‘When I walk out the door of my office, I expect to be assassinated,” says one of the subjects of this grim but worthwhile documentary about the four doctors in the US who are currently performing third-trimester abortions. All of them worked with Dr. George Tiller, who was murdered in Kansas in 2009, and all can envision a similar fate for themselves.
The majority of Martha Shane and Lana Wilson’s film is a humanizing look at the day-to-day of these sad-eyed doctors, two of them men and two women, who see themselves as the last line of defense for desperate women. “How could I bring our child into this world to suffer like that?” asks one typical, sobbing patient (face unseen, as all are) in a consultation about her deformed fetus.
It’s not easy watching (though nothing graphic is shown, other than on protesters’ signs) and it likely won’t be seen by anyone not sympathetic to the mission of these four, all of whom are nearing retirement age and wondering who will carry on their work. But “After Tiller” is groundbreaking in giving voice not only to the doctors, but to those who always seem to get overlooked in the high-volume political debate about this topic: the women themselves.