Long ago, middle-aged Leona Gordon opened a Ms. magazine and saw the dead victim of a botched, illegal abortion. With a terrible shock she realized that the naked, blood-spattered corpse was her sister. This documentary examines the significance of the picture, and then offers a profile of the dead woman's life as told by Leona and her friends. Although shocking, the picture became an icon for pro-choice abortion activists. Her sister was Gerri Santoro born to a Connecticut farm family in the 1950s. She was pretty and ...
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Long ago, middle-aged Leona Gordon opened a Ms. magazine and saw the dead victim of a botched, illegal abortion. With a terrible shock she realized that the naked, blood-spattered corpse was her sister. This documentary examines the significance of the picture, and then offers a profile of the dead woman's life as told by Leona and her friends. Although shocking, the picture became an icon for pro-choice abortion activists. Her sister was Gerri Santoro born to a Connecticut farm family in the 1950s. She was pretty and vivacious and while in high school swore that she would find a husband before her best friend did. She ended up marrying Sebastian (Sam) Santoro and having two daughters by him. He was a violent-tempered man who frequently beat her. Later he moved his family to California in hopes that he could stop hurting her, but the abuse continued and Gerri finally took the children and returned to Connecticut. There she met and became sexually involved with the smooth-talking Clyde Dixon. She became pregnant, and because Sam was coming back for her, she decided to abort. But it was 1964 and abortions were illegal. It was Clyde who attempted to perform the operation in a motel room. By the time he finished, 28-year old Gerri was dead. Sandra Brennan, Rovi
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Seller's Description:
Run time: 57 mins. Aspect ratio: 1.33: 1. Originally released: 1995. Language: English. Factory Sealed Brand New DVD The tragic and grisly photograph--a woman on a motel floor, dead after an illegal abortion--stirred a nation and inflamed a movement. Now, LEONA S SISTER GERRI tells the powerful and thought-provoking story of the anonymous woman behind the image and how she became an extraordinary icon for the ever-controversial abortion issue. Through tears and laughter, Gerri Santoro s tale of desperation in the days before legal abortion unfolds in an intimate, unpretentious style (The New York Times) as told by her family and friends. 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 cries out from protest placards as a potent symbol in the struggle for a woman s right to choose. Directed by Jane Gillooly, rousing and all-too-real, LEONA S SISTER GERRI cuts through the leaden rhetoric of one of America s most divisive issues to pay respects to an extraordinary woman and her tale.
