Rebekah Sager here! I’m a reproductive-rights, race, and culture reporter who is coming to you with a short dispatch from a recent panel that took place in Atlanta. Regina wanted me to share a little bit about that experience, as it was noteworthy for a few reasons. Thank you for having me!

Down in a repurposed subterranean space that once housed a used furniture store, a panel of three notable Black women whose stories have galvanized the reproductive-justice movement gathered to speak their truths. The meeting, held on Friday in the Virginia Highlands neighborhood of Atlanta, was organized by Free & Just, a national nonprofit that uplifts the voices of abortion storytellers, to draw attention to the narratives that media outlets have moved on from. Looking out from the riser, where I sat to moderate the discussion, I realized how necessary that still is.

Sitting tightly together on a deep navy blue velvet sofa were Shanette Williams, whose daughter Amber Nicole Thurman was the first woman documented in Georgia to have died as a direct result of the fall of Roe v. Wade. Next to Williams was Turiya Tomlin-Randall, whose sister Candi Miller died three months after Thurman. Sitting at the other end of the sofa was April Newkirk, whose daughter Adriana Smith was forcibly kept alive on life support at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for months, like a human incubator, until it was determined that her fetus could survive outside of the mother’s womb.

The women shared their deeply moving accounts with those gathered—students, activists, organizers, providers, and only two members of the press (not including me)—proof positive that the media has indeed moved on.

But not all of us have. For me, these women are ever-present reminders not only of the human casualties that have come from bans on abortion care but of a broken healthcare system. If the fall of Roe gave the nation a cold, it gave Black birthing people pneumonia.

For them, Williams, Tomlin-Randall, and Newkirk want justice for their loved ones. And whether there were two or 200 members of the media in that room, they are committed to the fight—to reverse the Georgia abortion ban and return the constitutional right that all Americans should have—a right of control over their bodies. Their stories may very well symbolize the phoenix that rises from the ashes of tragedy and forces change. And now more than ever, we must continue to amplify them.

—Rebekah Sager

Freelance journalist and Nation contributor

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Regina Mahone,

Senior Editor, The Nation

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