These laws close clinics

DAWN PORTER'S new film, Trapped documents the rise of "Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers," or TRAP laws, which have come to define the most recent wave of attacks in the war on reproductive rights.

TRAP laws have been devastating for patients and health care providers alike, particularly in the South and Southwest. Legislative efforts to restrict clinics and abortion providers out of business have lead to catastrophic levels of clinic closures across the country. Today, six states--Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming--have just one remaining abortion clinic.

The anti-abortion right has been on the offensive ever since the Supreme Court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 that legalized abortion nationally. TRAP laws reflect the anti-choice movement's current strategy of dismantling abortion access on a state-by-state, and clinic-by-clinic basis with the goal of achieving the first "abortion free state" since Roe.

Proponents of these laws claim that the restrictions are necessary to protect women and promote safe health practices. However, as the film convincingly argues, TRAP laws accomplish nothing more than preventing patients from accessing care and providers from doing their jobs.

The film opens with footage of protests during the 2013 Texas abortion battle over Senate Bill 5, which caused more than half the state's 49 abortion providers to shut down. Hundreds of pro-choice activists flooded the Texas state house building to disrupt the proceedings and prevent lawmakers from discussing the bill.

Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis filibustered the vote by reading hours of testimonies from Texans who had offered their personal stories as evidence of the necessity of abortion access. As Davis nears the end of her statement, protesters begin chanting so loudly that the vote cannot take place, effectively killing the bill. It's a remarkable, if short-lived, victory that stands out among the many setbacks we've witnessed in recent years.

In another scene, we see the stark image of an empty waiting room while two clinicians answer phones ringing off the hook to redirect patients to other facilities that comply with a new regulation forcing clinics to become ambulatory surgical centers.

Meanwhile, a doctor in Mississippi consults a patient and reads a list of warnings he is required by law to share. "I am required to tell you that there is an increased risk of breast cancer...there is absolutely no scientific evidence to support that."

TRAPPED CONFIRMS all our worst nightmares about the grim reality of reproductive rights for many women today following decades of restrictions on abortion, contraception and reproductive healthcare overall. The patient stories include an exhausted mother of two who felt that trying to raise an additional child would prevent her from being the best parent possible and damage her mental health.

As the abortion providers who appear in the film explain, most women seeking abortion are already mothers and have a complete understanding of the financial and emotional costs of raising a child. Patients are always the best-qualified people to make decisions about their own reproductive lives. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 6 in 10 women having an abortion are already parenting a child, over 3 in 10 already have 2 or more children.

Similar to 2013's After Tiller, the film spotlights the daily lives of abortion doctors, other health care workers and clinic owners who have been forced by the political landscape to become warriors for abortion rights. As one doctor describes, "I want to get married and have a family one day, but my job is not something where you can have one foot in and one out. This is all or nothing."

Abortion providers face daily harassment and threats from the organized anti-choice right. Inaccurately named "sidewalk counselors" are anti-abortion activists that aim to intimidate patients and clinic workers and try to dissuade them from entering.

In a particularly gripping scene, the staff at one clinic decides to stay open and see scheduled patients during a day of mass protest outside their building. The staff considers closing for the day to prevent a media spectacle for the anti-choicers but ultimately decides that closing would mean conceding to them. The clinic saw every single scheduled patient that day, including a 15-year-old victim of gang rape who had to travel long distances to access the health care she needed.

WHILE TRAPPED offers a vivid and informed account of the state of reproductive health care since 2010, the film lacks a clear political analysis of the roots of these attacks and the way forward for the pro-choice side.

Women's right to reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy is a direct threat to the political status quo. It is also essential to reaching anything close to gender equality.

Throughout the film, there are vague references to the women's liberation movement that successfully organized and took the streets to win the Roe v. Wade and an end to the culture of shame surrounding abortion. This is established with the occasional montage of newsreel footage of marches and protest.

However, there is no discussion of the history of struggle behind these past victories that were hard fought through mass protest involving millions of ordinary people. The filmmakers didn't utilize interviews with activists or scholars who could offer a historical perspective that would have greatly enriched the film's narrative and cut against the demoralizing tone that sometimes dominates here.

To the film's credit, it doesn't openly present the Democratic Party and electoral politics as a means of fighting the anti-choice right. Knee-jerk support for the Democrats has been a losing strategy for the pro-choice movement for decades. One prominent example of this being Wendy Davis, the hero at the start of the film, who tracked rightward when she later ran for governor, reversing her stance against the 20-week abortion ban.

Earlier this year, the two most prominent pro-choice organizations, NARAL and Planned Parenthood, both expressed their support for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign as the primary way to protect abortion rights despite Clinton's record on abortion which reflects her party's platform of being pro-choice in name only. Trapped leaves the solution as an open question to the viewer.

There is also somewhat of a missed opportunity to explicitly address how TRAP laws disproportionally harm poor women, and women of color. However, viewers familiar with reproductive justice issues will find much evidence to support the necessity of an anti-racist approach to fighting TRAP laws throughout the film.

While the film doesn't clarify major political questions in the pro-choice movement or offer much historical insight, this in-depth look at the lengths clinics have gone to in order to keep their doors open is riveting and perfectly timed. Trapped is an important and useful film for raising awareness of the dire stakes women seeking abortion increasingly face in many parts of the country.

As the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt case this June, Trapped will undoubtedly inspire many more pro-choice advocates to rally for reproductive freedom.