A missed opportunity

Colorful characters lie behind the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision legalizing abortion: the abortionist-turned-pro-lifer who helped found NARAL. A lawyer who obtained an illegal abortion in Mexico while in law school before representing Jane Roe in court. The first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School who also served as the second president of the National Right to Life Committee.

Sadly, the new film Roe v. Wade, available on several streaming platforms, makes little use of them.

Narration by abortionist-turned-protagonist Bernard Nathanson (Nick Loeb) is supposed to emphasize intrigue. Sparing a few exaggerations, it’s all largely factual (including the courtroom wink from pro-abortion Judge Sarah Hughes, secret meetings between the Supreme Court justices, and a Texas attorney’s cringe-worthy joke before the Supreme Court). But the narration mostly succeeds in interrupting the flow.

Still, the film makes important points: Shots reveal aborted babies in buckets and unborn human body parts strewn on a medical tray. Nathanson’s character accurately describes a common method of late-term abortion that involves removing a baby from the womb piece by piece. A more professional depiction of Nathanson’s own gruesome career as an abortionist—he performed an abortion on his girlfriend to kill his own child—could have made for moving scenes.

Mostly unconvincing acting and an awkward script fail to do justice to the drama of the court case. The filmmakers could have opted for a documentary.