Slow Burn - Roe v. Wade | 2. Life or Death
Slow Burn
Slate Audio
4.6 • 25.2K Ratings
🗓️ 8 June 2022
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock exclusive Slow Burn episodes, but you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/slowburnplus to get access wherever you listen.
Jack and Barbara Willke got their start on the Catholic speaking circuit talking about the pleasure of sex within marriage. Their daughter would convince them to shift their focus to another hot-button issue. The Willkes’ Handbook on Abortion, and the photographs they distributed along with it, would help kickstart the right-to-life movement.
To see the cover of the Handbook on Abortion, some of the photos the Willkes used, and the brochure “Life or Death,” go to slate.com/handbook.
Season 7 of Slow Burn is produced by Susan Matthews, Samira Tazari, Sophie Summergrad, and Sol Werthan.
Derek John is Sr. Supervising Producer of Narrative Podcasts.
Editorial direction by Josh Levin, Derek John and Johanna Zorn. Merritt Jacob is our Technical Director.
Our theme music is composed by Alexis Cuadrado. Artwork by Derreck Johnson based on a photo provided by Robert Wheeler.
The season’s reporting was supported by a grant from the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:28.0 | This episode includes descriptions of graphic images. In the fall of 1970, Marie Wilkie |
| 0:37.1 | looked like most of her classmates at Notre Dame's Women's College. |
| 0:40.7 | It was the age of many skirts and I remember we kept shortening them and shortening them and I had long straight hair of course everybody did. |
| 0:51.0 | Marie made the most of being away from home. It was a |
| 0:55.2 | blast being a college up there. I went to parties constantly. But she also took |
| 1:00.9 | her studies seriously. |
| 1:03.0 | There were lots of lectures, lots of interesting speakers came into Notre Dame |
| 1:08.0 | and you could go and hear about all sorts of things. |
| 1:11.0 | One of the things she heard about was feminism. |
| 1:15.0 | By the start of Marie's junior year in 1970, women were protesting across the country. |
| 1:20.0 | The legislature has consistently refused to recognize the fundamental right of women to control their own body. |
| 1:28.0 | Thanks to the women's liberation movement, abortion was being talked about openly in all kinds of places, including in Marie's dorm. |
| 1:39.0 | You stay up half the night talking about what do you believe and why do you believe it and |
| 1:45.1 | who's right and control of your own body you know that if you got pregnant and |
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