Okay, before you leave, kind of talk to me just for a second.
My name is Tonya. I'm a registered nurse. I used to do mama baby nursing.
I can tell you how abortion is going to hurt you. You'll never be the same again.
When I started filming Trapped, my film about the struggles of abortion providers in the South,
I never thought I'd meet a protestor like Tanya.
In the Black community, most people describe themselves as religious,
and even if they don't personally support abortion,
they also describe themselves as pro-choice.
I'm the media spokesperson for pro-life Mississippi.
The pro-life side has won.
We've already won.
How did you involved with Pro-life Mississippi?
I had gone to Saturday morning Mass, and someone came up to me and said,
would you like to go and pray at the abortion clinic with us?
I said sure, and I went out to the clinic,
and I saw a picture of an aborted baby,
and I fell on my knees, and I wept. I couldn't I could not believe I had an abortion,
when I was coming along, and it was at that time that I realized what I had done.
I weep for women who are gonna go down the same road that I go down,
and I know how painful it is.
At the time what made you think that you could--
Fear.
What were you afraid of?
Everything. You name it. I was scared.
Were you married?
No. If I had been married, I wouldn't have been
afraid of anybody finding out about my fornication, you know,
which is a large part of why women have abortions, okay.
Can't let anybody know I was doing that. Ooo, can't let anybody know I'm pregnant,
and I'm not married okay?
You know, just fear and trying to keep the secret.
Who's ready for motherhood, you know, who's ready? No one's ready,
but you accept, you accept,
and we're talking about money and a babysitter.
My dad was a family medicine doctor. Then I have several cousins who are physicians.
The Black community is lukewarm.
I've got people in my family that got so angry with me when I started doing pro-life work.
They're sitting on the fence. With abortion,
there is no middle ground.
Be hot or be cold, but if you're lukewarm,
God will literally vomit you out of his mouth, you know, make up your mind.
Choose good or choose evil.
There's so much about Tonya that's really fascinating to me.
She has family members who are pro-choice, family members who are physicians, just like I do,
but when I think about how she told me it's just about money and a babysitter,
I get really upset.
According to the Guttmacher Institute,
fifty nine percent of American women who have abortions are already mothers.
They know how hard the job is.
It took me 10 hours to get to this clinic.
My area of Mississippi, it didn't have a clinic for abortion,
so I had to look someone, my hometown where I'm from to see if they would do it for me,
but they told me I was too far along.
A lot of people are stopping it 9 weeks, in 12 weeks and I'm 17.
Right now, I'm kind of relying on government assistance until I find a job.
I just don't have the money for the abortion. That's why
it took me so long.
It's 460.
I paid 600 total. I just had a birthday, so I took some of the birthday money I had.
and it was also a fear. Like my mom, she doesn't believe in abortion.
I have a six-month-old baby.
It's just a lot that goes into taking care of one child, let alone two.
I said I can't do it. I can't do it again, not by myself.
Like my child's father, he's not involved,
and he should be.
Before I came, I was kind of scared like, I hope it's not a sketchy clinic.
But everybody's so nice. The place is clean.
What I want to do is give you some medicine, put it in you have them put it in your cheeks.
Just put it in your cheeks. Don't swallow it.
Yeah. Yep, just put it in your cheek.
Well I wasn't really planning on staying as long as I did.
When I came in Tuesday, I thought that I was gonna be gone by Thursday, which was yesterday,
but it didn't happen like that.
When I first came in, it was a lotta girls in here,
like if you tried to schedule them first-come first-serve,
and I had to wait until today to get the procedure done.
Now deep breaths. Your cervix is dilated, the way I need it to be,
so this is when you start to feel something pulling.
Gloria, the operator of this clinic, I'm happy that she fought to keep it open.
A lot of young ladies like me don't have a second chance,
even look to other places to get this done,
so I'm kind of happy about that.
My situation I have back home with my kid is all I'm thinking about.
I'm sorry. I'm about to start crying, but um
I just want him to be better than me.
I kind of went through it back growing up or whatever
for my parents, you know, I just want him to be better than me.
Like, I was in the streets a lot. I've actually just kind of sort of got out the streets,
like, years ago. I just want him to be better than me.
I'm a big believer in God as Jesus Christ, and only God can judge you.
He knows where your heart is,
so you just do what you need to do.
I live in Montgomery. Not only do I work at my home church where I grew up in,
I still live in the same house I grew up in.
There's nothing like home you know,
and I think the greatest thing is to be able to be home.
Oh you're still in high school? You finished high school?
When I introduce myself to the women,
I tell them that I am my wife since a day in Minister you know,
and I'm not here to force anything on anybody,
and I feel that my role here is not to judge anybody, but to let them know that hey God forgive you.
We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God,
but God is a forgiving God, you know.
Whatever reason, you know, you feel this was the best decision for you,
so you know, you got to be able to.
God forgives us, but the thing is sometimes we can't forgive ourself,
so you got to forgive yourself and you got to find peace in a time of a storm okay?
My experience and my relationship with Christ makes a big difference in the recovery room
because with women you know having that hard time, and I had the opportunity to minister
to them and stuff. They appreciate that.
Good morning, reproductive health services. How may I help you?
All right.
God gave us choice.
No one had the right to take that choice from anyone you know,
I feel you don't have to agree with it,
but the person gets to have their choice to make their own decisions.
The protesters say that I'm wrong you know said you know,
but just because you close a clinic,
that's not gonna change the fact that women are gonna still have abortions,
and I think you need to be more concerned that they gonna have it in a safe place
where they're gonna get the treatment that they need and the care that they need
versus in a back alley and a dark room or someone that don't really know what they're doing.
Let him without sin cast the first stone.
None of us know what tomorrow holds,
so if you wake up in the morning,
and you don't have that bank account like you
have now and something what happened to one of your kids
what would you want? How would you feel?
You ready?
If you have never lived it, then you need to think about, you know,
hey what can I do to help someone else? And making it hard is not helping.
Working on this film, I realized I actually had no idea what my mother thought about abortion.
Like most kids, you think you know everything,
but I realized I had never asked her.
Okay, don't say anything. I know I never told you this,
so I'm gonna say when I was around 40,
we're talking 30 years ago, you must have just started college,
and I discovered that I was pregnant.
I went to the doctor. I think I was about somewhere between four and six weeks.
Wow I never knew that.
There's a lot of stuff you don't know,
but I'm telling you now. It was a very hard time for us economically.
I had four children who were late teenagers.
We had unbelievable financial troubles at that time.
We didn't know if we were gonna be able to make, you know, the house payment the next week,
and it just seemed like just too overwhelming,
and we made a decision to have an abortion.
It was really a hard decision.
You know, what I was thinking is my father died, my stepfather remarried when I was a teenager.
He had two children, so we had this blended family and all of us always wished we had, I don't know,
why, we always wanted you to have a baby.
Did you know that?
No, but don't tell me that now.
Still to this day, when I look at all of you,
I think in terms of what this child would have been to you at this age.
Like this child would be 30 now.
I look at my grandchildren, and I will tell you it's something that never has gone away.
It's funny that all the talks about abortion,
I don't really think about my abortion,
but what makes me think about my abortion are my children and my grandchildren,
and I just will probably never get over it.
Are you religious?
I am very religious.
How do you reconcile faith and your choice?
I believe that God is forgiving.
I think that people use God to justify whatever they want it to justify,
but I don't think that God or Jesus really would chastise anyone.
I think that God and Jesus would be pro-choice.
Me too.