The Janes: A Gripping Documentary About A Little-Known Subject

This year at the Sundance film festival, three movies about abortion made a major splash among audiences, critics, and distributors. Happening, a French film about a college student getting an abortion in 1963 appeared at the festival after winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Two American films also made an appearance, the narrative feature Call Jane starring Elizabeth Banks and the documentary feature The Janes that was acquired by HBO and is making its debut on June 8th. The Janes uses firsthand accounts and testimonials from women involved in the organization to create a form of oral history about what led up to the creation and continued existence of the Jane Collective.

The Jane Collective was an organization that was born out of civil rights movements of the 1963 designed to help women gain access to safe abortions in a time when they were illegal nationwide. At the time, to get an abortion people in Chicago had to go through the mafia to get the procedure done which was not safe for a plethora of reasons. As a result, women in the city partnered with doctors who were willing to help out in these cases (really perform the procedures for a large sum of money) to create a network and safe locations to perform abortions. Eventually the women were taught how to do it themselves and they removed the doctors from the equation so they could offer the service for free.

The majority of the documentary tells its story through firsthand accounts and interviews with people directly involved with the organization without the use of a narrator. It also utilizes footage from the news at the time and other historical primary sources to round out the story. This is not strictly unique but, considering the subject matter, is probably the best way to tell the story of the organization. The documentary is not concerned with dealing in the political questions or implications of abortion, rather dealing directly in the facts of the matter at the time. There is certainly a conclusion that the movie will bring the viewer to, however the documentary does not hit the viewer over the head with it. For example, the documentary mentions certain aspects of who the organization was serving and the demographic breakdowns by socioeconomic status before and after a major event when it comes to the legality of abortion, and then later talks about enforcement of the bans and when enforcement started to pick up. There is a conclusion to be drawn but there is no narrator to hammer it home in the way that a documentary by Michael Moore would. For a documentary like this, it is for the best.

The documentary is very well done and worth the hour and forty minutes to watch. It is unlikely to change anyone’s minds regarding abortion, however that does not seem to be the agenda of the documentary. It is the story of these women and the massive sacrifice these women made to attempt to help each other get medical care at a time when they legally did not have full bodily autonomy, regardless of circumstance.

Final Rating: 9/10

The Janes will be making its debut on June 8th, 2022 at 9 PM on HBO and HBOMax.