Documentary Project: After Tiller

    

    This week in class, we were introduced to a new project: the documentary project. I picked the documentary "After Tiller" as my project.  I found this documentary very educating. I didn't completely agree with everything but I feel like I learnt a lot. The documentary is about doctors who perform late trimester abortions and Peoples reaction to it. 

The specific scene that got to me was the scene where a lady and her husband were discussing with the doctor who carries out the abortion about getting an abortion. I really felt downhearted because, I don't support abortion for needless reasons but at this point I could see why it was imperative. The couple previously went for an Ante-natal were they found out that the unborn child had Arthrogryposis. This is a condition where the baby's joints won't function normally and the doctor explained that their baby would never be able to walk or do everyday task and will need help doing everything. It's a really difficult decision to make but I honestly feel like the couple’s decision to get an abortion was not wrong because considering the fact that the baby would come into the world suffering, needing help to eat, not being able to do sports, run and have fun like other kids would be very difficult. The couples didn't want to get an abortion but they believed it was the best thing for their daughter. I felt unhappy for them because they wanted the child but I could understand their reason. It wouldn't be nice for them to have the child and have her suffer for the rest of her life, going through multiple surgeries. Personally, I know a lady who had a special child with fetal defects and she said if she had known her child would suffer this much and still die, she would have had an abortion.

I was really shocked by the murder of George Tiller and the attitude of people towards his death because, he is a human being and he didn't deserve to diet; let's think of it the people who didn't support abortion wanted to protect lives so how can they justify George's Tiller death. People said "God bless the Gunmen who shot doctor Tiller". That really caught me off guard because murdering Tiller does not make the situation any better. Most people in the documentary are very hypocritical about the situation because if they found themselves in a situation where their unborn child had fatal birth defects, they probably would have done the same thing. I feel like if people take into consideration the reason for an abortion they wouldn't completely detest it. It is a choice to decide to have an abortion; you can't take away someone else alternative because you feel it wrong. Life is about making choices.

So far, this documentary is very absorbing, one of the questions that stayed on my mind after viewing the documentary was, Is late trimester abortion legal or illegal? Is it ethical or unethical? Why do others condemn abortions when they do not understand the reason behind it? After seeing the documentary, I felt really sad for George Tiller because people made their decision to get late abortions and he was just doing his job as a doctor. He didn't force or persuade any of the patients to have the abortions. He was in a way helping and doing his part and he didn't deserve to be murdered.

We should avoid including research in our summary because it could lead to being biased and it could take away our focus from the main point. summaries aren't supposed to include personal opinions and conclusion so including research which is someone’s else opinion could derail our attention from summarizing the documentary and instead summarize the research.