Democracy Now! January 22, 2003

9:00-9:01 Billboard 9:01-9:06 Headlines 9:06-9:07 One Minute Music Ani DiFranco, Birmingham 9:07-9:20 Today is the thirtieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade. On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court legalized abortion by a vote of seven to two. State laws prohibiting abortion became instantly void. Before the historic Supreme Court decision, abortion was illegal in almost every state. Poor and desperate women resorted to desperate measures. They used knitting needles or hangers to puncture the cervix. They douched with bleach. They turned to back-alley doctors, who performed hundreds of thousands of illegal abortions under unsanitary conditions. Unknown thousands of women died. After the historic decision, states immediately began passing restrictive legislation. Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, which withholds federal Medicaid funding for abortions for poor women except to save a woman s life. Some states passed laws requiring a husband s consent, parental consent laws, and 24-hour waiting periods. Today, 87% of counties have no abortion providers, according to the Alan Guttmacher institute. Roe v. Wade itself hangs in the balance by 5-4 at the Supreme Court. President Bush has vowed to try to have it overturned. Thousands of abortion foes are protesting the historic decision in Washington today. And then there is the continual harassment of women outside clinics, and murders of health care workers in clinics and in their homes. Tape: the sounds of harassment outside clinics and news footage of shootings of abortion providers, from The Fragile Promise of Choice: Abortion in the United States Today , a documentary directed by Dorothy Fadiman and produced by Beth Seltzer (1996) Guest: Elizabeth Cavendish, legal director, NARAL Pro-Choice America, www.naral.org Guest: Olivia Gans, spokesperson for the National Right to Life Committee and director of American Victims of Abortion www.nrlc.org 9:20-9:21 One Minute Music Break: Ani DiFranco, Lost Woman Song 9:21-9:40 Guest: Pat Mitchell, Executive Director of the Center for Choice in Mobile Alabama. It is the only clinic in the Mobile, Alabama/Pensacola, Florida area where a doctor has not been killed Links: Center for Choice: www.abortioncare.com A listing of Feminist Women s Health Centers and other links to abortion clinics around the country: www.fwhc.org/abortion/clinics.htm Tape: Center for Choice in Mobile Alabama Executive Director Pat Mitchell explains why she keeps going despite the shootings, anthrax, arson, and harassment, from the documentary (info above) Guest: Jennifer Parker, (she goes by Parker ), executive director of a group called Access, which is a hotline and resource for women seeking abortions, www.whrc-access.org Guest: Dr. Jody Steinauer, OB-GYN at the University of California San Francisco, and founder of Medical Students for Choice www.ms4c.org 9:40-9:41 One Minute Music Break: Where Were the Flowers , by Sandy Rapp 9:41-9:58 Before Roe v. Wade, unknown numbers of women died from back-alley or self-induced abortions. Few people know that now, in this country, women still die from these kinds of abortions. Guest: Bill Bell, father of Becky Bell, who died from a back-alley abortion in 1988. Becky felt she couldn t ask her parents for their consent, and then was afraid to go to a hospital. The Bells live in Indiana, which requires parental consent. Link: www.naral.org/issues/issues_stories5.html Tape: the story of Kristine, a woman who died from a self-induced abortion after Roe v. Wade, from the documentary (info above) 9:58-9:59 Outro and Credits Special thanks to Mindy Sobota and Women Make Movies. Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, Ana Nogiera and Alex Wolfe. Mike Di Filippo is our engineer and webmaster.