Abortion: Add to Cart is a documentary exploring self-managed abortion with mifepristone and misoprostol and the emergence of telehealth.
This short documentary explores the marketplace circumventing regulations to provide abortion pills over the internet. We will follow two storytellers, Alice and Ari through their self-managed abortion experiences. Alice self-managed her abortion through Aid Access, a Dutch organization. Conversely, Ari, a trans-masculine non-binary storyteller, recalls a self-managed abortion experience before these resources were available. We speak with various organizations such as Plan C and If/When/How who support those looking to self-manage. Doctors weigh in on the abortion pill and FDA regulations that prevent it from becoming widely available. Lastly, we investigate the emergence of telehealth, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what the future of abortion looks like.
Featuring Plan C, Aid Access, DKT International, We Testify, Planned Parenthood, If/When/How, and more!
Our Vision
Pregnant people choose to self-manage their abortions for a variety of reasons. For some, it is driven out of necessity due to the increasing financial and logistical barriers to clinic access. For others, the process provides convenience, confidentiality, and control (coined by Plan C) over the abortion process. For marginalized communities, there is a long history of self-managed abortion outside of the healthcare system. For survivors of sexual assault, medical examinations may be triggering for past trauma. For all these reasons and more, we support pregnant people accessing self-managed abortion with a spectrum of different options to allow them as much or as little support as they desire.
The meaning behind our name, “Abortion: Add to Cart”
Our title asks viewers to contemplate the extreme restrictions and gatekeeping of abortion access that continue to make this procedure inaccessible to many. In addition, it challenges viewers to question their assumptions on how abortion should be provided. We envision a future where people have access to these pills with as much or as little support as they need/want. Abortion is a unique and deeply personal process that requires a spectrum of care to allow pregnant people to define their abortion in their own way.