Fifteen-year-old Samantha was sitting on the floor of a hallway in a DC hotel, alongside other participants in the Religion Action Center’s L’Taken Social Justice Seminar. She had an opportunity to make noise and create change, and the ideas for her speech were pouring out of her as she furiously scribbled page after page of notes on reproductive rights.
As she practiced aloud, the boy sitting next to her told her not to use the first person — “if I needed an abortion…“ — because it made it sound too personal. “That’s the point,” Samantha responded. “They need to know this is about real people.” She didn’t yet have the language to explain it, but Samantha already knew that personal, impactful storytelling was her greatest tool for engaging audiences and spurring action.
The next morning, Samantha gave her speech to members of Congress, candidly explaining how parental consent requirements for abortion access endangered young people like her. That speech launched Samantha’s education and career in advocacy, law, and policy for sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice.
Samantha’s career may have been formulated in the hallways of that DC hotel, but the real roots of her passion for social justice have always been her grandparents. They emigrated to America in the late 1940s as impoverished strangers hoping to build new lives after surviving the Holocaust. The freedom and opportunity that their children and grandchildren were able to enjoy here was beyond their imaginations. Samantha credits her grandparents for her hardworking drive, her mission to use her privilege to fight for justice, her ability to turn tragedies into laughter, and her world-class chicken soup recipe.
Samantha Cyrulnik-Dercher 