New Yorkers: Understand What Abortion Restrictions Feel Like From Inside: The Devil Is Busy – Streaming Tonight

New Yorkers: Understand What Abortion Restrictions Feel Like From Inside: The Devil Is Busy – Streaming Tonight

New Yorkers will most likely never experience the kind of discrimination and bar to accessing abortions as the women in this state and the states from which they travel do. With the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment last November, discrimination on the basis of pregnancy status or outcome is not allowed.  This is in distinction to the states that have enacted abortion restrictions in the wake of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade.  While it may seem paradoxical to those who are not pregnancy healthcare providers, such as doulas or midwives who predicted this very outcome, these exact laws are actually having the opposite of the ostensibly stated goal of saving babies’ lives.  Instead, maternal mortality AND infant mortality are both on the rise in states with abortion restrictions (whether loose or extreme). According to a study cited by Medical News Today from 2010, about 12% of women stated their abortion was for health reasons, while 12% cited financial instability as their reason for seeking one. Unfortunately, there is no reliable statistical data for how many pregnancy terminations are performed for medical reasons, likely because each hospital or healthcare provider may define such procedures differently, causing them not to show properly in statistics.  Abortion data is not well collected.  According to an anti-abortion data collection project, about 4.5% overall of all abortions are performed due to a life threatening fetal abnormality or health condition of the mother (92% are estimated as voluntary).  

This excellent film takes viewers on a journey to the inside of a women’s healthcare (and abortion) clinic in Georgia. Georgia is among the roughly half of American states that severely limit or restrict abortions for women residing in the state.

Like many other states, including Ohio, North Dakota, and Louisiana, among too many others, Georgia restricts abortions past six weeks, when most women have only just missed their first period and may not even know they’re pregnant yet. Once the chambers of the fetal beginnings of a heart have formed sufficiently, a heartbeat can be detected. This happens at about six weeks.

The woman manning the phones to schedule appointments has a little circular calendar where she can put the person’s last period date in and find out exactly how far along she’s likely to be. If it seems at or on the borderline for six weeks, she’ll tell them not to even waste their time. Once a heartbeat is detected, they must stop the procedure or they risk jail time.

When the movie starts and we meet the director, we see played out before our eyes the clash of Christian religion. The woman who runs this clinic is a Christian, and at 6am, her pastor calls to say a prayer of blessing over someone he considers to be heroic for what she does. And he is a Christian, and she is a Christian, and the protestors are Christian as well, as are most of the women who come seeking services. And the director shares that she has had conversations with the protesters who come there every morning to yell at women, telling them they are going to Hell. She tries to understand why these protesters believe that they, themselves, won’t be judged, but the women coming to the clinic will be judged by God as murderers. She and they remain at an impasse: there is no answer to this question. The protesters truly believe what they’re doing is saintly, what the women are doing is demonic, period. No exceptions, no other way whatsoever.

At a certain point we’re introduced to their staff OB/Gyn. She’s the one who’s life and freedom are on the line if the state inspects their records and finds that an abortion was performed improperly. Unlike in many other places, this doctor does take that risk. She is risking that some other doctor will review her records and determine that the woman whose life she saved with an abortion was not sufficiently endangered. Should this occur, the doctor could face jail time on top of license renovation. But such is life for women in Georgia.

People come from all over the country to visit this clinic, because most places won’t take any risks. There are literally women dying across the country from preventable issues. But since the prevention involves terminating a fetus’ life, women have far fewer options. They may have to drive hours to find a clinic that will see them and help them if they are in need of such help.

With restrictions increasing every legislative session, this problem isn’t 1getting better but is getting worse. As one of the people in the documentary mentions, she cannot imagine that she herself had more rights 25 years ago than her daughter has in 2025. As the patchwork of state regulations becomes ever more complex, as America is becoming more and more a Christian country, by the design of the Supreme Court, this reality will become ever more stark.

By decisions of the Supreme Court, there can be some specificity here. From the decision not to even hear a religious rights case brought by Native Americans whose ancestral tribal ritual lands are being developed for mining to the Dobbs decision taking away the right of women to have an abortion to the decision allowing Catholic Charities to treat their employees inferiorly to secular companies just because they are ostensibly a religious organization to the decision that discrimination against a group is OK if it’s based on your (Christian) religious faith.

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One after the other the decisions have come down to blur the lines between (Christian) faith and government, while at the same time taking away the checks and balances necessary along with powers expressly granted to Congress being transferred to the president. This country is only as strong as its weakest link, which is proving more and more to be SCOTUS.

For the zealous Christian fundamentalists who protest outside daily, they see it as their duty to stop women from going to these places. But they don’t just stop them with terror words. Stories of violence at abortion clinics before the Dobbs decision were already rampant. For the religious right, unborn babies have more right to life than the mothers carrying them or than the doctors assisting them with their reproductive healthcare. Thus it’s OK for them to gun down employees at abortion clinics, to bring bombs into these places, to threaten employees with knives and other weapons.

So when the director walks the grounds looking for people hiding behind the dumpster or behind the building, these are real threats. There are men out there – and women- who are willing to do harm to others for their beliefs. And as we’ve related before, ONLY Christians believe that life begins at conception. For most other faiths, including Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism, the uncertainties of pregnancy and labor are acknowledged. For them, it is a moral choice – but the choice is between the woman and her family, the doctor, and their spiritual adviser. Due to the extremely sensitive and uncertain nature of childbirth, government and laws really have no place except to support a woman’s choices. In other words, providing a safe environment to make that choice and have it carried out.

For those readers who also watched Wealth of the Wicked, you may understand that it was the Christian fundamentalists taking the Scotus justices out to expensive dinners while trying to cajole them into overturning Roe. And, of course, they eventually obliged, bringing America one step closer to the Christian country that it was never meant to be.

All at the same time as this is happening, the same people clamoring for abortion’s total ban, even in cases of rape and incest, also advocate against SNAP, WIC, and even free school lunches. So for the women who can’t afford a child, they MUST birth that child…and then the child must be punished by her preexisting poverty situation, which has not changed for the better by having that child. But this is an issue for another day.

This movie was excellent. It gave deep humanization to an issue that is complex and fraught with emotion and religion. This movie was moving and touching in many ways and on many levels. I would give this five stars and it is a must-see movie.

Synopsis: THE DEVIL IS BUSY takes viewers on a daylong journey with Tracii, the determined head of security at a women’s healthcare clinic in Atlanta, Georgia, as she works to ensure the safety of women seeking abortions in the face of new restrictions and persistent protests. The film follows the routines of the staff who continue to provide a range of medical services, including preventive screenings, checkups, and reproductive healthcare, in an environment where clinics often face daily threats of danger.

In cinéma vérité style, the film conveys the extensive, everyday safety precautions that Tracii and the clinic staff must take, including a twice-daily check of the building and surrounding premises for intruders, a briefing for private security guards to escort patients into the building, and assigning numbers to keep clients’ identities anonymous.

Tracii, who shares her personal story and what led her to this work, oversees logistics, calms anxious patients, and interacts with the protestors who arrive daily.

Grounded in humanity and empathy, THE DEVIL IS BUSY is a clear-eyed portrayal of the shifting landscape for patients and abortion providers in America today, and depicts the complex, day-to-day realities facing those working to provide safe reproductive healthcare to women.

The film captures a unique snapshot of reproductive healthcare in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, a shift that has led to abortion bans and significant restrictions in many states.

Directed by Christalyn Hampton and Award-Winner Geeta Gandbhir

Executive Produced by Soledad O’Brien and Rose Arce

Produced by Christalyn Hampton, Rose Arce, Amber Fares, and Soledad O’Brien

THE DEVIL IS BUSY takes viewers behind the scenes of a women’s healthcare clinic in Atlanta, Georgia as the employees, including Tracii, the head of security, carry out their daily work of securing the safety of their patients while providing medical services where clinics face daily threats of danger.

View the trailer below: