How a filmmaker fought to make a documentary about abortion pills

The MoJo Daily newsletter, Monday through Friday. [View in browser]( [Mother Jones Daily Newsletter](     November 17, 2023 On a Friday afternoon last month, I got a pleasant surprise. A friend and I were looking for a film to see that night (Killers of the Flower Moon wasn't yet out, and I still haven't found a free 3.5 hours to dedicate to watching it). I scoured the internet and stumbled across a showing of Plan C—a documentary I'd never heard of at the time, about an organization by the same name that connects pregnant people to providers who can give them abortion pills—at a theater in Manhattan that evening. The film shows the passion and personal sacrifices of providers who helped people across the country access abortion pills during the pandemic when a federal judge allowed them to be [shipped by mail]( and, therefore, much easier to access. And it was informative, highlighting the fact that medication abortion, proven to be overwhelmingly safe and effective, [accounts]( for more than half of all abortions nationwide. All of which led me—a person who consumes a lot of news and entertainment on reproductive rights and related topics—to turn to my friend after the screening and ask: "Why hadn't we heard of this film before?" In addition to being well-made (I thought), it was also incredibly timely, with abortion restrictions rising nationwide post-Dobbs and a lawsuit [challenging]( the FDA's approval of mifepristone, one of the two pills used in medication abortion, currently [pending]( before the Supreme Court. I got the answer to that question this week when I sat down with the film's director and producer, Tracy Droz Tragos, and Francine Coeytaux, co-founder and strategic advisor of the organization, who is featured in the documentary. They told me that just getting the word out about the film required fighting the Right's burgeoning bid to limit even the sharing of information about abortion access—[especially online](. As Droz Tragos said: "It was not easy to get this out." She made the documentary independently, and racked up $250,000 worth of debt to do so, Droz Tragos said. And once it was done, some of the largest streamers—Netflix, Hulu, and Max—declined to pick it up. (Spokespeople for Netflix, Hulu, and Max didn’t respond to Mother Jones’ requests for comment about why they passed on it, though one of Droz Tragos’ prior documentaries, [Abortion: Stories Women Tell](, is available on Max.) She also told me that securing online ads about the film required they come with a political disclaimer. So it turns out the answer to my question—why hadn't I heard of this film before—was a lot more complicated than I thought. It's not all doom and gloom, though: You can watch Plan C on [several streaming services](, where it dropped this week, and you can learn a lot more about medication abortion by [reading my conversation with Droz Tragos and Coeytaux here](. Have you seen Plan C—or advertisements for it? Will you watch it? If you already have, did it teach you something new about medication abortion that you didn't previously know? [Let me know](. Have a great weekend. —Julianne McShane Advertisement [House Subscriptions Ad]( [Top Story] [Top Story]( [To Make a Documentary About Abortion, They Had to Fight the Right’s War on Information]( The experience was not unlike the obstacles abortion providers face. 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