Abortion: Desperate Choices

Perhaps no other topic of contemporary concern stirs emotional debate as does abortion. Here, however, the cinema verite techniques pioneered by Maysles Films and used superbly by Susan Froemke and Deborah Dickson with Albert Maysles, allow the abortion debate to be presented in a way that is unencumbered by ideology. Filmed in and around the Women’s Health Services Clinic in Pittsburgh, this program tells the stories of several women who make the painful decision to terminate their pregnancies. The human side of the abortion issue, including the impact of the decision on immediate family, relatives, counselors, and other health professionals is vividly and often touchingly illustrated. For taking the abortion debate out of the realm of inflammatory rhetoric and reflecting the intensely personal decision it represents, a Peabody to Abortion: Desperate Choices.