'The Other Roe' Film Shines a Light on Forgotten Abortion-Rights Case Doe v. Bolton

‘The Other Roe’ Film Shines a Light on Forgotten Abortion-Rights Case Doe v. Bolton


PUBLISHED 4/15/2026 by Ava Slocum
Roe v. Wade was only half the story. A new short documentary spotlights the case that made abortion rights real in practice.



Producer-director Wendy Eley Jackson (left) interviewing Donia Hames Robinson (right) for The Other Roe.

On June 24, 2026, we’ll reach the fourth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. This year, which would have been Roe’s 53rd anniversary, also coincides with the United States’ 250th, reminding us that while the U.S. has been independent since 1776, American women are still far from having full rights and power over our own bodies. Roe v. Wade, which passed in 1973 and stood for 49 years, gets most of the credit for establishing the national right to abortion. Many people think of Roe as the first big bookend ushering in the right to abortion in the U.S., with Dobbs as the other bookend taking that right away again.





Doe v. Bolton, Roe v. Wade’s lesser-known companion case, was argued before the Supreme Court in 1973 the same day as Roe and was equally crucial to abortion rights in the United States.
Poster for The Other Roe, designed by Art Sims.


However, Roe wasn’t the only groundbreaking case that paved the way for abortion rights in the U.S.
While Roe established the constitutional right to abortion, Doe—argued by Atlanta attorney Margie Pitts Hames—helped ensure that the right was actually accessible, by striking down restrictive Georgia rules on who could obtain an abortion and under what conditions. The Other Roe, a new short (16 minutes) documentary that debuted at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in February, tells the story of Doe v. Bolton and how Hames argued the case and expanded women’s access to reproductive healthcare across the country at a time when few women were practicing law. Doe overturned the restrictive abortion laws in Georgia at the time (which allowed abortion only in very limited circumstances and required the procedure to be approved in writing by three physicians), giving medical professionals and facilities the authority to perform safe abortions. “A lot of people have never even heard of [Doe v. Bolton],” Donia Hames Robinson, Margie Pitt Hames’ daughter, told Ms. in a recent interview, along with Wendy Eley Jackson, The Other Roe’s director, and abortion-rights activist Ann Rose, an executive producer for the film.



“There’s a sister case, and the only folks who really know that are lawyers or judges, so we’re trying to educate them.”
Margie Pitt Hames, Ann Rose and Donia Hames Robinson in the early ’80s. (Courtesy of Ann Rose)

Even though Hames had frequent media appearances in the 1970s, Robinson, Jackson and Rose struggled to find footage of her speaking or even more general information about Doe v. Bolton while they were working on the film. They were startled to find no preserved interviews with either Hames or Sarah Weddington, the attorney who argued Roe v. Wade at just 26 years old, from January 1973, when the Supreme Court decided the two cases.



“We’re trying to raise consciousness, but we’re also trying to slowly dig into what else is being hidden,” Robinson explained. “We don’t want our side of the story—the truth, what actually happened—to be ignored. So we’re trying to let people know before it gets all erased.”
Margie Pitt Hames and Ann Rose. (Courtesy of Ann Rose)

Even in the abortion activism community, few people know about Doe. “I used to own and run abortion clinics, so I know clinic owners and people all over the country, and very few of them have heard,” Rose said. “I go to national meetings, and I say, ‘Doe is a companion case to Roe v. Wade,’ and they’re like, ‘What?’” Why did Roe v. Wade become ingrained in the public conscience while Doe v. Bolton went largely ignored? “Inside legal circles, Roe was seen as the opinion and laid out the constitutional doctrine, while Doe clarifies implementation,” Jackson said. “Scholars and courts cited Roe more often because it articulated the broader reasoning without getting into more of a micro look.” Pro-abortion and antiabortion activists alike quickly latched onto Roe as a symbol of abortion’s being made legal in the U.S., and the case provided both a tangible sign of how far the abortion-rights movement had come and a target for the antiabortion movement’s “Overturn Roe” rallying cry.



“Human memory prefers stories with one turning point, one decision and one name, and they capitalized on that,” Jackson said.
Ann Rose, Margie Pitt Hames and reproductive rights pioneer Bill Baird at the March for Women’s Lives. (Courtesy of Ann Rose)

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Margie Pitt Hames, Bella Abzug (founder of the National Women’s Political Caucus) and Ann Rose. (Courtesy of Ann Rose)

These days, The Other Roe is making rounds in the film festival circuit, including heading to the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival this month. “We’re trying to expand the conversation, get the younger generations really engaged, because, frankly, I don’t know how I got half my rights,” said Jackson, who said she’s frustrated that now, in 2026, her daughters don’t have the same rights she grew up with. “It’s kind of a time right now, with a lot going on, where we need to really start investigating our rights and taking them seriously, fighting for them, really understanding what they mean and the power they hold, and that our ability to live in a free society is a fragile thing. It’s important for us to understand our rights and the community that we live in so we can make the choices that we want to have to build the society that we’re looking for.”

The Other Roe’s trailer is available here () and upcoming screenings and other events are listed on the film’s website.

https://msmagazine.com/2026/04/15/the-other-roe-film-doe-v-bolton-abortion-rights-history-margie-pitts-hames/