Soledad O’Brien and Maya Eaglin Join Free & Just at Oscar-Nominated Documentary Film Screening in New York City
***WATCH HERE***
NEW YORK, NY –– Last week, award-winning journalists Soledad O'Brien and MS Now’s Maya Eaglin joined Free & Just at an exclusive screening of the Oscar-nominated HBO documentary, The Devil Is Busy. The film, which was directed by Geeta Gandbhir and Christalyn Hampton and produced by O’Brien, follows a day on the frontlines at an Atlanta abortion clinic, and offers a searing, intimate portrait of what it takes to keep patients safe in post-Roe America.
Following the screening, Soledad, Maya, and Tracii, the clinic’s head of security at the center of the film, hosted an important conversation about abortion access after the fall of Roe, and the power of storytelling in shaping the country's understanding of what's at stake for reproductive freedom.
“We certainly knew that big changes were going to come after Roe v. Wade. Before we started the project, we began with thinking about what we were going to do, what our point of view was, and the story we wanted to tell. As a reporter, I’ve done a lot of stories on abortion protesters and the latest political updates. In this particular story, once we had Tracii, we knew we had the center of this story,” said Soledad Obrien. “The story is about the people. Most of the time if you're really looking into storytelling you've got to go around and outside of the institutions. It's not going to be the people who are debating on a TV show. It's going to be somebody who is at the center of the debate, but their story has yet to be told.”
“I did a roundtable for Morning Joe a couple of months ago to discuss the choice for young people to have a family or not. One of the women who spoke was based in Louisiana, a state with some of the strictest abortion laws in the country. She wanted to be a mother so desperately, but medically could not bring her baby to term. There's a requirement in Louisiana that no matter how the baby leaves a mother's body, sometimes you have to have a documented funeral and report that to the state. I never would have guessed that,” said Maya Eaglin. “Just having a conversation about, ‘do you want to be a mom? Do you want to be a dad?’ takes a level of trust. You quickly see how connected all the threads are to this topic of women's healthcare, and it starts with an amazing storyteller like Tracii.”
You can watch the panel conversation here. If you are interested in speaking with any of the participants in the event, or learning more about Free & Just’s work, please contact kelly@freeandjust.us.
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