ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Abortion rights activists say it was the largest gathering of abortion rights supporters they've ever seen come together in St. Petersburg this weekend for an annual commemoration of the Roe v. Wade ruling.

But this year unlike the previous 49, no one came to celebrate.

“It’s depressing, very depressing," said demonstrator Karen Miracle, 79. “I hate that we have to do this again.”

Unable to breathe on her own since last month, she refused to be silenced by anything on this day.

“Now I have this oxygen tank,” she said. “But it’s not gonna hold me down.”

This fight is all too familiar to Miracle. She remembers when she was in her 20s, the consequences friends of her suffered before abortions were legal.

“I had two friends that went to New York City and had what they called, ‘(back) alley abortions’," Miracle said. “And one of them, he (the doctor), just messed her up so bad that she could not have anymore children and the other one didn’t have a good time of it either.

"But that’s so scary to think that we’re back to well, hopefully not back to that far.”

While Miracle was reliving the fight for abortion rights 50 years ago, Natashia Milburn, 32, was at the demonstration in Tampa recounting on stage before the crowd, her decision 16 years ago to get an abortion as a teenager.

“As the anesthesia set in I heard the nurse say, ‘It’s okay honey, this will be over soon.'" she recalled. “’We’ll get you on some good birth control and you’ll move on from this. You will move on from this.'"

Milburn did move on from that day, but she says she had to do it alone.

“After that I was ostracized from my family," she said. “It was like a different vibe with my mom, my stepdad. So I kind of got out of Michigan and out from under my mom’s care.” 

Milburn went on to serve in the Air Force like many in her family, including her twin sister.

It’s only in the last few years that she’s started speaking publicly about that decision she made when she was 16, but she feels as confident today as she did then that it was the right decision for her.

“It’s crazy for me to look back," she said. "It does break my heart in a way because it was a struggle that I’m realizing I’m still going through in a way.

"Not because of what I did. It’s what happened (afterwards). Why it was such a struggle. Why I was ostracized. The religion behind it. The selfish needs of others. It’s just like compiled.”

Milburn has rebuilt a relationship with her mother, although they don’t talk much about her abortion still. Now, Milburn is going back to school studying sexual health education with the hopes of giving today's teenage girls something she didn't have 16 years ago, knowledge about reproductive health. 

“It’ll be comprehensive, inclusive," she said. "I’ll talk about reproductive health, sexual health, anatomy, gender, all of the things that you need to be able to talk about growing up as a sexual being and I’ll keep telling my story and help comfort as many people as I can.”

Meanwhile, Miracle finds comfort fighting once more, this time not fighting for her rights, but fighting for her granddaughters.

“I gotta do what I can while I can.”