Posted on 08/14/2016 7:05:14 AM PDT by Morgana
Filmmaker Tracy Droz Tragos hopes that her new documentary, “Abortion: Stories Women Tell,” will move people to compassion when they listen to women share the difficult circumstances that led them to choose abortion. Unfortunately, her film extends no compassion for unborn children.
Tragos told Pop Sugar that she was troubled by all the new abortion restrictions in her home state of Missouri. She said she decided to base her new documentary in Missouri and feature the stories of women affected by abortion and the state laws.
Tragos (pictured) never had an abortion herself, but she interviewed more than 40 women who had experiences with it. She also interviewed several pro-lifers in what she said was an effort to present a more balanced view of the issue. These included a sidewalk counselor and a woman who had several abortions and now encourages women to choose life. The filmmaker said she tried not to “demonize” pro-lifers, but her film is solidly pro-abortion.
According to the article, “The resulting film makes a compelling case that women’s reproductive rights are eroding not only in states like Missouri but across the country, and that we can’t afford to be complacent about it.”
Most of the stories in the film are about struggling pregnant and parenting moms. Aborting their unborn babies is presented as a solution to their problems. Despite the push for abortion, Tragos did bring up one good point that both sides are concerned about – the absence of fathers and the burden that falls heavily onto the mothers.
“From what I saw, and the people that I met, there wasn’t a lot of active participation from the men in the picture,” she said. “It’s a burden that’s really borne by women, and so they’re not allowed to have personal agency.”
However, Tragos’ solution was not to teach or require men to be responsible fathers, but to allow women to “choose” to abort their unborn children. This “choice” often puts an even greater burden on many women, and Tragos interviewed one of them.
A pro-lifer featured in the documentary had several abortions and talked about the guilt and shame she felt when she realized that she had killed her unborn children. Rather than recognize that abortions can hurt women as well as their babies, Tragos criticized pro-lifers for talking about abortion regret.
“That’s not part of everyone’s story; I think it’s rather presumptuous to put that on other women,” she said. “It doesn’t leave room for the stories of women who decided [to abort], but who also have mixed feelings. … I think when people put judgment on top of that, it’s just piling on the bullying, where there really just needs to be a space of ‘what you feel is OK; it’s a decision between you and your doctor.’”
Later in the interview, she added:
PS: Have you kept in touch with some of the women you met? I’m especially interested to know where Amie, who in some ways is the anchor of the film, is today. TDT: She has really blossomed with this platform and really feels strongly about being a voice for women. When she first agreed to be a part of the film, I think she was angry and really disenfranchised and felt judged. She was still living with this “I’m a bad person” and had this defensiveness, like “I am not a bad person. I’m trying to get by.” When she came to the premiere, the audience was really incredibly wonderful. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone had that feeling of it being praised instead of shunned and shamed?
Tragos’ hope for the film is that it will “create a community of sorts that makes abortion not so shameful, or stigmatized, or something that has to be uttered in a whisper.”
“My hope is that this film can contribute in any kind of way to that sharing of stories, and it would be amazing if it had a snowball effect and more women came forward and talked about it. Because that’s where we can change things. We can see each other as human beings and there’s more compassion.”
Compassion is vitally important when women are struggling, especially with a difficult pregnancy. Pro-lifers agree with Tragos that women need better support and resources, and men should be more responsible as fathers. But Tragos limits her compassion to the women alone. She said she wants people to view other human beings with compassion, but she herself fails to extend that compassion to the most vulnerable human beings of all – babies in the womb.
Abortion is not the sickness: it is a symptom. The sickness is sexual immorality.
In short —— as my neighbor on Georgia avenue used to say -— “Chooz before u skrooz”
In short —— as my neighbor on Georgia avenue used to say -— “Chooz before u skrooz”
And what you call the AWOL fathers of these doomed infants?
Their beliefs and ideas do not die with them. They are part of the permanent core curriculum of cruelty.
Agreed: abortion is wrong. When we refuse to defend the unborn we lose our humanity and we are no better than animals. Compassion for the innocent makes us more than just animals.
You do not support abortion, you just provide racially themed arguments in favor of it.
Yeah I get it. By now, we all get it
You do not support abortion, you just provide racially themed arguments in favor of it.
Yeah I get it. By now, we all get it
For that matter, 85 years ago most people thought contracepted sex was wrong, even for married couples
The NEW TORK TIMES ran editorials against legalized contraceptives in 1930. Truth.
Here’s something we can ask liberals. Imagine a woman who is pregnant with her fourth child. She’s a drug and alcohol abuser. There’s no husband is in the picture. She can barely take care of the first three children. What should she do?
If they recommend abortion, point out they just killed Simone Biles.
Why would you praise someone for killing another - no matter at what stage of life that other person is? Do these idiots not remember that they two were once a conception? Before that they were just a possibility that could have been prevented with conception prevention.
I meant NEW YORK TIMES.
I’m on my Kindle and don’t know how to turn off the automtic spell-check. Plus I’m typing with hospital natrile gloved hands. :-\
ABORTION IS MURDER!
No I don’t. But the secularists don’t and never will understand why we Christians believe what we believe. We have to point out the real consequences of abortion. It won’t change their minds, but it may make them pause.
Have the baby and be sterilized. Sterilization should have happened after any of the previous pregnancies if she were a drug user. Yes it prevents possible people from being conceived, as does abstinence, but sterilization doesn’t kill someone whose life was begun upon their conception. Sterilization is abstinence/absence of conception not of sex and should be prescribed for both pregnancy indulgent women and men. Some people are obsessed with pregnancy and babies yet don’t have means to take care of themselves, the baby or later the child. Self-discipline is not of abundance in our society.
It’s unreal.
The hangman’s noose came to mind when I read the article.
“And what you call the AWOL fathers of these doomed infants?”
They don’t get a choice in the matter, so who cares who they are.
Many, many years ago, before my ex and I married, we were young and stupid and swayed by the mores of the times. We had an abortion. Neither of us are “over it”. It is a stain that lasts forever no matter how much I believe that Christ has forgiven the sin, I believe I will still need to atone for it in the hereafter.
“SAFE & RARE” - the old lie. Now they’re just
attempting to glamorize it - like “picking up a turd by
the clean end”.
Choice? They,too, could chooz before they skrooz.
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