The story is sometimes reminiscent of a clandestine network of the 1960s, but it is very current: it is that of a group of women, mobilized despite the risks, to allow all American women to have access to a safe method. abortion, if necessary.
Their means of combat: the abortion pill.
Plan C is both the name of a documentary screened this week at the major South by Southwest festival in Austin, USA, and of the organization at the center of the film. It traces the roller coaster experienced for more than three years by these committed women, between 2019 and 2022.
On the one hand, the pandemic has made it possible to gradually launch, under their impulse, the democratization of teleconsultations and the sending of these pills by post. On the other hand, abortion – and therefore the abortion pill – has become completely illegal in ten states following a decision by the American Supreme Court.
“Unfortunately, the anti-abortion party won in part,” said director Tracy Droz Tragos. And “we haven’t hit rock bottom yet in the United States,” she fears.
“But more and more people are coming into resistance and making sure there is access” to abortion pills, she says. “So there is an alternative, there is a possible answer. »
‘Heroic’ doctors
It is to better disseminate information about this method that two women, Francine Coeytaux and Elisa Wells, founded the Plan C association in 2015.
Plan A is birth control. Then there’s plan B, better known as the morning after pill. And then, in the event of an unwanted pregnancy, plan C: medical abortion.
They start by testing pills that can be bought on the black market, on the Internet, to verify that it is the real product. If so, they list them on their site.
Then, during the pandemic, faced with the growing difficulties in finding these pills, they made a call to recruit doctors agreeing to prescribe them via telemedicine, and to send them by post to patients.
“After talking to about 150 doctors, we ended up with five”, to the “heroic” mobilization, says Elisa Wells. Plan C helps them cover the costs of setting up a teleconsultation service, or even medical licenses to practice in several states.
These women doctors then operate despite a legal vagueness, until the American Medicines Agency (FDA) clarifies the situation: yes, the pills can indeed be mailed.
Many teleconsultation services are born then.
But in June 2022, earthquake in the country: the Supreme Court gives the States their freedom to legislate on abortion, which becomes illegal in a large part of the country.
“Join the movement”
While access is gradually being drastically restricted, a supplier agrees to continue mailing the pills to Republican states, including Texas. An underground network is organized.
“It’s like running a drug cartel, but to help people,” says one of the anonymous women in the documentary.
Fear invades every scene: fear for the women using the pills, fear for those who help them. But also afraid that everything will stop, and that they will find themselves without a solution.
The details of the operation set up are not revealed in the film, on purpose. The faces are blurred, the voices distorted, the scrambled tracks concerning the filmed places.
“I hope we’ve done enough, and that these people will stay safe,” says the director, regretting that a drug authorized for more than 20 years in the United States finds itself sparking such clandestine operations. “It’s a tragedy,” she said.
Finding a platform that agrees to broadcast the documentary is proving difficult today.
The interlocutors find the film “too political”, say they must remain “neutral”, explains Tracy Droz Tragos, whose first documentary on abortion had been acclaimed by critics. He gave voice to activists on both sides.
She hopes that Plan C carries a message of hope for people who will see it: that they know “that they are not alone, that there is a network that exists”.
Since the end of filming, another threat has come to hover over the abortion pill. An ultra-conservative Texas judge is facing a ruling that could suspend his license nationwide.
“We remain optimistic that even in the face of these unjust restrictions, access” to the abortion pill “will continue to be possible”, insists Elisa Wells. “We think this is a form of resistance, and it will prevail. »