'On Hostile Ground' Addresses Abortion

Author: Jocey Florence

A documentary depicting the troubles as well as moral, religious and emotional challenges faced by abortion doctors was screened in Twilight Auditorium Sunday. The film, entitled "On Hostile Ground," portrayed the "civil war" between abortion clinic employees and pro-life activists in the United States. This antagonism was brought to the public's awareness in the wake of the murder of Dr. Bernard Slepian, an abortion doctor who practiced in Buffalo, N.Y. The film shadows three doctors whose services include providing abortions.
The first character presented was Dr. Richard Stunz, who lives in Baltimore but each week commutes to Alabama to perform abortions in areas where no doctors are willing to perform them. The pro-life movement is extremely strong in Alabama, a state where, as an assistant of Stunz summed up, "even those who dispense birth control are picketed." As a result of the intense opposition to abortion doctors, Stunz said he could not live a safe life in Alabama and instead must continue to live in Baltimore and commute three days a week.
The second character is Dr. Susan Cahill, a physician's assistant at a small-town practice in Montana whose office was firebombed by a pro-life protester in 1993. Cahill faced another hardship in 1994 when the state legislature passed a law that prohibited physician's assistants from performing abortions. Cahill began a six-year legal quest by challenging the law in the Montana Supreme Court, an effort that forced the law's repeal in 1999.
The third, and perhaps most intriguing, character is Dr. Morris Wortman of Rochester, N.Y. With a practice located just an hour from the city where Dr. Slepian was murdered, Wortman viewed the crime as a call to action to all members of the communities touched by the murder. Wortman is the most vocal activist of the three and appeared on television and in the local newspapers after the pro-life owner of the office building in which he practiced evicted him.
The film depicts the responses of all three to the murder of Slepian: Stunz wears a bullet proof vest to work on days that he knows there will be protests outside of his office, Cahill keeps her blinds closed at home and Wortman, for whom the murder hit closest to home, carries a gun and has installed an advanced security system in his home to protect his wife and daughter. Nevertheless, all three believe that they have made a commitment to a cause worthy of the risk.
Their reasons for committing so strongly to the cause are as varied as their lifestyles. Stunz stated that he tries to live his life like a good Christian, thus "living his life how Jesus Christ lived his ... It is un-Christian to not allow people to make choices for themselves." Cahill recognized the need of her often poverty-stricken patients to make a choice about the size of their families. Wortman, whose immigrant mother tried to perform an abortion on herself when she was pregnant with him, cited the guilt that his mother carried her whole life for not being able to care for him properly when he was young.
Although the film was a bit repetitive at times, it did an excellent job of giving the battle over abortion a tangible and human face. It also emphasized the steadily declining number of abortion providers in the United States. In a country where 43 percent of women will have an abortion in their lifetimes, 84 percent of U.S. counties lack abortion clinics. This statistic, as well as the high-risk of abortion doctors' profession were two of the most startling aspects of the film. The director intends the film to raise the American public's consciousness about issues surrounding abortion, and it seems to have succeeded so far.
The Middlebury College Film and Media Culture Program, the Women's and Gender Studies Program and Ross Commons sponsored the event. Co-director Liz Mermin presented the film and led a discussion following the screening.