Event Details
Six community groups have joined together to bring the Oscar-nominated 31-minute documentary, “The Devil Is Busy,” to Muncie for a showing at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 22, at the Community of Hope Church, 1968 W. Main St., in Muncie. The church is located south of the Ball State University L.A. Pittenger Student Center.
The event is free and open to the public. Free parking is available at the church.
The sponsoring organizations are Ball State University’s Feminists for Action, Women4Change Indiana, the League of Women Voters of Muncie-Delaware County, the American Association of University Women – Muncie Branch, Muncie Resists and the Community of Hope Church.
Financial support for the event has been provided by the Unitarian Universalist Church of Muncie through its 1859 Fund.
Path4You and the League of Women Voters of Muncie-Delaware County also will be present to distribute resources in the church’s fellowship hall prior to the screening and panel discussion.
Following the film will be a panel discussion. The panel members will be representatives from the Indiana Task Force; All Options; the Good Trouble Coalition; and Feminists for Action, a Ball State student group.
“The film screening and panel discussion will review ongoing threats to further restrict reproductive rights in the state of Indiana, as well as how those restrictions will disproportionately impact young people,” said Midge Hayward, membership and partnership coordinator, Women4Change Indiana.
The documentary, produced by former national news reporter, Soledad O’Brien, explores the precarious status of abortion care post-Roe v. Wade, and the intersection of race, religion and women’s health.
The main character in the film is a woman who is the head of security at an abortion clinic in Atlanta. The film follows the security guard throughout her workday as she is there to ensure the safety and comfort of women from across the nation seeking care at the clinic.
When Roe v. Wade was overturned, Indiana's General Assembly was the first in the nation to convene a special session and successfully pass a brand-new restrictive abortion bill through the legislature. Indiana’s near-total ban officially took effect on Sept.15, 2022, following subsequent legal challenges and a final ruling by the Indiana Supreme Court upholding the law.
Indiana law makes abortion a criminal act with tight medical exceptions, revokes all abortion clinic licenses and requires any permitted procedures to happen strictly in hospitals or hospital-owned ambulatory surgical centers.
Allowed exceptions for an abortion in Indiana are to save the life of the mother or to prevent a serious health risk to the mother based on a doctor's medical judgment; a lethal fetal anomaly diagnosed prior to 20 weeks of pregnancy; up to 10-week post-fertilization or 12 weeks from last the menstrual period in the case of rape and incest.