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Leona's Sister Gerri Reviews

1995
0 hr 57 mins
Documentary
NR

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Gerri was a tree-climbing kid who grew up on the family farm, then a spirited adolescent, a young wife, and later the devoted mother of two little girls. But she was also a battered wife who suffered years of abuse before eventually leaving her husband and returning to Connecticut. There Gerri became pregnant by a lover who agreed to perform an abortion and then left her when the operation went awry. Nine years later, in 1973, Ms. magazine published the heart-wrenching photo, which even now crie

In 1973, a gruesome photograph of a dead woman -- the victim of a botched abortion -- appeared in Ms. magazine and helped to galvanize the pro-choice movement. Jane Gillooly's earnest documentary seeks to reconstruct the life of that woman, the titular Gerri, through interviews, footage and family photographs. It's a grim tale, but it's sensitively told and blessedly free of preaching.