'WE HAVE HAD AN ABORTION' - THE END OF THE SILENCE

6 June 1971. In German magazine “Stern”, 374 women – including feminist Alice Schwarzer and actresses Senta Berger and Romy Schneider – declared that they had had an abortion in earlier years. It was a day that will go down in history, a day when Germany was turned on its head.

Factory workers, teachers, students, housewives and nine prominent actresses all signed this appeal: “ … millions of women have abortions – under degrading and life-threatening conditions. I am one of them – I have had an abortion …”. This was an extremely courageous avowal, not least since abortions were still illegal at the time. Shortly before this, 343 women, among them film director Agnès Varda and actresses Cathérine Deneuve and Jeanne Moreau, had confronted the French public with this taboo issue by means a campaign entitled “Je me suis fait avorter”.

40 years later, this film revisits some of these German women and examines how this campaign changed their lives. In doing so, the film portrays the customs and morals of four decades of the Federal Republic, where, at the time of writing, conservative forces are once again forcing the issue of abortion back into the political arena.

Director: Birgit Schulz & Annette Zinkant
Camera: Steffen Bohn, Barthold Strohmeyer
Sound: Andrä Klaukien
Editor: Oliver Held

Production Manager: Monika Mack, Rolf Bremenkamp

Commissioning Editor: Claudia Cellarius (NDR/arte)


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