Why Cit­i­zen Ruth has nev­er felt more prescient

In 1973 the Unit­ed States Supreme Court made a rul­ing that pro­tect­ed abor­tion as a con­sti­tu­tion­al right in Amer­i­ca. The land­mark case, known as Roe v. Wade, was brought to the country’s high­est court after Nor­ma McCor­vey chal­lenged a law in Texas that pre­vent­ed her from choos­ing whether or not to go through with the preg­nan­cy of what would be her third child. The court ruled in her favor and the deci­sion would take prece­dence over every law in Amer­i­ca that pro­hib­it­ed the prac­tice out­right – until now. 

The U.S. Supreme Court is com­prised of nine judges appoint­ed for a life­time term by the sit­ting Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, so rul­ings tend to go with the polit­i­cal major­i­ty of the court’s make­up. Don­ald Trump was able to appoint three judges dur­ing his pres­i­den­cy, bring­ing the total of Repub­li­can-appoint­ed jus­tices to six out of nine, which explains in part why Roe v. Wade was suc­cess­ful­ly over­turned on Fri­day 24 June, almost 50 years after it was enshrined to pro­tect the rights of peo­ple who need access to abortions.

The Amer­i­can debate over abor­tion nev­er went away to begin with – the country’s pop­u­la­tion remains com­plete­ly divid­ed on whether a per­son with a uterus has the right to make deci­sions about their own body despite the court pre­vi­ous­ly declar­ing that a con­sti­tu­tion­al protection. 

This sta­t­ic dis­pute is per­fect­ly framed in a two-line exchange from Alexan­der Payne’s under­rat­ed and often for­got­ten fea­ture film Cit­i­zen Ruth (1996). Speak­ing to a clan of self-pro­claimed ​“Baby Savers,” the title char­ac­ter express­es her inten­tion of hav­ing an abor­tion and pro­claims ​“I’m a woman and my body belongs to me, right?” The leader of the group responds by scream­ing ​“Your body belongs to God!”

Star­ring Lau­ra Dern in her great­est per­for­mance, Cit­i­zen Ruth cen­ters around the indi­gent Ruth Stoops who finds her­self caught in a tug of war between the two polar extremes of the pro-choice and pro-life move­ments of the Unit­ed States. After Ruth is arrest­ed for the six­teenth time with­in eigh­teen months for huff­ing patio sealant, the irate Judge Richter (David Graf) informs her that she’s being charged with endan­ger­ing a fetus after a blood test deter­mines she’s preg­nant. At this point, Ruth has already sur­ren­dered four of her chil­dren to the state due to her uncon­trol­lable addic­tion issues, so the judge pri­vate­ly sug­gests out­side the court­room that she ​“do us all a favor and go take care of this prob­lem” and the charges will be dropped. 

While cold-turkey detox­ing on the jail room floor, she prays to God to help her. The film goes so far as to sug­gest her prayer has been answered as a bell goes off and a group of singing pro-life fanat­ics enter the hold­ing cell with her. They lis­ten to her sto­ry which leads to her being tak­en in by a fam­i­ly of sub­ur­ban­ite bible thumpers who are intent on con­vinc­ing Ruth to com­plete the preg­nan­cy. Ruth even­tu­al­ly finds her­self among the pro-choice camp as the media whirl­wind cov­er­age of her sit­u­a­tion esca­lates to a nation­al lev­el pulling her in every direc­tion. She wavers a bit on whether or not she wants to have the baby as both sides seek to incen­ti­fy her deci­sion, ulti­mate­ly deter­min­ing mon­ey as a prime persuader.

Despite the grim premise and loaded sub­ject mat­ter, the film is a larg­er-than-life comedic satire. While ini­tial­ly dip­ping a toe into the harsh real­i­ties of drug abuse in the open­ing min­utes, every­thing that fol­lows is most­ly played for laughs. Like most Alexan­der Payne films, the heart of the movie is real­ly in the ego­tis­tic nature of the char­ac­ters them­selves rather than the absurd Amer­i­cana back­drop they occu­py. The film isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly look­ing to change anyone’s mind about the ethics of abor­tion, but it does have a lot to say about the lead­ers of the oppos­ing movements.

Rep­re­sent­ing the Chris­t­ian pro-life right is Norm Stoney (Kurt­wood Smith), the patri­arch of the fam­i­ly that first takes Ruth in. He’s a pil­lar of the com­mu­ni­ty who fan­cies him­self as an all-Amer­i­can hum­ble ser­vant of the Lord who runs a church ser­vice in his liv­ing room. On the pro-choice left is Diane Siegler (Swoosie Kurtz). She lives on a farm com­pound with her part­ner Rachel (played by the late and unrec­og­niz­able Kel­ly Pre­ston) where they chant fem­i­nine ado­ra­tions at the moon. While on dif­fer­ent sides of the issue, both Stoney and Siegler define them­selves as right­eous do-good­ers. Their real pas­sion is being seen and hon­ored as heroes, so when their efforts to assist Ruth for their devout Cause are met with Ruth’s gen­er­al apa­thy, their true char­ac­ter and resent­ment can bare­ly be contained.

Ruth, on the oth­er hand, has no reli­gious cru­sade or agen­da of her own oth­er than she just wants to get real­ly high as often as pos­si­ble. She’s crass, self­ish, emo­tion­al­ly stunt­ed, con­sis­tent­ly stu­pid, and at one point she even punch­es a child – yet Ruth is some­how the most lik­able char­ac­ter in the film. This is in no small part due to Lau­ra Dern’s aston­ish­ing­ly sym­pa­thet­ic and icon­ic por­tray­al of the derelict drug-addict­ed vagrant. Dern has a vac­u­um-sealed grasp of who this per­son is and depicts her with­out any wink­ing con­de­scen­sion or whiff of judg­ment. The rea­son the film works, the rea­son why you are able to laugh, is because Dern oper­ates on a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent lev­el than every­one else around her, hav­ing the time of her life sink­ing her teeth into Ruth’s emo­tion­al chaos and drug-induced out­bursts. Ruth nev­er pre­tends to be any­one oth­er than her­self which can­not be said about the zealots sur­round­ing her.

If Cit­i­zen Ruth is try­ing to make any point, it can be found in a quick scene at the end of the film, where Ruth finds her­self trapped in an abor­tion clin­ic sur­round­ed by a mass of pro­tes­tors from both sides. As she tries to find a way to escape, it becomes clear that there’s no way of get­ting around the crowd. In an act of des­per­a­tion, she sim­ply decides to walk through the assem­bly. No one stops her and no one seems to even rec­og­nize her – she slips away anony­mous­ly, as if no one was real­ly con­cerned about her to begin with. It’s this truth that often feels for­got­ten amid polit­i­cal jock­ey­ing around abor­tion: those who will suf­fer most from los­ing their repro­duc­tive rights are the most dis­en­fran­chised, often not heard with­in the debate. 

The cru­el deci­sion made by the Supreme Court will undoubt­ed­ly impact the most vul­ner­a­ble with­in Amer­i­can soci­ety – as Alexan­der Sanger, grand­son of Planned Par­ent­hood founder Mar­garet Sanger, said in a recent street inter­view, ​“You can­not make abor­tion go away by crim­i­nal­iz­ing it. All you do is make it unsafe.”

If you are in the Unit­ed States and require help with repro­duc­tive care, vis­it­ed Planned Par­ent­hood to find out more. NNAF is rais­ing funds to sup­port safe access to abor­tion for women, regard­less of loca­tion, across the Unit­ed States.