Review of “The Other Side of the Fence”
produced by Lynn Estomin (28m, 1995, video & DVD)
The proposed abortion ban in South Dakota in the early Spring thaw of 2006 was yet another wake-up call for feminists. It was clear we had to become more pro-active and creative to protect women’s reproduction justice.
I started by reaching out to women on the ground in South Dakota. A women’s media network was my aim: first, to provide a mirror, and secondly, to create a support process on issues within and outside the state. This possibility still has yet to be realized.
I scoured the Internet to create a list of existing media on a span of women’s health and reproductive justice issues. “The Other Side of the Fence,” stood out as an especially intriguing video.
In 1987 when a Planned Parenthood clinic in Cincinnati, Ohio was firebombed, a judge ordered the clinic to make an on-going video record of the daily activities of anti-abortion demonstrators. Lynn Estomin became the videographer for the clinic. On the other side of the fence was Nancy O’Brien. One day, however, after two years of looking through the camera eye piece, Estomin noticed O’Brien had disappeared.
Five years later, Estomin tracked down O’Brien, and recorded this literally close-up interview with the militant anti-choice leader.
In an especially tight head-shot, Estomin frames O’Brien. O’Brien loves the camera. Her story unfolds seamlessly, non-stop. Just as her image fills the frame, her voice floods the soundtrack. O’Brien proceeds, seemingly without prompting.
Nancy O’Brien, with her husband, Michael, were anti-abortion stars. They formed a militant anti-abortion organization, Project Jericho, and besieged Cincinnati. Like a terrier whose bite holds firm, she pursued Jerry Falwell. She and Mike, lauded by the Lynchburg, VA based church, became “couple of the year” and were pledged $1 million in support for their anti-abortion work.
O’Brien, in the video, skirts over the actual amount of the contribution -- but I know from speaking directly with Estomin, and the blurb on the video box. Instead, twice O’Brien underscores the “psychological” boost received in this attention from the “big gun behind us.”
Clearly, O’Brien knows how to play to the media. In cut-aways Estomin shows O’Brien dressed as the Grim Reaper in demonstrations outside the clinic; before a woman’s church group gathering she holds up a tiny plastic icon to the unborn, a two-inch baby’s head. On the perpetual use of the imagery of the fetus, O’Brien emphasizes, “Our tactic, methodology, was to stop abortion no matter what… The pictures are internalized. I did wonder how my children might understand.” This was O’Brien’s one moment of some self-doubt in the video.
When the bombings began, as an anti-choice leader, O’Brien states, “If you bomb, keep your mouth shut.. Or, work alone… Everyone was joyous. If this would stop the ‘killing of babies,’ then so be it… There was no moral outrage that others might be hurt…..” Nor does O’Brien admit any moral outrage in this video. “I believe that fire bombing is consistent with Christian thinking, a logical progression of their thinking…” she further explains.
What changed for Nancy O’Brien? Her eighteen-year-old marriage disintegrated. Her church, fearing for her husband’s leadership role in their hierarchy, in an attempt to keep the marriage intact, forced Nancy to sign a contract that among other things stated “she will give up her hotline” and instructed her “to clean the toilets herself even if she hires a cleaning lady.” She tried. But finally one day in church, she beseeched the congregation, “ ‘Pray for me,’ ” I cried, “ ‘My marriage is failing apart.’ ” Church leaders whisked her from the room, fearing repercussions on others. “They made me feel that it was all my own fault.”
These are classic fault lines leading to an increased feminist consciousness. Prior O’Brien had described, “The church is very male dominated, chauvinistic… all the leaders were men. I made my own agenda.” With her marriage on the rocks, “If Christianity is taken at face value, Catholics, born-agains --- women are 2nd class citizens BIG TIME!” These comments are skillfully intercut with old Pat Robinson footage of him at a chalk board lecturing on “headship.”
“I am now in the struggling process….” O’Brien admits. But her concluding final words are; “I am not sure that you are on your way to the devil…I would have to say to you, I am not sure that I am not on my way with you.”
O’Brien has been a formidable adversary for the pro-choice movement. This is a must-see video for anyone working in clinics and dealing with anti-abortion activists.
Especially with fundamentalist preacher Mike Huckabee rising in Republican ranks as a possible contender in the ’08 election, feminists would benefit from viewing this first hand-hand account of an activist within their ranks.
Learn more about Lynn Estomin and her other videos, especially, “Becky’s Story,” about abstinence here.
Order “The Other Side of the Fence,” and check out Filmaker’s Library’s other works on health and reproductive justice, here .
A new version of the Reproductive Justice Briefing Book, originally prepared for the US Social Forum, in Atlanta, June, 2007 will include two pages of highlights from my list of films on RJ and related health issues. Further, there is a short essay on how to conduct community screenings of these films/videos/dvds. Here is how to find the earlier booklet. Hopefully, when published, the new booklet will appear right here, too.
by Ariel Dougherty
Ariel Dougherty, co-founder of Women Make Movies, is currently associate producer on Lynn Hershman’s Women, Art and Revolution, a feature, social documentary on the Feminist Art Movement, 1968-2007
Above: "The Other Side of the Fence" from Lynn Estomin's website.
Posts
