[attach id=491923 size="medium"]The poster of Trapped, which opens in major US cities, on Friday.[/attach]
When Dawn Porter started filming abortion clinic workers in the US three years ago, she was drawn by their dedicated struggles to stay standing amid an onslaught of laws aimed at restricting abortion access.
Little could she have imagined her documentary film Trapped would open in major cities this week, the same week the US Supreme Court hears arguments on those laws – the first time the nation’s highest court has tackled the controversial issue of abortion in nearly a decade.
“It’s like I scheduled it, right?” the director joked from her home in San Francisco.
Trapped tells the story of abortion providers in the states of Texas, Mississippi and Alabama, as they wrestle with state regulations, particularly the Texas law known as HB2. Among other things, HB2 requires abortion clinics to meet the same standards as ambulatory surgical centres.
More than half the clinics in Texas have been forced to close under HB2, leaving less than 20, advocates say, to serve the state of 27 million people.
The hardest hit arerural, low-income women for whom the distance, lost wages and expenses for travel, lodging and childcare can make abortion virtually unattainable, they say.
Deciding if, in fact, HB2 imposes an undue burden is the question before the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Trapped takes its name from TRAP laws, an acronym for the many Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers introduced by state legislatures across the US
Abortion has been legal in the US since 1973. In 1992, the court said an abortion regulation can be legal as long as it does not impose an undue burden on women seeking the procedure.
Trapped takes its name from TRAP laws, an acronym for the many Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers introduced by state legislatures across the US.
Seen as a backdoor way of restricting abortion access, some TRAP laws require women to wait extended lengths of time, make repeat clinic visits or look at ultrasounds and listen to foetal heartbeats.
“I was fascinated and horrified that something that is a constitutionally-protected right could be so intentionally targeted by state legislators,” the 49-year-old film director said.
Abortion clinic owners and doctors told Porter that they saw TRAP laws as the greatest threat to their existence.
“This is the most effective strategy for closing abortion clinics,” she said.
Trapped follows an array of people in the abortion field going about their jobs.
Willie Parker describes in the film his irritation at having, under Mississippi law, to tell patients about a link between abortion and breast cancer. Parker, along with the National Cancer Institute, say there is no such link.
And, with a mischievous smile, Alabama clinic owner June Ayers displays a remote control she uses to aim a lawn sprinkler at a loud protester who regularly inhabits her sidewalk.
Porter was finishing the documentary last autumn as she waited to learn whether the Supreme Court would look at the Texas law. She finally had her film’s conclusion in November, when the court announced it would hear the case.
Trapped premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January.