4 Nights 4 Justice Film Visits the Only Abortion Clinic Left in Mississippi

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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A few years ago filmmaker Maisie Crow made a documentary short about a new law that threatened to shut down the last abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi. It was nominated for an Emmy. So Crow came back with a 92-minute documentary that offers a closer look.

“Jackson,” it’s called. The film will be showing Monday night at the Tropic Cinema as part of the 4 Nights 4 Justice series.

Maisie Crow takes us to the city of Jackson, Mississippi, where the fate of the Jackson Woman’s Health Organization hangs in the balance. Here in the Deep South, religious and racial viewpoints become entangled in the battle over Pro Choice.

We meet three women who form the triangle of this thoughtful documentary:

Barbara Beavers is the determined head of the Center for Pregnancy Choices, a Christian-affiliated, pro-life center in Jackson, Mississippi. Miss Barbara, as her clients call her, is a woman with an eternally happy façade. She’s confident that she’s carrying out God’s will … as well as the mandate of Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant, who declared: “One day I believe I’ll stand before you and say there are no abortions preformed in this state.”

“Here we go again, another day,” sighs Shannon Brewer as she shows up for work at the clinic. As director of Jackson Women’s Health Organization, she faces a day shrouded with anxiety as protestors march in front of the building, shouting, “Please don’t kill me, Mommy!” “Ma’am, do the right thing!” and “Please listen to the word of the Lord!”

Caught up in this melee is April Jackson, a twentysomething unmarried black woman who is expecting again. “I cannot believe I’m pregnant … that little old worm,” April says as she looks in dismay at the sonogram. This will be her fifth child.

“Bless her heart … she needs help,” says Miss Barbara. But abortion is not the answer she has in mind. A baby bed and a bag of infant clothes should do the trick.

April’s mother is against abortion too, but she’s tired of April getting “filled up” with more babies. “Don’t ever look for no man to help you,” says her mom.

Should April be on birth control?

“I’m torn about that, you wanna know the truth,” admits Miss Barbara. “I don’t think birth control’s the answer … I think ultimately what’s gonna work its gonna be self control.”

Thus, Mississippi’s poor women are caught in a no-win situation: The state withholds sex education and withholds abortion care.

“It’s crazy, isn’t it?” says Shannon Brewer.

Mississippi has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates in the country.

Nonetheless, the Jackson Woman’s Health Organization remains an option. “We’re here to make sure you have safe legal access to abortion,” says Dr. Willie Parker, one of the facility’s physicians. “That’s your choice and that’s your right to do that.”

But, as we watch, the clock is ticking on the Jackson Woman’s Health Organization. Mississippi has passed a Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) law, a particularly onerous regulation that requires abortion clinic doctors to have admitting privileges with a local hospital. Not so easy to get.

Of seven potential hospitals, two refused to accept Dr. Parker’s application and five turned him down for “policy reasons.”

A state inspector shows up. The clinic has 72 hours to comply. Protestors believe that’re on the verge of triumph. But at the last minute a federal judge gives an injunction letting the clinic stay open. The state appeals.

“The blood of our children is running under the sewers of our church,” declares a virulent protestor. “The devil is having a heyday!” 

That’s the battlefield, the state’s lone abortion clinic versus sign-carrying, slogan-chanting protestors — “domestic terrorist,” as Dr. Parker calls them — backed by nearly 40 pregnancy crisis centers run by anti-abortion groups throughout the state.

“Most judgmental people I’ve ever met in my life,” sighs Shannon Brewer, an earth mother who wants to help poor women in need, not force them to go to another state for abortion services.

But as the Governor said, the goal is to have the first abortion-free state.

“We’re on the winning side,” vows a smiling Miss Barbara as she hands out dumdum candy along with the admonition, “Don’t be a dumdum … you don’t solve a problem by killing a baby.”

As for April Jackson, she has a boy. She turns to Miss Barbara’s Mommy & Me counseling services, but it doesn’t make her life easier, a single mother caring for a houseful of kids and working multiple jobs and being threatened over custody by the children’s absentee father.

“I does everything for those kids since day one. By myself.”

No, for April, life doesn’t get better. She faces more of the same as she wistfully remembers the dreams and ambitions she once harbored.

The Michael Dively Social Justice and Diversity Endowment at the Community Foundation of the Florida Keys and the Tropic Cinema make this 4 Nights 4 Justice showing of “Jackson” possible.

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com