A mournful sax plays the song "Motherless Child" and introduces the short documentary.
"The last time I saw my mother..." Sharon Magee says about her mother Mary whose last words to her were, "...and you be good." Sharon learned years later from newspaper clippings that her mother died from an injection of pine oil given by a backroom abortionist.
Gwen Campbell Elliot was called to her dying mother's bedside. Her grandmother raised her and was determined the child would not go the way of her mother and had her submit to internals at an early age which terrified her. She learned much later her mother hadn't died in childbirth but of an illegal abortion.
James Friedl's mother died of an illegal abortion, but he was told it was food poisoning. He hid in pain in closets to keep the pain away. Only as an adult did he learn the truth. The method used? Ergot.
Linn Duvall Hartwell's mother Clara was a singer. She already had five children. Her father was a journalist. They shared a house with their grandmother and there was no room for another child. The documentary was made when Linn was 69. As she visits her mother's grave, the pain is still there.
Pro-Life people talk about saving babies. They don't talk about saving the mothers. They don't talk about the damage the deaths of a woman from an illegal abortion does to the children, parents, siblings, husbands of the women who die.
Motherless was produced and directed by Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater and Diane Pontius in 1992. Motherless was Attie & Goldwater Production’s first documentary.
I encourage people, pro-life, pro-choice to watch.
Awards
CINE Golden Eagle, 1993
Silver Apple, National Educational Film and Video Festival, 1993
Honors, International Health and Medical Film Festival, 1994
Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights, Sarah W. Boote Founders Award, 1994
The four stories are in my book Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles. Anyone wanting a free copy PM me at Facebook Donnalanenelson
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