“There shouldn’t be tension between the party and the needs of people. That’s what party is supposed to represent. I think people are more than within their rights push their politicians even if it makes them uncomfortable, to do their jobs and to not shy away from protecting women’s access to abortions, among a host of other issues as well.” — Wendy Davis
Tag: Wendy Davis
‘Trapped’ Reveals The Human Cost Of Anti-Abortion Laws
Posted in Journalism, SXSW, and The Establishment
A 13-year-old rape victim makes the long journey from McAllen, in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, to the closest open health clinic that provides abortions. At the time, it’s the Whole Women’s Health Clinic, 200 miles away in San Antonio. At 20 weeks and five days pregnant, she arrives just as the deadline for their services approaches.
Despite the willingness of the clinic workers to help, and the availability of an increasingly rare abortion doctor, the clinic is unable to obtain a nurse anesthetist. Nothing can be done, short of another expensive journey of hundreds of miles into New Mexico. The impoverished victim will never be able to make that journey in time.
“We sentenced her to motherhood,” declares a tearful Marva Sadler, director of clinical services at the clinic, in one of the most affecting scenes of the film Trapped.