Award-winning journalist and executive producer Soledad O’Brien joins Mini Timmaraju on My Body. My Pod. to talk about her Oscar-nominated HBO documentary short “The Devil is Busy” that takes viewers inside a health clinic in Atlanta, where staff provide abortion care under relentless threats and a restrictive abortion ban.
Told through Tracii, the clinic’s head of security, the film captures the everyday reality of accessing reproductive health care in states with abortion bans: constant safety protocols, providers weighing medical care against their legal risks, patients navigating fear and anxiety.
The film shows just how arbitrary and devastating abortion bans can be. In one ultrasound room, there’s relief when a patient learns she is still within the state’s limit to receive abortion care. In another moment, there’s devastation when a patient is turned away at six weeks and one day. The difference of a single day determines whether someone can receive medical care or not.
Mini and Soledad talk about how that “difference a day makes” echoes throughout the film—and what it reveals about the real-life consequences of abortion bans.
The conversation goes deeper into the big picture: why clinic protections like the FACE Act exist (and how it’s being misused by the Trump administration), how abortion bans deepen maternal health care deserts in Georgia, and why storytelling is one of the most powerful tools we have to inspire change and combat misinformation.
And importantly, the episode gets at something we don’t talk about enough: how policy actually lands on people. Abortion bans aren’t abstract political debates—they directly shape people’s lives, their health, their families, and their futures.
Georgia shows us something else too: we are not helpless here. We can fight back ... and win!
Thanks to the organizing work of Reproductive Freedom for All, Georgia voters prevented a Republican supermajority in the State House in 2024—a critical win and no small feat. With leaders like Senator Jon Ossoff and reproductive freedom champions across the state, the fight for access and accountability is very much alive.
This documentary shows what actually happens inside an abortion clinic—the hardships that abortion bans create for patients, providers, and communities.
Episode recorded on February 23, 2026
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