After Tiller

Even my friends pro-choice don't agree with this movie. Its actually hard for me to review this movie focusing just on this movie. It was shown in Ireland this week. The documentary-movie tries to bends peoples opinions that late term abortions are necessary. I see nothing noble about this movie, Children with disabilities should be given the chance and the support at life, let them have a voice, they are our children. Maybe we would be surprised at value of there contribution to life. I went to see the movie because one of the abortionists was speaking on Irish radio. Its impossible to come to terms how these procedures could be carried out. I suppose had they actually shown a late term abortion on the documentary people might have seen it for what it is. It really is sadly taking the life of a viable child. We can dress it up with music and soft words and spin it with this movie, but it is what it is. Sorry of this review seems very political or even extreme, I just felt very very uncomfortable with this documentary. We need to stand up for the reality before us, late term abortion is pretty horrific, euthanasia of the child because we think they would be better off out of the way. Sorry to IMDb for this review, but since the movie is posted here for review then I give mine,

Why the low rating? Wouldn't you think that you would actually show the procedure that is at the heart of the discussion? That would seem to provide some objective balance. As it stands, without it, it is just people talking in abstractions based on personal beliefs which does very little to advance the dialog from a dispassionate and rational perspective. Personal beliefs, on either side of this issue are irrelevant in the face of the actual procedure - which sadly we were never allowed to witness.

I wanted to give this movie a 9 but I couldn't think of anything wrong with it, so I have to default to a 10. Saw it last night at Full Frame Film Festival. Nicely done, technically adept, holds your interest, and tells powerful stories about the four remaining doctors who perform late-term abortions in the US, following the murder of Dr. Tiller. You will hear and see interviews with patients, many of whom had planned pregnancies but found out on a late ultrasound that the baby had a defect incompatible with life or leading to a severely reduced quality of life (vegetative states, constant pain, and the like). You will hear interviews with young women who were raped and initially in denial of the pregnancy, then came to the painful decision to abort in the late second trimester. Should be required viewing for every legislative body across the country. Also for anti-abortion protesters, but that will never happen. Deserves showing on TV, hope it gets a PBS contract. I predict these young filmmakers have a brilliant future ahead of them.

As a documentary this is one of the best I have seen in a long time. The filmmakers approach such a loaded topic in a sensitive and fair way. They allow the doctors and patients to largely speak for themselves without editorializing . They give the anti-abortion a respectful nod to its constitutionally permissible activities while condemning its illiberal actions . And they properly frame the issue: 3rd trimester abortions are less than 1% of all abortions and they are almost always done because of medical issues with the mother or fetus.

I think this is the best and most interesting part the documentary-a range of cases were shown. Several of the cases highlighted were from women with *wanted* pregnancies who unfortunately had fetuses with insurmountable medical issues. In one case a woman was told by multiple doctors that if she carried to term the kid would live at most 3 or 4 days. In that time the kid would have need to put on life support. She ended up electing abortion because she found it easier to do that than (eventually) removing life support. The clinic was asked and they provided treating the abortion as much like a still birth as possible, i.e. They documented the fetus's death, gave paperwork with footprints and named him. The mother was given a memento box. It was a profoundly moving rebuke of the anti-abortion stated nonsense about abortion being for wanton harlots only.

But the film also careful enough to highlight other cases-through the lion's share were medical. A few rape victims had their cases shown. But so too were a couple of cases of "abortion of convenience." The filmmakers never comment on any case per se to their credit but the share variance and complexity leads one to pro-choice presuppositions .

I think reasonable persons can disagree with the morality in particular cases-but it is hard to think the providers and patients are not approaching this procedure with care. They spend a lot of time checking with the patients. The doctors have others do the intake-clinicians are free to opt out. Some patients are turned down. A patient having an abortion because the fetus has, say, Down's Syndrome makes me apprehensive. But to force a woman to give birth to a child who is doomed to suffer and die within days is absolutely horrifying.

The film leads one to think that 3rd trimester abortions would be even rarer if abortion was contextualized by society differently. The most infuriating case is a young woman who delayed getting an abortion because she was raised in "pro-life" household and considers herself "pro-life" and the psychological baggage that created. Everyone would have been served better if she had an abortion in the 1st trimester-where 90% of abortions happen.

The ethical questions of abortion are greatly lessened the earlier it is performed in pregnancy. Given biological happenstance of fetal defects or mother's health issues cropping up in a certain rate late term abortion will always exist. These cases are tough but a rule that everyone has to follow seems like a particularly bad fit.

Having read about this very interesting documentary, I'll put a stone for it.

I think it must take a lot of courage, especially in the USA, to make and practice

anything that is not mostly well admitted/appreciated by the people or the law of

the different states legalization, especially anything that helps freedom

of personal decision or freedom of thinking.

The reasons come from the fact that in USA, a lot of people who are "free thinkers"

have unfortunately a big chance to fall under the bullet of any madman, or

any big power/industry/political leaders rented shot man,

whom they are against or interfering their "easy business".

It comes also because to get any lethal weapon is just as easy as to buy bread !

USA is a democracy, that is correct, yes, but in many ways it's like it is not !

The pressure of television, churches and big lobbies is so strong, that in

practice it almost annihilates the democratic system, many times, by the sideway...

The democracy, obviously in itself is not the problem, but what it let allow,

I mean put a blame on a big spot, because it makes sell news !

Political opponents and free thinkers are killed anywhere on this planet, that's

true too, but for a democracy as is USA supposed to be, something goes wrong !

Apart that, my rating goes to the freedom of thinking,

because I yet didn't see the documentary.

I rated it, because quoting Martin Niemöller poem :

"When the Nazis came for the communists, I did not say anything, I was not a Communist.

When they imprisoned socialists I did not say anything, I was not a socialist.

When they came for the trade unionists, I did not say anything, I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for me there was no one left to protest."

is the only way I can express my concerns about Freedom !

Therefore > courageous doctors and courageous directors :-)