The issue of abortion has always been a volatile debate between proponents of choice and passionate defenders of life at conception. At the intersection of 12th St. and Delaware Ave in Fort Pierce, FL, forces battle directly. In 1991, A Woman's World Medical Center opened offering pregnancy services including abortion. In 1991, pro-life organization Pregnancy Care Center opened across the street.
12th & Delaware chronicles the struggles of both sides at this literal intersection of ideas. Pro life protestors stand outside the clinic begging patients to come with them instead. A vocal protestor Tony displays pictures of aborted fetuses near the local elementary school, and stalks the doctors who try to keep their identity secret for safety. Anne welcomes Woman's World patients who wander into her clinic by mistake, and offers them free lunch, educational material and services for keeping the baby. At A Woman's World, Candace tries to keep her patients safe, provide them the accurate information and medical services they choose.
Filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady had full access with both sides. They sat in on patient consultations at both offices, sometimes interviewing the patient and other times framing them out so we can only hear their voice. They also have another film opening this year, on a lighter subject. They contributed a segment to Freakonomics, based on the Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner book that applies statistics to more practical real life issues like real estate and education. In their segment, they showed one school system's attempt to motivate students with monetary rewards for good grades. The students they followed did not raise their grades or collect the reward.
Interviewing Ewing and Grady on the subject of 12th & Delaware can be sensitive. They're careful not to come across defending either side, and a reporter's question can so easily harbod personal feelings. Also, the filmmaking duo sound alike by phone, so they had to identify themselves with each comment.
Fred Topel: Could one of the unspoken problems with the abortion debate be that there can't be any 100% all of anything on any issue? Nothing in life is all one or all the other.
Rachel Grady: Well, I think that people on both sides on this issue, as they are on both sides of most very fraught and complicated issues, see things in black and white. You're just suggesting that a lot of decisions are in the gray. I would agree with that. Also just because you make one particular decision, say a woman makes one particular decision for themselves, doesn't mean they even have a position on it. I think every situation is unique on top of that.
FT: How can there be any progress on issues where people want to make it black and white?
RG: I don't think we're ever going to get that with this topic. I don't think that this is a situation that you're ever going to get everybody on board on either side.
FT: Also, since when is all life precious? We let atrocities happen all over the world.
Heidi Ewing: I think the anti-abortion forces or the anti-abortion lobby feels that this is an unprotected life, that if you leave it alone it will become a person. They feel that they are in charge of protecting what they consider an unborn person. So they believe that categorically it is a life and if you have an abortion it's murder. So if someone believes that truly, it's impossible to change their mind. There's no talking to somebody who believes that abortion is unadulterated murder. I think that's part of the problem and that's why it just seems that every year the two sides, pro and anti-abortion, seem further away from each other. There's no having a conversation when one side believes that abortion is always in every case murder at any stage in a pregnancy. So I can't speak for either side of the issue but I think that's part of the reason there's almost no understanding between the two camps.
FT: On a simpler level, does anyone suggest screaming at people is unproductive?
RG: Well, I think that Candace would probably say it was counter-productive, the woman that runs the abortion clinic but I think the people that are doing it in the film think that it's very effective. If not for the particular pregancy that's happening at the time, but any pregnancies that might happen in the future. They feel like their words can resonate with that woman down the road as well.
FT: Is there no law about representing a business accurately, that someone could go to the wrong building and sit there for hours?
RG: That's interesting that you ask that because that's actually legislation that has to happen state by state. A law was just put into effect by the Baltimore city council. It's under the auspice of truth in advertising. Crisis pregnancy centers now have to indicate that they don't provide abortions nor any kind of abortion recommendations or birth control recommendations in a prominently displayed place. That is going to be legally mandated so other cities since that precedent has been set, other cities are taking on that approach. That's just starting to happen in the United States.
FT: But don't they have to say, "If you're looking for A Woman's World, this is not A Woman's World?"
RG: I don't know if they have to be that specific but they have to say that they don't recommend abortions or provide abortions, which some people may or may not walk in, read that sign, turn around and walk out.
FT: One woman offered to go to the bank and get money right there for the woman she stopped from going to A Woman's World. Did she actually do what she promised?
HE: Yeah, she did that.
FT: How many women has she paid for out of pocket?
RG: Actually, she's only been there for less than a year and she hasn't really been around since. So she had a short little jaunt as a protester there. She was kind of a newcomer when we started hanging out there. Shortly thereafter we shot that scene, which was the end of the summer last summer, she disappeared.
FT: That's doubly interesting. She did what she said, but didn't continue beyond that.
HE: She basically repaid her for the down payment for the abortion. So the deposit that that woman left was reimbursed to her by the activist, the protester. That was the extent of the help to the woman, the Hispanic woman at the end of the film.
FT: Were you surprised how articulate the patients were about their decisions?
HE: No, actually I was pleasantly surprised how open and articulate the women were. I think that just goes to show that women who are making the decision between having an abortion and continuing their pregnancy, that these women are really sort of the faceless population that we never hear from. This issue has gotten to be so politicized and so polarizing that you only hear from activists on either side of the "issue." You never really hear from or see the women who are in the middle of this debate, the women who walk into a crisis pregnancy center or who walk into an abortion clinic. They're the people most affected by these laws that are being passed and legislation that's coming through. So for us it was refreshing to make these women the core and center of the film. It became important to us that they led the film and the story and that they were not overwhelmed by the protesters or the political aspect of the issue. We really grounded the film, put the film in these women's hands. It became clear to us early on in the shooting that that was the best thing to do because they're the most affected by the abortion wars and they're the ones who are voiceless. They're people that the media rarely talks to. I think that's what makes our film different than other documentaries surrounding the abortion issue.
FT: Even without being verbose, they can still convey the thought process that led them to this decision.
HE: I think you can read a lot of expressions in these women's faces. I think a little goes a long way. Their expressions, you can see how wrenching this decision is and how much pressure they're under. I think that went a long way in the emotional aspect of the film, just to see how they're dealing with it. There's a lot of emotion in these women's faces and I think it comes across in the film.
FT: Could Pregnancy Care Center have anyone scarier than Tony working for pro-life?
HE: I think that Tony for us in the film represents that undeniable aspect of danger that exists for people who work in abortion clinics. He is definitely a menacing figure in the film. I think after all the research we've done and the people we've spoken to anecdotally who work at Planned Parenthood or in independent abortion clinics, there is almost always an element of fear in working in an abortion clinic on the part of the doctor or the clinic workers. I don't think that Tony's an uncommon figure that's drawn to this debate. So in a way he's a very important aspect to this film. He sort of reminds the viewer that this is still truly a war going on in this country when it comes to this issue.
FT: Were you ever scared?
HE: No, not really. We always take precautions in all the films we make. We gauge what we should and shouldn't be doing and we didn't feel that we were in any danger.
FT: Do you see any hope for a resolution of this issue?
RG: I mean, not to be negative, but not really. I mean, resolution meaning everybody feels comfortable with what's happening and the laws? No. I mean, how do you define resolution? Not in the classic way. I think that this is an issue that has been extremely controversial, passion provoking since the first unplanned pregnancy thousands of years ago. So I can't see it going away.
FT: What about a resolution where one side is happy and the other side has to live with it?
RG: No, I don't think so. Not in this country.
FT: As filmmakers, is that the essence of drama?
HE: I don't think you have to have a situation like that to make a film dramatic. For example, An Inconvenient Truth at the end of the film gives what they perceive as possible solutions. So some documentary films do attempt to give practical solutions to problems they investigate in their movies. We just happen to profile or make a film about an issue that really is extremely sticky and there doesn't seem to be a tenable resolution in sight. That just happens to be the kind of issue this is but I don't think it's necessary for a documentary film to explore issues that have no solution. No, I think all films are different and this is a tough one. I think in our lifetime there will continue to be this battle. There doesn't seem to be any signs that either side is going to concede to the other.
FT: When did you film the Freakonomics school incentive experiment?
HE: We did it from the school year 2009-2010. It's not actually in the book, an exploration of this particular experiment where you pay kids to get good grades. That was not explored in either of the books although incentives and parenting are explored in the book. Freakonomics is all about incentives. Paying kids to get good grades is all about incentives and it kind of figures into the parenting chapter. In that sense it's tied to the book.
FT: Have the kids you profiled seen the film?
RG: They haven't seen it yet.
FT: I understand they may think studying isn't cool, but isn't failing out of high school also not cool?
HE: I definitely don't think that failing out of high school is cool. Absolutely, I agree with you. I think the die was cast with Kevin. I think he needed help earlier on than he got it.
FT: Did they also address broader issues of the public school program?
HE: It was pretty focused to see how much financial incentives could or could not incent a kid to improve their grades. It was very, very focused and it really kind of didn't work, so I think they're tweaking the experiment and trying it again. I think it's interesting that economists are looking in their own way to try to come up with solutions in the education system. I mean, Im glad they're trying. It can't hurt to try but this experiment definitely was not considered a success.
FT: Was it fun to follow those kids?
RG: It was really fun. It was the funnest thing that we were working on last year for sure. More entertaining. Making a film about abortion is really hard. And we've made a lot of films about young people and teenagers. We enjoy them a lot.
FT: Was there ever any frustration seeing them refuse to take advantage of these opportunities?
RG: Not really because we didn't have any huge expectations. We were just more observing. This is just one tiny little thing that could possibly point someone in the right direction, so I don't think the stakes were incredibly high.
FT: You could sense the viewer identification in the screening, just hoping they'd get their acts together.
RG: I guess whenever you're watching a young person make stupid decisions, you just wish that they could jump into the future and know how much it actually does matter. But this one was, as I said, low stakes.
FT: Is it possibly good that this document exists for kids to see in the future?
HE: I think hopefully the film, although it's a short film, will be thought provoking. Any film that provokes a discussion where we can discuss what our priorities are and where we're going as a country, especially in education, is a positive step. Hopefully this film, even though it's entertaining and funny, will get a conversation going about incenting our kids to do better in school.
12th & Delaware premieres August 2 on HBO. Freakonomics opens this fall.
12th & Delaware chronicles the struggles of both sides at this literal intersection of ideas. Pro life protestors stand outside the clinic begging patients to come with them instead. A vocal protestor Tony displays pictures of aborted fetuses near the local elementary school, and stalks the doctors who try to keep their identity secret for safety. Anne welcomes Woman's World patients who wander into her clinic by mistake, and offers them free lunch, educational material and services for keeping the baby. At A Woman's World, Candace tries to keep her patients safe, provide them the accurate information and medical services they choose.
Filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady had full access with both sides. They sat in on patient consultations at both offices, sometimes interviewing the patient and other times framing them out so we can only hear their voice. They also have another film opening this year, on a lighter subject. They contributed a segment to Freakonomics, based on the Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner book that applies statistics to more practical real life issues like real estate and education. In their segment, they showed one school system's attempt to motivate students with monetary rewards for good grades. The students they followed did not raise their grades or collect the reward.
Interviewing Ewing and Grady on the subject of 12th & Delaware can be sensitive. They're careful not to come across defending either side, and a reporter's question can so easily harbod personal feelings. Also, the filmmaking duo sound alike by phone, so they had to identify themselves with each comment.
Fred Topel: Could one of the unspoken problems with the abortion debate be that there can't be any 100% all of anything on any issue? Nothing in life is all one or all the other.
Rachel Grady: Well, I think that people on both sides on this issue, as they are on both sides of most very fraught and complicated issues, see things in black and white. You're just suggesting that a lot of decisions are in the gray. I would agree with that. Also just because you make one particular decision, say a woman makes one particular decision for themselves, doesn't mean they even have a position on it. I think every situation is unique on top of that.
FT: How can there be any progress on issues where people want to make it black and white?
RG: I don't think we're ever going to get that with this topic. I don't think that this is a situation that you're ever going to get everybody on board on either side.
FT: Also, since when is all life precious? We let atrocities happen all over the world.
Heidi Ewing: I think the anti-abortion forces or the anti-abortion lobby feels that this is an unprotected life, that if you leave it alone it will become a person. They feel that they are in charge of protecting what they consider an unborn person. So they believe that categorically it is a life and if you have an abortion it's murder. So if someone believes that truly, it's impossible to change their mind. There's no talking to somebody who believes that abortion is unadulterated murder. I think that's part of the problem and that's why it just seems that every year the two sides, pro and anti-abortion, seem further away from each other. There's no having a conversation when one side believes that abortion is always in every case murder at any stage in a pregnancy. So I can't speak for either side of the issue but I think that's part of the reason there's almost no understanding between the two camps.
FT: On a simpler level, does anyone suggest screaming at people is unproductive?
RG: Well, I think that Candace would probably say it was counter-productive, the woman that runs the abortion clinic but I think the people that are doing it in the film think that it's very effective. If not for the particular pregancy that's happening at the time, but any pregnancies that might happen in the future. They feel like their words can resonate with that woman down the road as well.
FT: Is there no law about representing a business accurately, that someone could go to the wrong building and sit there for hours?
RG: That's interesting that you ask that because that's actually legislation that has to happen state by state. A law was just put into effect by the Baltimore city council. It's under the auspice of truth in advertising. Crisis pregnancy centers now have to indicate that they don't provide abortions nor any kind of abortion recommendations or birth control recommendations in a prominently displayed place. That is going to be legally mandated so other cities since that precedent has been set, other cities are taking on that approach. That's just starting to happen in the United States.
FT: But don't they have to say, "If you're looking for A Woman's World, this is not A Woman's World?"
RG: I don't know if they have to be that specific but they have to say that they don't recommend abortions or provide abortions, which some people may or may not walk in, read that sign, turn around and walk out.
FT: One woman offered to go to the bank and get money right there for the woman she stopped from going to A Woman's World. Did she actually do what she promised?
HE: Yeah, she did that.
FT: How many women has she paid for out of pocket?
RG: Actually, she's only been there for less than a year and she hasn't really been around since. So she had a short little jaunt as a protester there. She was kind of a newcomer when we started hanging out there. Shortly thereafter we shot that scene, which was the end of the summer last summer, she disappeared.
FT: That's doubly interesting. She did what she said, but didn't continue beyond that.
HE: She basically repaid her for the down payment for the abortion. So the deposit that that woman left was reimbursed to her by the activist, the protester. That was the extent of the help to the woman, the Hispanic woman at the end of the film.
FT: Were you surprised how articulate the patients were about their decisions?
HE: No, actually I was pleasantly surprised how open and articulate the women were. I think that just goes to show that women who are making the decision between having an abortion and continuing their pregnancy, that these women are really sort of the faceless population that we never hear from. This issue has gotten to be so politicized and so polarizing that you only hear from activists on either side of the "issue." You never really hear from or see the women who are in the middle of this debate, the women who walk into a crisis pregnancy center or who walk into an abortion clinic. They're the people most affected by these laws that are being passed and legislation that's coming through. So for us it was refreshing to make these women the core and center of the film. It became important to us that they led the film and the story and that they were not overwhelmed by the protesters or the political aspect of the issue. We really grounded the film, put the film in these women's hands. It became clear to us early on in the shooting that that was the best thing to do because they're the most affected by the abortion wars and they're the ones who are voiceless. They're people that the media rarely talks to. I think that's what makes our film different than other documentaries surrounding the abortion issue.
FT: Even without being verbose, they can still convey the thought process that led them to this decision.
HE: I think you can read a lot of expressions in these women's faces. I think a little goes a long way. Their expressions, you can see how wrenching this decision is and how much pressure they're under. I think that went a long way in the emotional aspect of the film, just to see how they're dealing with it. There's a lot of emotion in these women's faces and I think it comes across in the film.
FT: Could Pregnancy Care Center have anyone scarier than Tony working for pro-life?
HE: I think that Tony for us in the film represents that undeniable aspect of danger that exists for people who work in abortion clinics. He is definitely a menacing figure in the film. I think after all the research we've done and the people we've spoken to anecdotally who work at Planned Parenthood or in independent abortion clinics, there is almost always an element of fear in working in an abortion clinic on the part of the doctor or the clinic workers. I don't think that Tony's an uncommon figure that's drawn to this debate. So in a way he's a very important aspect to this film. He sort of reminds the viewer that this is still truly a war going on in this country when it comes to this issue.
FT: Were you ever scared?
HE: No, not really. We always take precautions in all the films we make. We gauge what we should and shouldn't be doing and we didn't feel that we were in any danger.
FT: Do you see any hope for a resolution of this issue?
RG: I mean, not to be negative, but not really. I mean, resolution meaning everybody feels comfortable with what's happening and the laws? No. I mean, how do you define resolution? Not in the classic way. I think that this is an issue that has been extremely controversial, passion provoking since the first unplanned pregnancy thousands of years ago. So I can't see it going away.
FT: What about a resolution where one side is happy and the other side has to live with it?
RG: No, I don't think so. Not in this country.
FT: As filmmakers, is that the essence of drama?
HE: I don't think you have to have a situation like that to make a film dramatic. For example, An Inconvenient Truth at the end of the film gives what they perceive as possible solutions. So some documentary films do attempt to give practical solutions to problems they investigate in their movies. We just happen to profile or make a film about an issue that really is extremely sticky and there doesn't seem to be a tenable resolution in sight. That just happens to be the kind of issue this is but I don't think it's necessary for a documentary film to explore issues that have no solution. No, I think all films are different and this is a tough one. I think in our lifetime there will continue to be this battle. There doesn't seem to be any signs that either side is going to concede to the other.
FT: When did you film the Freakonomics school incentive experiment?
HE: We did it from the school year 2009-2010. It's not actually in the book, an exploration of this particular experiment where you pay kids to get good grades. That was not explored in either of the books although incentives and parenting are explored in the book. Freakonomics is all about incentives. Paying kids to get good grades is all about incentives and it kind of figures into the parenting chapter. In that sense it's tied to the book.
FT: Have the kids you profiled seen the film?
RG: They haven't seen it yet.
FT: I understand they may think studying isn't cool, but isn't failing out of high school also not cool?
HE: I definitely don't think that failing out of high school is cool. Absolutely, I agree with you. I think the die was cast with Kevin. I think he needed help earlier on than he got it.
FT: Did they also address broader issues of the public school program?
HE: It was pretty focused to see how much financial incentives could or could not incent a kid to improve their grades. It was very, very focused and it really kind of didn't work, so I think they're tweaking the experiment and trying it again. I think it's interesting that economists are looking in their own way to try to come up with solutions in the education system. I mean, Im glad they're trying. It can't hurt to try but this experiment definitely was not considered a success.
FT: Was it fun to follow those kids?
RG: It was really fun. It was the funnest thing that we were working on last year for sure. More entertaining. Making a film about abortion is really hard. And we've made a lot of films about young people and teenagers. We enjoy them a lot.
FT: Was there ever any frustration seeing them refuse to take advantage of these opportunities?
RG: Not really because we didn't have any huge expectations. We were just more observing. This is just one tiny little thing that could possibly point someone in the right direction, so I don't think the stakes were incredibly high.
FT: You could sense the viewer identification in the screening, just hoping they'd get their acts together.
RG: I guess whenever you're watching a young person make stupid decisions, you just wish that they could jump into the future and know how much it actually does matter. But this one was, as I said, low stakes.
FT: Is it possibly good that this document exists for kids to see in the future?
HE: I think hopefully the film, although it's a short film, will be thought provoking. Any film that provokes a discussion where we can discuss what our priorities are and where we're going as a country, especially in education, is a positive step. Hopefully this film, even though it's entertaining and funny, will get a conversation going about incenting our kids to do better in school.
12th & Delaware premieres August 2 on HBO. Freakonomics opens this fall.