Women's Rights - Leviticus 19

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In 19 62, a psychiatrist named sidney bolter wrote an essay in the american journal of psychiatry warning doct sto stay out of it. A handbook even circulated to teach women how to fake a suicide attempt. Families were having three and four children in quick succession. Birth control wasn't easy to get. Abstinence was encouraged. Illegal abortions increased so did the number of deaths and injuries. In order to get a safe abortion, some pregnant women would go to a psychiatrist and say they were going to kill them. We just never questioned the fact that motherhood should be a free choice.

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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