Live Free or Die (US Premiere)
Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt, US, 2000, 70m (video, doc)
In a small New England town a doctor practices medicine. An OB-GYN, Dr. Wayne Goldner has delivered over 2,500 babies, and has been marked because he chooses to provide legal abortions. Allowing the filmmakers to follow him for an entire year, Goldner contributed to making this documentary serve as a stinging indictment of the government's inability to protect citizens doing legitimate work. When first encountered, Dr. Goldner is fighting a merger between two local hospitals - one Catholic - that threatens abortion services in the city of Manchester. This brings protestors who, up until then, had seemed content to picket outside his offices, right to the doorstep of his home, as well as to the local junior high school where Wayne teaches a sex education class. In order to get rid of the protestors, the school board gets rid of Wayne, banning him from giving the class at school. As the film follows his fight to be reinstated, it becomes apparent that while most of the town supports abortion rights and Dr. Goldner's work, few want to confront the right-to-lifers and the controversy they bring with them.
* Premieres nationally on P.O.V., September 26, 10 PM ET on PBS. (check local listings)
Thurs June 22, 3:15;
Sat June 24, 7:00;
Sun June 25, 3:30;
Mon June 26, 1:00