A billboard promoting the podcast "Slow Burn Season 7: Roe v. Wade" on I-84 between the Curtis exit and the Flying Wye in Boise. Slate put up billboards in states with trigger laws that are due to criminalize abortion since the fall of Roe v. Wade.
A billboard promoting the podcast "Slow Burn Season 7: Roe v. Wade" on I-84 between the Curtis exit and the Flying Wye in Boise. Slate put up billboards in states with trigger laws that are due to criminalize abortion since the fall of Roe v. Wade.
Slate produces a podcast hosted by Susan Matthews called "Slow Burn" that has a different focus with every season. It has examined a number of topics, from Watergate to Biggie and Tupac. Season 7 is all about the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. The podcast includes activists, judges and women who fought for, and against, abortion rights.
Slate has put up a "Slow Burn Roe v. Wade" billboard in Boise — and in the other states that have trigger laws across the country — to promote the podcast and the discourse around it and they should remain up for some time. Matthews said, for Season 7, she really wanted to do something different when thinking about the current discourse on abortion.
"I think the biggest thing I wanted to show is it's up to local prosecutors to decide (about these cases) and men are predominantly making these decisions," said Matthews. "The thing that worries me is how these current laws are meant to criminalize any act around abortion, which will lead to more 'Shirleys' if it becomes routine."
Matthews is speaking about Shirley Wheeler, who, in Florida in 1970, was the first woman arrested and charged with manslaughter for having an illegal abortion. Wheeler and her story is the focus of the first episode of Season 7. The season is available to download and listen to at slate.com and other podcast streaming services.
Episode One of Season 7 of "Slow Burn" starts with a story from Nancy Stearns, a constitutional lawyer who worked on overturning abortion laws. In 1970 she received a letter from a Florida woman asking for help.
"'Dear Miss Stearns, this is December 7th, 1970. The state has threatened me with persecution and have tried to make me tell who I went to and where and said I will make it harder on myself by my unwillingness to cooperate,'" reads Stearns in the podcast. "And then she said, 'I know you've heard it a hundred times, but if men had to go through pregnancy, it would have been legal years ago,' underlined."
That woman was Shirley Wheeler. At that time she had just been charged with manslaughter and had spent four days in jail. Stearns decides to help and the episode tells the story of what happens to Wheeler but is also intertwined with historical facts about the years leading up to the decision in Roe v. Wade.
"This is Slow Burn Season 7 Roe v. Wade. I'm Susan Matthews. This season will be looking at the years leading up to one of the most important Supreme Court rulings in history," Matthews says in the introduction of episode one. "How did abortion become such a divisive issue in American life? Why were the politics back then so dramatically different than they are now? And was it ever really possible for the courts to find a solution? But first, how one unlikely woman, for a brief moment, became the public face of the fight for abortion rights."
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Wheeler's story is heart wrenching. She grew up poor, had already given birth to a child after she was raped at 18 and later had abortions out of wedlock. One thing striking about the podcast is how it illustrates that Wheeler is far from the only woman dealing with these types of circumstances at the time.
The episode narrates the history of abortion in America and even teaches the listener about how some illegal abortions were performed. Given the recent overturn of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court, many may find this podcast exceptionally informative to hear and at the end of the episode, Matthews alludes to how this information is important for people to reflect upon in these times. She asks Stearns what she thinks people should take away from hearing about Wheeler's story when hearing it for the first time.
"That it could happen today," said Stearns. "That it is happening today."
Matthews said that the main thing that haunted her about Wheeler's story is that her (Wheeler's) doctor had said she was in too poor of health to deliver a baby and Wheeler felt she had no other choice and was criminalized for it.
"Now there are going to be so many women faced with these same choices," said Matthews.
Some other episodes of the Season 7 podcast include a Catholic couple who worked on the "right to life" movement; a Yale law student who fought against abortion laws; and a Nixon appointed Supreme Court justice.
The trigger law in Idaho would make performing an abortion, or attempting to perform an abortion a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. This law is set to go into effect 30 days after the Supreme Court enters its judgment overturning Roe v. Wade. Recently, legislators have pushed for even more restrictions such as removing the exceptions for people who become pregnant from rape and incest. At the Idaho Party Republican Convention on Saturday, July 16 in Twin Falls, delegates rejected an amendment to the party platform on abortion that would have provided an exception the save the mother's life.
For more information about the podcast, people can go to slate.com/ podcasts.
