FILM SCREENING: “Trapped,” PBS Independent Lens Documentary by Dawn Porter

DISCUSSION TO FOLLOW; PIZZA WILL BE SERVED

Sponsored by the Client and Sexuality in Social Work Caucus; part of Professor Susan Witte’s Reproductive Justice Series

Join us for a screening of Trapped, the latest film by documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter, showing the impact of anti-abortion laws on abortion providers in the South along with chronicling the last remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi. Porter says she decided it was her duty to make this film after witnessing that there was only one abortion clinic in the entire state of Mississippi. The title of the documentary was derived from the term TRAP (Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers) laws, which have led to the closure of hundreds of southern U.S. clinics mainly in areas that service poor women and women of color. Porter hoped that the film, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2016 and was also featured on PBS as part of its Independent Lens series, would spark a national conversation on the eve of the Supreme Court’s decision on Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, about whether Texas could place restrictions on the delivery of abortion services. Although the Court decided that these restrictions create an undue burden for women seeking an abortion, the battle to keep abortion safe and legal for millions of American women continues to rage. June Medical Services, LLG v. Gee, concerning restrictive abortion practices in Louisiana, comes before the Supreme Court this spring, making Porter’s film freshly relevant.