'Plan C' Film Documents Campaign for Universal Abortion Pill Access in the U.S.

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‘Plan C’ Film Documents Campaign for Universal Abortion Pill Access in the U.S.
2/1/2023 by Carrie N. Baker

This is one in a series of film reviews from the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, focused on films by women, trans or nonbinary directors that tell compelling stories about the lives of women and girls.


Plan C co-founders Amy Merrill, Francine Coeytaux and Elisa Wells with filmmaker Tracy Droz Tragos (second from left). (Courtesy of Plan C)

As abortion rights have rapidly deteriorated in recent years, reproductive health advocates and activist clinicians across the U.S. have been working hard to increase abortion pill access in all 50 states, even states banning abortion. These advocates are the focus of a new film Plan C that premiered on Jan. 23 at Sundance Film Festival.“Once Roe fell, there was an urgency to get the film done and get it out there,” said director and producer of Plan C, award-winning filmmaker Tracy Droz Tragos, who started working on the film in 2019. “The work of these intrepid activists must be known.” The film focuses on the organization Plan C, which maintains a research-driven directory on their website on how find abortion pills online, with or without telehealth support, and obtain them by mail in all 50 states. Plan C orders abortion pills from online pharmacies based outside the country, tests the medication and lists pharmacies sending quality medication with cost and shipping time. The website also has information about how to use abortion pills and provides referrals to medical and legal hotlines for advice and support.



Abortion pills include two FDA-approved medications: mifepristone, which blocks the pregnancy-sustaining hormone progesterone, and misoprostol, which causes contractions to expel the contents of the uterus. This combination of medications used in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is safe, effective and easy to self-administer. Millions of people around the world living in nations banning abortion safely self-manage their abortions using these pills each year.

Plan C’s co-founder Francine Coeytaux was inspired to create Plan C when she was in Ethiopia in 2014 conducting research on treating postnatal hemorrhage with misoprostol. While there, Coeytaux went into a pharmacy and saw they were selling combination packs of mifepristone and misoprostol over the counter for $5 a package. In the U.S. at the time, abortion pills were available only from certified doctors, who usually charged between $500 and $700 and required in-person appointments. “The discrepancy between what I knew was possible and what was happening here in the U.S. motivated me to found Plan C,” said Coeytaux during a panel discussion at Sundance.

Before founding Plan C, Coeytaux and her co-founder Elisa Wells worked on making the emergency contraceptive Plan B available over the counter. Then they turned to abortion pills, which they called Plan C. Plan B prevents pregnancy, whereas Plan C ends a pregnancy. In addition to sharing information about abortion pills, Plan C recruits healthcare providers to offer telemedicine abortion care with pills—several of whom are in the film. Some offer services from within the U.S., such as Dr. Julie Amaon of Just the Pill, Dr. Razel Ramen of Pills by Post and midwife Christie Pitney of Forward Midwifery. The film also features the work of Dr. Rebecca Gomperts based in Austria, who created Aid Access to provide telehealth abortion services to people in all 50 states.

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Plan C team, advocates and film crew during Q&A after the film screening. (Courtesy of Plan C)







An illuminated truck advertising PlanCPills.org drove around Park City during the Sundance Film Festival. (Carrie N. Baker)



PLAN C was one of 12 films to receive a 2022 Critical Issues Fund grant from Chicken & Egg Pictures for projects exploring pressing issues of the moment that have a material impact on communities.

https://msmagazine.com/2023/02/01/plan-c-abortion-pills-movie-film-sundance/