Kent and Wonder discuss the documentary, Plan C, about activists working to inform people about emergency contraception options for self-managed abortions, which drastically changed in the wake of the revocation of Roe v. Wade. Emerging themes include bodily autonomy, the argument over when does life begin, the law and who writes it, religious beliefs, and radical cultural shifts brought about by changes in the law. Astrologically these themes relate to the 6th and 9th houses, when a natal chart is activated, and the planets Saturn and Uranus.
Distribution: STARZ On Demand
Director: Tracy Droz Tragos
Run Time: 90 minutes
Astrological Data: The Supreme Court hands down decisions at ten am, so this chart reflects that, but note that we do not have an exact time for the event and the ascendant shifted to Virgo around 10:25 am.
Music Credit: spacedust by airtone
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:13.501] Kent Bye: Hello, my name is Kent Bye. Wonder Bright: And I'm Wonder Bright. Kent Bye: And welcome to Story All the Way Down. Today, we're going to be talking about Plan C. This is one of the first documentaries that we saw at Sundance, and I really enjoyed this piece. It's this kind of emergency broadcast system message of how are ways that women can get access to what they call Plan C, which is essentially an abortion pill for people to take to do a self-managed abortion. And in the two to three years that they're following them throughout the pandemic, there's a lot of restrictions that are happening in the pandemic and you see hotline workers giving information. And it's really, like, in the fall of Roe v. Wade here in the United States, a scramble for these activists who are really on the front line. I feel like they're like emergency response advocates and activists and doctors who created this network of people to answer hotline and provide information to people who need it around the United States. And so, yeah, I'd love to hear some of your initial thoughts on the piece.
[00:01:13.871] Wonder Bright: First of all, just watching the film was extremely restorative because in the wake of the fall of Roe v. Wade, like every woman I know and any woman that I was watching in the media, it was pretty devastating and disheartening. And this film provides a really welcome ballast to that because what is needed is to fight in every way against this overturning. And so what was heartening about this film was these women are fighters. All of the people that were in the film are fighters. And they're on the front lines and they are working tirelessly to take action and were before this happened. So the first thing I want to say about it is just that it felt really grounding, because in the wake of it, there’s, like, a fear of, like, what do we do? And these are people who have a plan. They literally have a plan. It's called Plan C. So it was quite an inspiration and a relief to know that there are people who are going to do something.
[00:02:33.653] Kent Bye: And just to add in there that there's Plan A, which is to use contraceptives to nip it in the bud in the beginning. Plan B would be the morning after pill, a pill that you can take after you have unprotected sex to potentially stop unwanted conception. And then Plan C are these pills that have been around for a long, long time, actually, but they've been either restricted in terms of their access, but it's essentially a pill that you can take and manage your own abortion at home. And a big part of what this film is, is showing how states have different rules and regulations as to at what point you can take these pills. And so there's these hotline workers who are providing that information, and there's a plancpills.org, which is also providing information for people to get access to these pills. Now, in the wake of the revocation of Roe v. Wade, that means that there's no longer federal protection for this type of medication, which means that in some of these red states, it's actually illegal now to use some of these pills. And so it's a bit of civil disobedience to get that information out there because in some states, like, say Texas, even if you were to tell somebody about that website, you could be potentially prosecuted for aiding and abetting murder. And so even just recommending a website, in some of these states starts to take on this whole other level. So, for me, there's a lot of these deeper issues that start to come up that it's one thing to revoke abortion, but then to enforce and implement these laws, it actually has all these other side effects of our privacy and other things that we can get into. Didn't mean to interrupt, I just wanted to add that additional context of how Plan C is sort of a last resort in some ways, but yet these medications are available, they're safe, and a big part that I see this film is trying to do is spread the word and the message that this is even a possibility and that here's the ways that you have to navigate how to get access to these pills if it may be transgressing what may be legal in the state for people to still get access to some of these medications.
[00:04:36.450] Wonder Bright: Well, that doesn't feel like an interruption. It feels like necessary information, which is really what this film is. And it also feels like you're filling in the gap here of, you know, yes, it's nice to watch this film and it feels good to know that somebody's doing something, somebody has a plan - and, it isn't coming without cost. You know, a lot of the people that are shown in this film, you know, there were several people who blurred their faces out, doctors who didn't reveal their whole names because they could lose their license, they could go to jail for doing this. This is a perilous journey that these people are on, and they're having to negotiate really grave risks.
[00:05:21.149] Kent Bye: Yeah, just to clarify that part of the legality I think changes after Roe v. Wade was revoked, but that's true by the end. But in the beginning, a lot of people were protecting their identity because they were afraid of being attacked or being targeted, being doxed, having their children being followed. And so, they're putting their physical safety on the line when they start to do this type of advocacy work. And so, you have people who are hiding their identity and choosing to remain private for other reasons other than the legal reasons, which legal reasons don't really kick in until Roe v. Wade is revoked. But a lot of the people from the beginning are not showing their identity because of the implications, of people, if they were to find out, could make them targets for harassment and doxing. And this is obviously an issue at the heart of a culture where that people are willing to take all sorts of harsh and violent acts. And so they're putting their physical safety on the line to be involved in this type of work.
[00:06:16.441] Wonder Bright: Yeah. And, you know, this picks up on the theme that we mentioned in our first episode, where we talk about how one of the main themes that was showing up at Sundance is bodily autonomy and threats to it. And of course, anybody working for pro abortion, pro choice, efforts is putting their body on the line for people who get pregnant, whose bodies are literally on the line, and people who don't have access to health care will have even less access to health care. So a lot of people know this new law will adversely impact the most vulnerable portions of our population. So it's really a fight for bodily autonomy across the line.
[00:07:02.120] Kent Bye: I actually wanted to send you a note from United Nations Human Rights Council, and they actually came up with a working group in 2010. I wanted to send you this excerpt and have you read it because I think it... I guess before I send it, I wanted to just comment that in this film, it's largely about the transmission of information. And so I see it predominantly the center of gravity in the air element. So it's communicating with information, and there's about the social network of the people that are involved. So there's less of an emotional arc to this film than the evolution of one person's story. And so I think in that sense, it feels like a film that is, I think of it as like an emergency broadcast dispatch, where here's some crucial information that people need to know. But I'd love to hear any other thoughts for how you start to think about how to make sense of this film from a media theory or film criticism perspective. Because for me, I see there's a lot of very interesting philosophical ideas that I want to dig into a little bit, but also that it's covering all these different domains and contexts of the human experience and what's it mean to actually revoke this aspect of someone's human rights. And this excerpt that I'm going to send is going to elaborate all the various human rights issues that I think are involved. Love to hear any other reflections on the center of gravity of this film and how you make sense of a piece like this.
[00:08:22.143] Wonder Bright: I actually thought that the filmmaker, Tracy Droz Tragos, did a masterful job of blending individual first person stories through the narrative. She films these activists who are working on these front lines in their home lives and at their work. And she does a really great job of using their personal individual stories to illustrate what's at stake, which is why it was so heartening for me to watch personally, because even when somebody's face was blurred out, it really puts a face on the frontline's impact of this work and what it takes to do it, and who is doing it, the kinds of people that are doing it. And she follows very closely the story of one particular person named Francine Coeytaux, who is introduced to us in the very beginning, who is the brainchild behind like the necessity to do this. I don't know how old she is, but she was, you know, here for Roe v. Wade. I was three years old when that law was passed. So it's always just been a part of my experience in the world. But Francine Coeytaux understands what's at stake in a way that is really personal to her. And she has been thinking about this for a long time and has been working at it for a while. So watching her story personally throughout the narrative of the overarching film, I thought was an incredibly good way to digest the amount of information that was dispensed in the film. And Tragos did this not just with Francine, but with a number of other activists. And something that was really, really moving for me personally was the way in which she interviews not just the activists, but she interviews their partners. There's two men in particular that I'm thinking about, and a lesbian partner of another activist. And it's so clear that this is a family fight in the way that Tragos chooses to tell the story and the way that these activists are working and the way that their partners are behind them. Kent Bye: Hmm. Wonder Bright: So, for me, there is a really clear narrative through line, which is not told just through one personal story, but through the personal story of multiple activists in a sense that you can see that this is a homebrew for all of them. We're seeing them on the front lines in their work, but this is a conversation that happens around their kitchen table as much as anywhere else.
[00:11:07.417] Kent Bye: Yeah, it's shot in the time of the pandemic. And so people are working from home, but they're also doing some really powerful work. And you are right that there are this ensemble cast of people that are being tracked. And there is this pre Roe v. Wade versus post revocation of Roe v. Wade where things do shift and people do have to make a decision as to whether or not they're going to continue, or not continue, because they're putting a lot of, not only their physical safety at risk, but at that point, it becomes more of a legal issue where they have to navigate that. And so yeah, I wanted to send this over to you because I think it helps to also frame the broader discussion for what's at stake here.
[00:11:43.812] Wonder Bright: Okay, so this is from the United Nations Human Rights Council's Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls formed in 2010: The working group reminds readers of women's human rights, which include the rights without discrimination to equality, dignity, autonomy, information, bodily integrity, respect for private life, the highest attainable standard of health, including sexual and reproductive health, and freedom from torture and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment. The right of a woman or girl to make autonomous decisions about her own body and reproductive functions is at the core of her basic rights to equality, privacy and bodily integrity.” Yeah. Just would note that you can see that it's written in 2010 because it's not inclusive language in the sense that this is speaking from a cisgender narrative.
[00:12:46.905] Kent Bye: Yeah, I noticed that. It was formed in 2010, but this language actually may have been in 2017, I believe. The reason why I wanted to share this, is because I think it actually speaks to the number of different contextual domains that this film introduces because when you take away the right to abortion, you introduce all these other things that the respect for private life was a lot of the basis under which that, you know, under the 14th amendment and due process that there was this, no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law. And so there's this implied sense of privacy that was a part of this constitutional interpretation that now that it's revoked means that you, all of a sudden, introduce all these complications for how do you start to enforce these laws. You know, through the course of this film, you get these little anecdotes, of like, what happens if you want to cross state lines? Does that mean that the state has the right to give a person a pregnancy test? If they leave when they're pregnant and they come back and they're no longer pregnant, does that mean they're going to be investigated for murder under these new laws? Interstate travel never had checkpoints or anything like that, but now that these laws that are very state-specific are implemented, it implies all these things. If someone has a miscarriage, then they're going to be investigated for murder when this is something that is really in the domain of their own bodily autonomy, and their own medical health. But now all of a sudden, it becomes a matter of the state, which means that it has to be investigated by cops who are going to be inherently suspicious of trying to frame a miscarriage as an abortion. And so you get to hear some of these different anecdotes throughout the course of this film that I think starts to get into more of the complicated messiness of this issue, especially if talking about how, you know, in the astrological tradition, the 9th House is the law and the ways of what the rules are, and that how the 6th House is usually the domain of illness. And so you have the lawyers are making decisions about what kind of medical treatment can be given, because the life has to be a certain level of being in peril or in danger in order for some of these medical abortions to be applied. And so instead of doctors making these decisions, now, all of a sudden, you have lawyers making these decisions. So I felt like there's a lot of really deep philosophical issues that are brought up in this piece that shows the way that this is seen as the people who are taking this conservative impulse to revoke the right to abortions and the right to privacy and autonomy and information, bodily integrity, all these things that we listed here about these human rights, becomes an ethos matter of death. And the life that matters is not the life of the mother, but it’s, the life of the fetus starts to supersede above everything. And so you have this hierarchy where the unborn fetus's life becomes way more important for anything else that's happening with the women. So I felt like this film, by elaborating these little anecdotes and stitching them together, was actually able to quilt together the complicated side effects that now all of a sudden people have to navigate and manage.
[00:15:53.518] Wonder Bright: Yeah, you know, I think it's really true that part of the big problem is that it simplifies it, as if it was just about the mortal life of a fetus, when in reality, there's a lot that happens once you exit the womb. You know, I mean, astrologically, we don't draw the chart for the fetus in the womb. We draw the chart for the moment that we draw our first breath outside of the womb. And that's because that's the moment of birth. That's the moment that life begins. That's the moment where everything colludes and your fates begin to unfold. And, you know, shout out to that wonderful short film that we also watched called Under God, where we have these rabbis and Jewish activists taking action on the basis of that very thing, because in the Jewish religion, the life of the mother is sacred. And so that life would be prioritized. So the Dobbs decision runs contrary to the religious rights of the Jewish religion.
[00:17:03.097] Kent Bye: Yeah, just to elaborate one point on that is that, as Roe v. Wade was revoked, you had, rather than a federal mandate dictating what the law of the land is, you have it going to the states. And so each of these red states have been passing what they called RFRA, which is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. So these are a series of state laws that have been implemented in order to protect religious freedoms. It's essentially a way to circumvent different laws that was mostly intended for Christian religion to be able to not follow different discrimination laws or whatnot. But it's actually been used against them by people from a number of different religions, including Judaism and Muslims. And, you know, this film of Under God was showing how the Jewish faith and Muslim faith actually allow for abortions to happen at certain points. You know, depending on the different sex, they have different times, but no one thinks that birth begins at the very moment of conception. And so there's different moments at which these different religious organizations are using things like the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to say, bypassing this state law, it's actually impeding on our own religious freedoms from these other religions. So they've actually found some success in that. So that was a short doc that was at Sundance called Under God or under G underscore D. I don't know how because I don't think people of the Jewish faith actually pronounce the word God. So it’s, I don't know how they would say it.
[00:18:25.384] Wonder Bright: Yeah, I don't know how they would say it. Yeah, so I mean, clearly, this is, like, a far bigger subject that is deserving of an entire documentary, or two or three, or as many as you can stuff down your gullet. And it's because it's a very complicated issue, which the Dobbs decision simplifies to a degree that we're not hearing in the media, the radical impact that that's having on people all across the country. So if you want more information about how this is playing out, Plan C is a very good place to start. You know, one of the things astrologically that shows up when you look at the astrological chart for the moment in Washington, D.C., when Roe v. Wade was overturned, when it became enacted into law, what we have is a clear indication that the opposition to this decision is organized. It's very stern. It is very clear in the rules. And watching Plan C, I had this sense of like, oh, this is what it is. Like, maybe we should have, you know, there are people who say in the film, we should have done this sooner. We should have been paying attention to these laws sooner. If you've been following Rewire News for the past few years, or if you've been involved in pro-choice, pro-abortion rights at all, you know that this has been brewing for a long time. But it may unfortunately have taken the Dobbs decision to rile up enough people to begin to follow a path. But there are organizations out there that are showing up. And this is a film where you can begin to see what that might look like.
[00:20:19.929] Kent Bye: Yeah, one other astrological signification that I just wanted to call out was this square between Saturn and Uranus and Saturn representing in a lot of ways this more conservative constriction, restriction, boundaries and limits and you kind of see this as this religious right on the one hand, and from January 2020 until November of 2023, according to the Rick Tarnas 15-degree orbs, you have this period where it's being squared by Uranus, meaning that it's liberation, revolution, it's the technology, and so you have this dialectic between the conservative crackdown within these states and this technological innovation of having these pills become available to kind of let a thousand flowers bloom by having these pills be a workaround for many people who are in these situations that would have no other mode to have the healthcare that they want to have. Now, it's a matter of being an illegal decision now that if they decide to get a hold of these pills, they could, in some cases, be prosecuted for murder. But what we saw in the film was everything that they're doing above board to follow the letter of the law, and there's some points when Francine Coeytaux says, “I'm going to do this on my own.” So essentially kind of working behind the scenes to get the pills in the hands of people that are going to need them within these more constricted states, realizing that there's going to be various legal implications that maybe because she's doing it outside of the context of her professional organization, but finding ways to make people aware that this is even an option, but then also people who may be storehousing these pills as an emergency or having these networks of people that are able to have access to self-managed abortions. And also just using cars and finding all sorts of ways, kind of, living up to the letter of the law, you know, as time goes on, there's been more and more restrictions of having to see a doctor and even to get access to the pills. And so the frontline workers providing that information to the people that need it, but then also an economic consideration was that a lot of people may not have funds to travel, or may not have funds to go to another state, or may not even have funds to pay for the pills that they need. You see all these different contextual domains come up in the course of this film that really spread the full spectrum of the human experience that I found particularly interesting in terms of helping to understand the different contextual domains that are being represented and covered in here. And I think all the different ways that this as an issue is impacting our lives on all these different levels.
[00:22:54.837] Wonder Bright: Yeah, when speaking of the technology in the chart for the Dobbs decision, we do have Uranus on the midheaven and Saturn on the descendant, which astrologically signifies that exact Saturn Uranus square that you're talking about that we had the last closest pass to it in September of 2022. So in June, when the Dobbs decision was handed down, it wasn't an exact square, but in the chart for that time, it becomes fraught. Those two planets are the most angular planets, which means that they're extremely vibrant and alive. And with Uranus on the midheaven, you can see how there's a way of looking at it as seeing, not only that this decision was a bit erratic, and, even though we knew it was coming, it's also shocking somehow, and it threatens freedom. And it is also happening in a period of time where technology is such that the kind of defenses and offenses that we have, as pro-choice activists, is very different now than it was in the 60s before Roe v. Wade. So the fact that there’s, like, digital networks, there is, you know, people can get burner phones, they can have this through the post, they can order online, but that there's also danger in doing that because, of course, the new surveillance mechanisms mean that we can be tracked in that way.
[00:24:40.059] Kent Bye: Yeah, just having Google searches, or, you know, the authoritarian restrictions can come up and to be able to actually prosecute people based upon their use of technology, and so while the Uranian impulse can be this liberating force, it can also be, with that square to Saturn, be used for more oppressive authoritarian surveillance, big brother type of use cases where you can look at period trackers and to understand when your last period was, and that could potentially be used against people. I think it goes both ways of both the liberating impulse, but also a tool of oppression in some ways.
[00:25:16.438] Wonder Bright: Right. And so this is something that we're going to be dealing with in the next little bit. So it was very useful, again, to watch these activists on the front line, navigating those things and detailing them. So if you're in a position where you are able to watch this film, it has good information for you. And it also is a really compelling story, well told, where we are introduced to the kind of stamina and vision that it takes to steer the course. And I'm just personally really grateful to have been able to witness this story and to see these people in action.
[00:26:05.343] Kent Bye: Yeah, certainly no lack of badass women in this film. Wonder Bright: No, no lack. Kent Bye: So yeah, I guess as to kind of wrap it up, what would you like to bear witness to?
[00:26:17.705] Wonder Bright: What I would like to bear witness to is the badassery of these activists. What I would like to bear witness to is their conviction, and their clarity around what needs to be done and what they can do. There was a point in the film where I felt really, like, almost demoralized in the way that is the thing that has me not want to watch documentaries, because it's that sense of, like, oh, how can I do this? And I am not a medical person, and I'm terrible at math, and I could never do what these people are doing. And, you know, through the course of watching this film, what showed up for me is, yeah, but I can share about Plan C. I don't know what it is that I can do, but I know that I can have the conviction that I need to follow through when it shows up in my own life, and to bear witness to these activists taking action in the way that they can, and in community with other like-minded individuals. None of these people are doing it alone. They are connected to one another and they're making connections outside themselves. And they are really clear about how they're doing that. And so I think that is going to be something that I take away from witnessing this story, is that capacity to to rise to the occasion when I am called and when I am suited for it. When I do know what to do, I can do it.
[00:27:59.539] Kent Bye: I'm going to plus one to all of that in terms of the fierce courage that all these protagonists in this film are displaying by doing this work. I'd also just want to highlight the complex nature of this topic in terms of all the different aspects of privacy. I just wanted to reiterate this statement from the United Nations Human Rights Council that is naming all these different fundamental human rights that are at stake here, that it's not just the fetus's life that's in the womb, that it's also the life of the mother, and the fundamental human rights for the life of the pregnant person that is about equality, dignity, autonomy, information, bodily integrity, the respect for private life, the highest attainable standard of health, including the sexual and reproductive health, and freedom in decisions about her or their own bodily reproductive functions, and that these basic human rights are around equality, privacy, and bodily integrity, that at the heart of it, these are the core issues that are human rights issues, that they start to elaborate all the ways in which that when you start to revoke this, here's the implications for how we are violating people's human rights. And I think just to bear witness to that as well, that it's a hot button cultural issue, but that actually has these real impacts on people's lives. And I feel like that this film is able to elaborate some of those different dimensions as well. So the film is called Plan C, by Tracy Droz Tragos. And at this point, there's no distribution that's been announced, but hopefully it'll be made available for folks to see at some point. Just want to thank you for joining us on Story All the Way Down. To learn more about this film or the podcast, visit StoryAllTheWayDown.com. There you'll find some show notes, more information about the podcast, and opportunities to support what we're doing. Thanks again for listening.
