- Ten Hag bemoans Man Utd's lack of killer instinct in Palace stalemate
- France's Macron appoints new government in shift to right
- Cheika proud of Leicester grit after winning start as boss
- Profligate Man Utd pay price in 0-0 draw at Palace
- Kane, Olise run riot as Bayern thump Bremen
- Diaz fires Liverpool top of Premier League, Man Utd held at Palace
- LIV champion Rahm out of LIV Team semis with severe flu
- Slot surprised by tearful Nunez's moment of magic
- Title rivals Norris, Verstappen on 'cool' front row for Singapore GP
- Biden talks China with 'Quad' leaders in hometown summit
- Juve and Napoli play out goalless draw in early Serie A title tussle
- Alcaraz fears tennis tour grind will 'kill us'
- Carey sparks recovery as Australia thrash England in 2nd ODI
- Leclerc, Sainz lament 'disappointing' Saturday in Singapore
- Bottega Veneta holds investors' aces as Madonna pops into D&G
- Beirut digs for victims at building flattened in Israeli strike
- Verstappen stages protest over 'ridiculous' swearing punishment
- Bayern boss Kompany lauds 'special talent' Olise
- Diaz fires Liverpool top of Premier League, Spurs bounce back
- Heavy fire over Israel-Lebanon border after deadly Beirut strike
- Ramos guides unbeaten Toulouse to Montpellier win despite Hogg scuffle
- Myanmar flood death toll jumps to 384
- Chelsea owners 'happy' with win at West Ham amid rift report
- Kane and Olise run riot as Bayern thump Bremen
- Ramos guides unbeaten Toulouse to Montpellier win
- Norris pips Verstappen to dramatic Singapore pole after Sainz crash
- Carey takes Australia to 270 in 2nd ODI against England after collapse
- Two Hezbollah leaders killed in Israel's Beirut strike
- Hungary Danube waters reach decade high after Storm Boris
- Bagnaia cuts Martin's MotoGP lead with Emilia-Romagna sprint win
- Jackson double fires Chelsea to victory at woeful West Ham
- Fiji beat Japan to lift Pacific Nations Cup
- Kasatkina to face Haddad Maia in Korea Open final
- S.Africa snowfall closes roads, strands motorists overnight
- Lawyers of women alleging Al-Fayed sex abuse receive over 150 new enquiries
- President Museveni's son backs Ugandan strongman for 7th term
- Norris quickest as Verstappen bounces back in Singapore practice
- Wallabies lament All Blacks' fast start
- Germany's Oktoberfest opens under tight security after attacks
- Environmental protesters block French cruise liner port
- Hezbollah in disarray after Israeli strike kills top commanders
- No place like home: Biden hosts 'Quad' leaders
- One dead, 7 missing as heavy rains trigger floods in central Japan
- Zelensky says no UK, US go-ahead to use long-range missiles
- New Zealand edge Australia 31-28 in Bledisloe Cup thriller
- Japan orders evacuations as heavy rains trigger floods in quake-hit area
- New Zealand pilot freed in Indonesia after 19 months in rebel captivity
- Hezbollah in disarray after Israeli air strike kills top commanders
- The BYD Seal Hybrid U DM-i AWD in a practical test by journalists
- Leading climate activist released from Vietnam jail
Abortion pill: the women of the 'resistance'
It is a documentary that evokes the underground abortion networks of the 1960s but the story involves the present day.
"Plan C," airing this week at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, is about a group of risk-taking women determined to provide access to a safe method of abortion.
Their tool: the abortion pill.
"Plan C" is both the name of the documentary and the organization at the center of the film.
It traces the uphill battle faced by the women between 2019 and 2022 to make the abortion pill more widely available to women in need.
On the one hand, the pandemic expanded the use of telemedicine and allowed for the abortion pill to be dispatched by mail.
On the other hand, abortion -- and the pill -- have now been banned in about a dozen states following a US Supreme Court ruling last year.
"Unfortunately, the anti-abortion folks have largely won," "Plan C" director Tracy Droz Tragos told AFP.
And, she added, "we haven't hit rock bottom here in the United States."
"But more folks know that medication abortion exists, more folks are resisting and making sure that people have access to it," she said. "So there is a workaround to it, there is an answer back."
Plan C, the organization, was founded by two women, Francine Coeytaux and Elisa Wells, in 2015 to disseminate information about the abortion pill, also known as RU 486.
Plan A is contraception. Plan B is the "morning after" pill which is taken by a women after intercourse to avoid becoming pregnant.
Plan C is abortion.
Coeytaux and Wells began their efforts by testing pills that could be purchased on the black market on the internet to verify that they were authentic.
If so, they listed them on their site, plancpills.org.
- 'Like running a drug cartel' -
During the pandemic, with the abortion pills becoming more difficult to find, they put out a call for doctors willing to prescribe them by telemedicine and send them to patients by mail.
"After talking to, you know, like 150 providers, we ended up with maybe five," Wells told AFP.
Plan C provided them with technical help setting up telemedicine businesses or the cost of medical licenses.
The doctors were operating in a judicial grey area until the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the abortion pill can indeed by mailed to patients.
That gave rise to a number of telemedicine services.
In June 2022, however, the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion giving states the freedom to set their own rules.
Even as access to abortion pills became more restricted, a supplier agreed to continue to send them to Republican-led states where abortion had been banned, notably Texas.
An underground network formed.
"It's like running a drug cartel, in order to help people," said a woman in the film who remained anonymous to protect her identity.
Fear is palpable throughout the movie -- fear for the women using the pills and fear for those who are helping them.
Fear too for what might happen if the flow of pills is cut off entirely and women seeking to end a pregnancy are left with no solution.
Details of how the network operates are deliberately not revealed.
Faces are blurred, voices disguised and locations obscured.
"The fact that it has to feel like this nefarious underground thing is unconscionable," Droz Tragos said. "It's a tragedy."
"I hope we did enough and those folks stay safe," she added.
- 'A form of resistance' -
Finding a platform to distribute a film on such a hot-button issue has been difficult.
Some said it was "too political" and they needed to be "nonpartisan," said Droz Tragos, whose previous documentary about abortion was met with critical acclaim.
The director said she hopes "Plan C" delivers a message of hope to those who watch it, that they come away with the understanding that "they're not alone, that there is a network there to provide an option if they need it."
Since the film was made, another threat has emerged: a conservative federal judge in Texas is weighing whether to impose a national ban on the abortion pill, which was approved by the FDA more than two decades ago and has been proven to be safe and effective.
"We remain hopeful that even in the face of these unjust restrictions that access is possible and will continue to be possible," Wells said. "We believe that it's a form of resistance and that it will prevail."
F.Bennett--AMWN