A black woman wearing scrubs, with locs in a headband, looks at the camera while at her desk. She is an abortion provider.

TRAPPED documentary shows us what abortion restrictions really mean

You hear about the ongoing state restrictions against abortion access in the news all too often. But what do they mean for women’s every day lives when summed all together? TRAPPED, a new documentary by Dawn Porter, seeks to show us.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard the oral arguments in the Whole Women’s Health v Hellerstedt case, which is undoubtedly the most important abortion rights case since Planned Parenthood v Casey in 1992. The case challenges Texas’s infamous HB2, and is basically set to decide whether any of its restrictions constitute an undue burden to abortion access. TRAPPED makes a very clear case that — along with years of other restrictions piled on top of one another — it does.

Though the documentary misses the opportunity to talk about the ways that restrictions have affected undocumented women — I’m thinking specifically about the effects of the closure of border clinics and the 100-mile border checkpoints — it does a generally thorough job of showing the cumulative effects of these restrictions.

I definitely recommend it — and it’s set to hit theaters starting next week. Check out if it’s playing soon in your city!

New York, NY

Verónica Bayetti Flores has spent the last years of her life living and breathing reproductive justice. She has led national policy and movement building work on the intersections of immigrants' rights, health care access, young parenthood, and LGBTQ liberation, and has worked to increase access to contraception and abortion, fought for paid sick leave, and demanded access to safe public space for queer youth of color. In 2008 Verónica obtained her Master’s degree in the Sexuality and Health program at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. She loves cooking, making art, listening to music, and thinking about the ways art forms traditionally seen as feminine are valued and devalued. In addition to writing for Feministing, she is currently spending most of her time doing policy work to reduce the harms of LGBTQ youth of color's interactions with the police and making sure abortion care is accessible to all regardless of their income.

Verónica is a queer immigrant writer, activist, and rabble-rouser.

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