2022-06-25
23 分钟This is in conversation from Apple News.
I'm Shemitah Basu.
Today, what a pre Roe past tells us about a post roe future.
In 1971, a woman named Shirley Wheeler spoke at a rally for abortion rights.
Sisters, we must unite to fight for the repeal of restrictive abortion laws.
I have been labeled a criminal by this society.
Shirley is believed to be the first American woman to be held criminally responsible for having an abortion.
She was found guilty of manslaughter.
She became an important voice in the reproductive rights movement that led up to the Roe v.
Wade decision in 1973.
But Shirley's story has mostly been lost to history.
I was really struck by just how difficult it was to really find her full story anywhere.
That's Susan Matthews.
She's the news director at Slate and the host of this season of the podcast Slow Burn, which explores the path to Roe and how abortion became the contentious and politicized issue that it is today.
The first episode of the season is all about Shirley Wheeler.
She died in 2013.
One of the things that you hear today is that if Roe is overturned, if abortion laws are put into place, the woman isn't going to be punished.
So one of the things that I thought was really interesting about Shirley's story is that it just kind of shows that you can't guarantee that now that.
The Supreme Court has handed down this major ruling overturning abortion rights at the federal level.
Susan says we're already starting to see states pick their own battles about how to protect or penalize people who want abortions.