Downloads: Press Release
Film Explores Doctors’ Ethical Dilemmas and Patients’ Difficult Decisions
“Whether one is pro-life, pro-choice or without an opinion on the issue, After Tiller provides personal insight into a heart-wrenching, complex reality.” — Duane Byrge, The Hollywood Reporter
After Tiller is a portrait of the four doctors in the United States still openly performing third-trimester abortions in the wake of the 2009 assassination of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas — and in the face of intense protest from abortion opponents. It is also an examination of the reasons women seek late abortions. The film presents the complexities of these women’s difficult decisions and the compassion and ethical dilemmas of the doctors and staff who fear for their own lives as they treat their patients.
Martha Shane and Lana Wilson’s After Tiller, an Official Selection of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, has its national broadcast premiere on Monday, Sept. 1, 2014 at 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings) as part of the 27th season of POV (Point of View). POV is American television’s longest-running independent documentary series and the recipient of a 2013 MacArthur Foundation Award for Creative and Effective Institutions.
George Tiller was a father of four and one of the only doctors in the country who performed third-trimester abortions. On May 31, 2009, he was gunned down in the vestibule of his church, becoming the eighth American abortion clinic worker to be assassinated since Roe v. Wade was decided. After Tiller moves between the stories of the four remaining doctors, all close friends and colleagues of Tiller, who are fighting to keep this service available.
At the center of the story is Dr. LeRoy Carhart, an Air Force veteran who decided to start providing third-trimester abortions at his clinic in rural Bellevue, Neb., after Dr. Tiller’s death. Subsequently, the Nebraska state legislature passed a new law that prohibits all abortions more than 20 weeks into a pregnancy, forcing Dr. Carhart to look for clinic space outside of the state. After protesters in Iowa blocked his efforts to open a new practice there, he found a clinic where he could work in Germantown, Md., and anti-abortion activists immediately mobilized.
Seventy-four-year-old Dr. Warren Hern, a longtime late abortion provider in Boulder, Colo., struggles to reconcile a family life he wants to embrace fully with a demanding career that endangers his life and the lives of those around him. After threats and harassment from protesters led to the unraveling of his first marriage, Dr. Hern eventually married Odalys, a former abortion provider from Cuba, and adopted her 9-year-old son. Now that he finally has the family he always wanted, he is discovering the severe toll his work takes on his personal life and must find out whether it’s even possible for these two things to co-exist peacefully.
Dr. Susan Robinson and Dr. Shelley Sella are two female abortion providers who worked with Dr. Tiller in Kansas and were left without jobs when his clinic closed following his death. After finding a new place to work in Albuquerque, N.M., Dr. Robinson and Dr. Sella soon realized that they had moved to a very different legal landscape. In Kansas, an outside physician had to approve every decision to give a woman a third-trimester abortion, while in New Mexico, the final decision is entirely left up to the doctor. As a result, these two practitioners are now facing complicated new moral terrain, and Dr. Robinson in particular grapples with this situation. As the primary decider of which patients truly need late abortions while she is on duty at the clinic, she must learn how to evaluate patients’ stories and make her decisions accordingly. At the same time, Dr. Sella, a former midwife, struggles with the nature of the work itself and with developing a moral calculus that takes both the situation of the patient and the potential life of the fetus into account.
After Tiller follows these four doctors as they confront a host of obstacles—from moral and personal dilemmas to restrictions placed on their practices by state legislation. Rather than trying to take a comprehensive look at the heated political debate surrounding abortion, the film weaves together revealing, in-depth interviews with the physicians and intimate vérité scenes both from their lives outside their clinics and the time they spend in their clinics, counseling and caring for their anxious, vulnerable patients at profoundly important crossroads in their lives. For all these doctors, the memory of Dr. Tiller remains a constant presence, serving both as an inspiration to persevere and a warning of the risks they take by doing so.
“Reality is complicated,” say filmmakers Martha Shane and Lana Wilson, “yet when it comes to the abortion issue in America, we are often presented with two very different, black-and-white versions of what is right and what is wrong—no exceptions granted. As a result, the national shouting match over abortion has become increasingly distanced from the real-life situations and decisions faced by those people most intimately involved—the physicians and their patients.
“It was for this reason — and with a desire to shed more light, rather than more heat, on this issue — that we decided to go inside the lives of the last four doctors performing third-trimester abortions in America with After Tiller. We discovered that they recognized the moral and ethical complexity of doing this work better than anyone. In fact, they struggle with the issues at the heart of this debate every day.
“The patients who came to these doctors were women from a huge variety of socio-economic and religious backgrounds, and they were racked with guilt, sadness, anger and even ambivalence. The reason so many patients agreed to participate in the film is because they never thought they would end up in such a desperate situation and they saw that only if they shared their stories could anyone possibly understand it.
“We hope that no matter where audiences stand on this issue, After Tiller will lead them to look at it in a very different way.”
About the Filmmakers:
Martha Shane, Co-director/Co-producer
Martha Shane is an award-winning, Brooklyn-based filmmaker. She co-directed, produced and co-edited the feature documentary Bi the Way, which had its premiere at the SXSW film festival in 2008 and debuted on MTV’s LOGOTV channel in 2009. She has worked as a freelance editor, producer and cinematographer. After Tiller is her second feature documentary. At present, Shane is directing a new untitled documentary, currently in production, and producing the documentary Where the Marsh Meets the Lake. Shane graduated from Wesleyan University in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in film studies.
Lana Wilson, Co-director/Co-producer
Lana Wilson is an award-winning Brooklyn-based filmmaker. After Tiller is her feature documentary debut. Wilson is now directing her second film, Last Call, which looks at a handful of Buddhist priests combating the suicide epidemic that hit Japan after the economic downfall in 1997 and considers how their work might serve as a model for dealing with the rising global suicide rate today. She was previously the film and dance curator for Performa, the New York biennial of new visual art performance, where she produced performances by filmmakers, choreographers and artists and curated thematic film retrospectives. Wilson holds a bachelor’s degree in film studies and dance from Wesleyan University.
Credits:
:
Co-directors/Co-producers: Martha Shane, Lana Wilson
Director of Photography: Hillary Spera
Cinematographer: Emily Topper
Editor: Greg O’Toole
Original Music: Andy Cabic, Eric D. Johnson
Running time: 86:46
POV Series Credits:
Executive Producer: Simon Kilmurry
Co-Executive Producer: Cynthia López
VP, Programming and Production: Chris White
Associate Producer: Nicole Tsien
Production Coordinator: Nikki Heyman
About POV
Produced by American Documentary, Inc. and now in its 27th season on PBS, the award-winning POV is the longest-running showcase on American television to feature the work of today’s best independent documentary filmmakers. POV has brought more than 365 acclaimed documentaries to millions nationwide. POV films have won every major film and broadcasting award, including 32 Emmys, 17 George Foster Peabody Awards, 10 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, three Academy Awards® and the Prix Italia. Since 1988, POV has pioneered the art of presentation and outreach using independent nonfiction media to build new communities in conversation about today’s most pressing social issues. Visit www.pbs.org/pov.
POV Community Engagement and Education (www.pbs.org/pov/outreach/)
POV’s Community Engagement and Education team works with educators, community organizations and PBS stations to present more than 650 free screenings every year. In addition, we distribute free discussion guides and standards-aligned lesson plans for each of our films. With our community partners, we inspire dialogue around the most important social issues of our time.
POV Digital (www.pbs.org/pov/)
Since 1994, POV Digital has driven new storytelling initiatives and interactive production for POV. The department created PBS’s first program website and its first web-based documentary (POV’s Borders) and has won major awards, including a Webby Award (and six nominations) and an Online News Association Award. POV Digital continues to explore the future of independent nonfiction media through its digital productions and the POV Hackathon lab, where media makers and technologists collaborate to reinvent storytelling forms. @povdocs on Twitter.
American Documentary, Inc. (www.amdoc.org/)
American Documentary, Inc. (AmDoc) is a multimedia company dedicated to creating, identifying and presenting contemporary stories that express opinions and perspectives rarely featured in mainstream media outlets. AmDoc is a catalyst for public culture, developing collaborative strategic engagement activities around socially relevant content on television, online and in community settings. These activities are designed to trigger action, from dialogue and feedback to educational opportunities and community participation.
Major funding for POV is provided by PBS, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Bertha Foundation, Wyncote Foundation, The Educational Foundation of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee, and public television viewers. POV is presented by a consortium of public television stations, including KQED San Francisco, WGBH Boston and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG.
Contacts:
POV Communications: 212-989-7425. Alternate contact: 206-790-8697.
Cathy Fisher, cfisher@pov.org; Amanda Nguyen, anguyen@pov.org
POV online pressroom: www.pbs.org/pov/pressroom
Published by
