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Show 228 Kim Armston Numb is a screenplay following the ordeal of Sarah, a girl in her early twenties, who struggles to escape a verbally and sexually abusive relationship. She finds herself pregnant-a result of rape within the relationship-and is forced to leave her abusive partner. Not only does he deny any responsibility, but demands that she terminate the pregnancy. Lacking support from both her family and his, and after recently losing her own absent father, Sarah struggles with the most dif-ficult decision of her life-whether or not to have an abortion. After her abortion Sarah cuts ties with her former life and moves away to a different country and new job in the hope of starting a new life, but her past shadows her as she struggles to forgive herself. She experiences denial, grief, depression and anger-the several stages of PASS (Post Abortion Stress Syndrome), and after drinking heavily in order to combat this inner turmoil she finally realizes that she is only destroying herself. A future can only exist when she accepts the past and begins to heal. Sarah then makes a conscious decision to start the healing process and discover peace. Numb is Sarah's story, but an example of what many women experience when faced with the question of abortion. No decision is easy or simple, and especially not one to abort a child, but sometimes, despite how awful a decision it is to make, it may still be the right one. More often than not women are judged from afar. Sarah's is the voice of these unheard women. NUMB Kim Armston (Paul Larsen) Department of Film and Media Arts University of Utah honors college spring 2012 |