A leading abortion pill facilitator is screening a documentary in the Dallas-Fort Worth area this month as it continues to promote illegal abortions in Texas.
Plan C — a website that helps people obtain abortion pills via mail — is screening its documentary at the AMC Grapevine Mills 24 this month. The film details how the group boosted abortion pill distribution as states passed abortion restrictions in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
“Shot over the past four years by award-winning filmmaker Tracy Droz Tragos, PLAN C is a documentary capturing the work of the Plan C campaign and the work of activists and providers who began to mail abortion pills during the pandemic and in the face of crumbling reproductive rights & access across the U.S.,” Plan C described the film in a press release Wednesday.
The movie is available for purchase for $129 to colleges, high schools, libraries, community groups, and corporations.
Plan C did not respond to an inquiry regarding whether Texas schools have purchased the film.
The group will also host screenings of its documentary at two theaters in Houston this month, in addition to screenings elsewhere in the United States.
Abortion is banned in Texas from the moment of fertilization with some exemptions.
The abortion pill consists of two drugs. Mifepristone requires a prescription and is taken first to terminate the pregnancy. Misoprostol is then taken to cause contractions in the uterus to initiate delivery of the fetus. Medical experts advise the pills can be taken up to 10-12 weeks gestation.
Abortion pills became the most popular method of abortion for the first time in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The drugs allegedly have a complication rate four times higher than surgical abortions, per the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
Elisa Wells, the co-founder of Plan C, said in August that her group saw a spike in abortion pill orders in Texas as a response to “shield laws” passed in several states in recent months. Such laws let doctors in states that allow abortion to prescribe abortion pills to women in states like Texas that restrict abortion.
“I think the services have seen a significant spike,” Wells previously told The Dallas Express. “The demand is very high.”
Wells advised women to order abortion pills before they are even pregnant, regardless of their state’s laws.
“There are a number of services that do advance provision — it’s something we recommend,” she told The Dallas Express. “Why not, if you can afford that? Get it, and have it in your medicine cabinet.”
Plan C helped launch an artificial intelligence abortion program last month that advises Texas women to get surgical abortions out of state or illegally order abortion pills via mail. The bot also advises women to take the abortion pills at a stage of pregnancy deemed dangerous by medical experts, according to an investigation by The Dallas Express.