Slow Burn - Roe v. Wade | 3. Women vs. Connecticut
Slate Daily Feed
Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 June 2022
⏱️ 48 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ 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.
Soon after Ann Hill arrived at Yale Law School in 1968, she realized she was pregnant. Her options were limited: she could give birth—or get an illegal abortion. The decision she faced inspired her to take on Connecticut’s abortion ban. The legal battle that followed would set the stage for Roe v. Wade.
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
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I think about from the moment I was born I wanted to be president of the |
| 0:04.5 | United States. Everyone knew that's what I wanted to do. What made you decide |
| 0:08.8 | that you wanted to go to law school? It seemed like a lot of people went to law |
| 0:12.9 | school who became president of the United States. |
| 0:17.3 | That's Anne Hill. She started at Yale Law School in the fall of 1968. So we |
| 0:25.1 | jumped from a couple of women in the class before to 26 women in my class. |
| 0:30.9 | There weren't enough men because of the Vietnam War. At the beginning of her |
| 0:36.2 | first semester it seemed like all her plans might get derailed. I had missed my |
| 0:42.3 | period and I thought I might be pregnant and this was not the way I wanted to |
| 0:47.8 | start law school. Anne knew that this was not a good time to have a baby. So she |
| 0:53.4 | found a local OB-GYN and she was honest with him. She said she didn't want to |
| 0:59.1 | continue the pregnancy. And he said oh no most women are so happy to hear that |
| 1:05.0 | they're pregnant and I said well I'm not and I would like to terminate it and he |
| 1:10.0 | said well that's illegal in the state of Connecticut. The only exception to |
| 1:15.4 | Connecticut's law was if an abortion was deemed necessary to save the life of |
| 1:20.4 | the mother. An Anne's doctor wouldn't make that exception. I said well anything |
| 1:26.7 | else and he said no I can't think of anything else but good luck. Now she had to |
| 1:34.1 | look for other options. You get on the phone because every woman and every man |
| 1:40.1 | pretty much knows a woman even then who had an abortion. One name that kept |
| 1:46.0 | coming up was Nathan Rappaport. At one point Rappaport had gone by Dr. X to |
| 1:53.5 | maintain his anonymity. He'd performed thousands of illegal abortions and had |
| 1:58.6 | spent nine years in prison but he remained unapologetic and outspoken. Here he |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

