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Witness History

The doctor killed by an anti-abortion extremist

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.41.6K Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2021

⏱️ 9 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In America, there are few issues as controversial as abortion. It’s a major fault line that runs through society, dividing families and even influencing elections. In the 1980s and 1990s, some groups within America’s anti-abortion movement became militant. There were hundreds of bombing and arson attacks on clinics. Some groups began to argue that to save the lives of what they called ‘pre-born babies’, it was morally justifiable to murder abortion providers. Journalist Amanda Robb tells Viv Jones how her uncle, Dr Barnett Slepian, was killed in 1998. An anti-abortion extremist shot him through his kitchen window in front of his wife and four young sons. His shooting followed years of harassment and intimidation.

(Photo: Portrait of Doctor Barnett Slepian, his wife and his four sons. Getty/Liaison)

Transcript

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0:00.0

Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless

0:06.8

searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the

0:11.8

telly we share what we've been watching

0:14.0

Cladie Aide.

0:16.0

Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.

0:19.0

Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.

0:21.0

And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less

0:24.9

searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds.

0:30.9

This This is the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Viv Jones.

0:39.0

In America there are few issues as controversial as abortion.

0:43.4

It's a major fault line that runs through society,

0:46.4

dividing families and even influencing elections.

0:49.8

In the 1980s and 90s, some groups within America's anti-abortion movement became militant.

0:56.2

They began to argue that to save the lives of what they called pre-born babies, it was morally

1:01.4

justifiable to murder abortion doctors.

1:07.0

Police in New York State, hunting a gunman who murdered a doctor known to perform abortions.

1:13.0

Barnett Sleepian was shot through the window of his home on Friday night.

1:17.0

It's the latest in a series of attacks on both doctors and abortion clinics.

1:22.0

My uncle owned a Bulletproof vest.

1:28.0

He usually wore it when he entered the clinic where he worked, but he didn't wear it at home.

1:38.0

Amanda Rob is a journalist.

1:40.0

In 1998, her uncle, Dr Barnett Slepian, she calls him Bart, became the third doctor in America to be killed by an anti-abortion extremist.

...

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