What Happened to the Law?

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By 19 72, the clergy consultation service was operating in more than 600 locations across the country. The next year, when rovey wade granted women the constitutional right to have an abortion, some clergy shifted their focus to making sure women had access to contra ception. Others went back to normal life leading their congregations.

In 1967, a very unlikely group of individuals gathered to quietly break the law and help facilitate abortions. They established a phone number. When you called it, a recording of a woman's voice would tell you what to do next.

Who was behind this number? The Clergy Consultation Service, an underground network of ministers and rabbis who wanted to help people access safe abortions in a time before it was legal. We first aired our conversations with some of them in 2017. And after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade earlier this year, we decided to call some of them back.

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