Atlanta abortion clinic focus of Oscar-nominated doc ‘The Devil is Busy’

“Only two Black directors were nominated for Oscars this year: Ryan Coogler (for ‘Sinners”) and Christalyn,” said Soledad O’Brien, the former Atlanta-based CNN anchor and reporter who produced the film. “I couldn’t be prouder.”

When Roe v. Wade — the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled pregnant women could choose to get an abortion — was about to end in 2022, the producers received funding to film an abortion-related movie.

At first, they thought they might thread stories together from multiple clinics. But Hampton said she found Tracii to be a compelling focal subject: earnest, diligent, thorough and empathetic to the patients who flow through the building all day in the face of regular protests.

“Thank goodness for Tracii as the first line of defense,” Hampton said in a Zoom interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “She has to do that every single day to protect these women. Her courage is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

Hampton was also drawn to the clinic because its staff is largely women of color. She also made sure the film crew was all women of color to help ensure the employees and patients who chose to be filmed felt comfortable with the cameras.

“Then you have the protesters, who are mostly white males,” she said last month at a screening of the film at Spelman College. “This was an interesting dynamic. I was on the phone with the clinic and kept hearing background noise. Those were the protesters. You could hear them even from inside the building.”

Indeed, the protesters, who use public property bordering the clinic, become the unavoidable soundtrack of the entire film. With bullhorns, they chastise and berate women seeking services, repeatedly comparing abortion to murder and telling the women they were going to hell, sometimes citing Scripture.

Credit: HBO MAX

Credit: HBO MAX

Tracii herself is deeply religious, providing a nuanced look at how different people view morality and spirituality. She begins and ends each workday with a prayer.

“I rely heavily on my faith while I’m here, because the devil is busy out there,” she said during the doc, which inspired the film’s title. “You use race, you use sex, as a weapon against women. But there’s no accountability of who you are and what you do as a man, that you want to try to control someone.”

Tracii herself had an abortion when she was younger. Later, she got married and became pregnant with twins but went into early labor at six months and lost both of them.

Credit: HBO MAX SCREENSHOT

Credit: HBO MAX SCREENSHOT

To the cameras, she wonders if God cursed her for having that abortion, leaving her divorced and childless. But she has worked through the sadness that thought evokes and focuses on her purpose in life at the clinic: “Everybody deserves to know that they matter, and if we have a conversation here and I don’t ever hear from you again, know that you matter to me. I try to leave that with every guest because that’s the way God blesses me so I can bless other people.”

The clinic, off an I-85 Access road in Atlanta, has had to reduce its pregnancy termination services since a Georgia law went into effect in 2022 that bans most abortions six weeks after conception. This forces many Georgia women to drive to other states, such as North Carolina, where abortion is allowed for up to 12 weeks.

For all clinics that offer abortion services, the specter of violence is real. According to the National Abortion Federation, there have been at least 42 facility bombings, more than 200 arsons and 11 documented deaths at clinics in the United States since 1973.

“The fear is palpable,” O’Brien said. “It’s a real thing.”

Credit: RODNEY HO/AJC

Credit: RODNEY HO/AJC

Tracii, in an interview with the AJC after the Spelman screening, said she has now seen the film multiple times at different festivals and is grateful viewers, both men and women, are coming away with a deeper understanding of the complexities of the battle over reproductive rights.

“I’m at peace with telling my story and how it falls on people,” she said. “I just want people to think. Everybody knows somebody, everybody loves somebody who has had an abortion. You just don’t know it.”