-abortion wordsmiths to conjure up images of babies being murdered in the womb only days before they were due and then ripped out in a pool of blood – none of which is remotely true, as I learned in a recent pre-screening of the film.
You also learn that late abortions – the correct term for abortions performed any time in the third trimester – represent less than one percent of all abortions. And you learn that the women who have them fall into one of three categories – women whose pregnancies have essentially ended because the fetus is not viable, women whose fetus is malformed and has been determined will either die soon after birth or live very short and painful lives, or women – usually young – who were impregnated by rape or incest and either don’t know they are pregnant or are in denial because they physically or psychologically are not prepared for birth and motherhood.
And most importantly, you learn that the film’s subjects – the four doctors – are the only remaining doctors in the country trained to perform the late abortion procedure.
Directors Martha Shane and Lana Wilson have created a moving and unique exploration of one of the most incendiary topics of our time, abortion, by telling the story from the viewpoint and through the eyes of the doctors and their patients. (see a trailer here) And they’ve done so in an informative, thought-provoking, and compassionate way what keeps the anti-abortion movement in the picture but only as a menacing presence in the background.
The focus is on the doctors and their patients. Shane and Wilson and their all-female film crew take you into the doctor’s offices, the examination rooms and the operating rooms. You listen to the heartbreaking stories from the patients seeking a late abortion. You sit with the doctors as they agonize over each decision –they don’t take all patients, but have a series of medical and ethical standards each request must meet. You walk with them as they quietly, almost secretively, search for new office space when laws force them out of the states they are working in. And you stand quietly in the crowd as anti-abortion activists seek to keep them out by pressuring landlords and government agencies.
After Tiller was an official selection for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and it will likely be one of the most controversial films of the year. Shane and Wilson will do for the abortion debate what Michael Moore did for debates on health care and gun control, only they will do it with a unique subtly, emotion and I think, power that a more confrontational film could not have achieved. It may mark a compassionate turning point in one of our nation’s longest-running and most bitter social debates .
Wed Sep 04, 2013 at 11:05 AM PT: After Tiller is much better than the 6.8 score at IMDB and it is a must for anyone involved in the abortion debate. It will be released nationally the week of Sept. 20.