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The Eleventh Hour graphic and show opener

Woman at podium talking to unseen crowd on steps of the US Capital building in Washington, D.C. "Roe v Wade means keeping government out of our bedrooms"

Pan out from huge crowd of demonstrators jammed in front of the US Capital building

Hand holding two metal hangers up in the air

Wide shot of the demonstration - thousands of people, possibly half a million according to Robert Lipsyte who is narrating

In the studio, Host Robert Lipsyte welcomes viewers to the show and introduces himself. He talks about the topic of tonight's program - the women in fear of losing their rights to abortion due to a Supreme Court case coming up (1989) that could modify or overturn the Roe vs. Wade decision.

INTERVIEW INSERT:

Robert Lipsyte:
what's really at stake here. The worst case scenario of Roe v Wade being overturned. What what's going to happen in America?

Suzanne Lynn
Well, there are several scenarios around the Webster case which is the name of the abortion case now before the Supreme Court. The worst case scenario would be that the Supreme Court would accept the Justice Department's invitation to overrule Roe Roe v Wade. In other words, to repudiate the constitutional right to privacy that they first enunciated in Roe v. Wade, if that were to happen, and that's by no means clear that it would essentially what it would do is return the law to its pre rose status and allow states to to do with abortion as they will, that means that they would have the option of re criminalizing it, or they could continue keeping it legal and accessible, or they could do any number of things in between restricted in various ways in the name of regulating it. So that if if the court did repudiate Roe v. Wade, I think what you would have is a certain amount of chaos, at least for some years

Robert Lipsyte
You would have two different laws on abortion and one in each state, perhaps

Suzanne Lynn
that's entirely possible. There may be a few states, my prediction would be that a few states would keep it legal and as accessible as it is now. But my sense is that would be relatively few states and I would say that probably a greater number would decide to re criminalize it. And then you would have middle group of states in between who would restrict it

Robert Lipsyte
a state like New York might very well become a center for abortions. And people who could afford to come here would and people who can't wouldn't be able to

Suzanne Lynn
Yes, well, in fact, recent history gives us a way to predict what would happen under that scenario. Most people probably don't realize this, but New York was one of four states that legalized abortion prior to Roe v. Wade. This state legalized it in 1970, along with I believe, Colorado, Alaska and Hawaii. And very shortly New York became an abortion mecca for women around the country. The statistics show that in 1970, in the first year of the liberalized law, over almost two thirds of all abortions performed New York City were performed a non resident women. So I think we can safely predict that if New York kept it legal, and I'm not predicting with absolute certainty that it would, but assuming that it did, you would have women pouring in from all all over the place seeking abortions.

Robert Lipsyte
And we also see that the field the specter of once again, the back alley abortion is the botched abortions, women women dying of septic abortions.

Suzanne Lynn
Oh, absolutely. I mean, you're talking about if you had a situation where you had a patchwork of state laws, and some a few states kept it legal, like New York, the women who are going to take advantage of that are women who are fortunate enough to have the means and the resources to travel from out of state.

Host Lipsyte (No More Abortions poster behind him) thanks Suzanne Lynne and cuts to an offset pre-taped interview with two women, one who had an illegal abortion in 1946 (Cecille-a pseudonm in fear of retribution from anti-abortion activitists) and another (Denise Santiago)who had a legal one after Roe vs. Wade was passed.

B&W photo still circa 1940's, pretty young woman at the beach in one piece bathing suit shielding the sun from her face with her arm. Cecille narrates over photo.

INTERVIEW INSERT CONTINUES WITH CECILLE AND DENISE (OFF SET)

Robert Lipsyte
She visited Five Doctors before she found one willing to help her. Even then the doctor was afraid to give her the complete address.

Cecile
Well, the doctor on Park Avenue after examining me said yes, I will give you part of an address before numbers. Tomorrow morning at nine o'clock, here's my phone number call me. I'll give you the balance of the address. You have to bring $800 in cash, which to me was a phenomenal amount of money to dig up over night. And come alone. Don't bring your husband come alone. I was going to an unknown quantity. I was going to someone I didn't know. I was having an operational procedure performed. And I was scared. I didn't know if I'd make it back home. And if I did in what condition I'd be.

Robert Lipsyte
Denise went to the Women's Health Center at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx. There she met with a counselor and made an appointment for an abortion the following week.

Denise Santiago
My boyfriend at the time went with me. I saw the counselor again for a few minutes. She asked me if I still wanted to go through with it. And I said sure. And she accompanied me into the room. It's not even a surgical room. It's just an examination room whether what the procedure is done. And I was introduced to the doctor. And both of them just explained everything that was going on all the time so that I was aware. They told me that I was going to feel a pinch and of course I did feel a pinch. So that everything was good.

Older woman (Cecille) riding in backseat of car through residential neighborhood gazing out window as they pass by older brick buildings and peds

Interior set of brown French doors gated on the outside, a woman's figure can be seen peering in from the outside

Woman walking casually out of yellow brick building toward camera, turns and walks until out of the frame.

New York Times Newspaper article: "Bronx Raid nets Abortion Suspects - 4 Held in Abortion case, Woman and Man are Accused by Police as "Steerers"

The Eleventh Hour graphic overlay wide shot of studio. Host Robert Lipsyte is seen seated with two female guests

INSERT INTERVIEW:

Robert Lipsyte:
the prime objective of feminism was to give a woman equality, which would include rights over her own body, how can you be a feminist and not want a woman to have reproductive rights?

Sidney Callahan 17:51
Well I think that women were once considered part of the body of males. And we saw that this was unjust, that they were separate, that they were equal, there's a moral right to equality. And I think feminists for life, which I'm a member, and just life and people who are on the part of the liberal pro life movement, consider that the unborn should have the same equality that women once had for the same reasons women were thought they weren't human, they had no potential they weren't equal. And we think that the unborn are a group that needs to be protected. And that it behooves women to be nurturing and to really think about maternal thinking and care about the human offspring.

Rosalind Petchesky 18:35
Well, unfortunately, I Sydney knows. My view. And the view of a lot of feminists who consider themselves pro choice is that the situation that a woman faces in pregnancy is that if a fetus were considered an equal person, her pregnancy would become an inform of involuntary servitude. There's not any way around that conflict. It's a real conflict. Now, what I think differs between maybe Sydney and myself, I don't know Sydney, correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't want to distort your position. I think the abortion debate has a lot to do with motherhood and with the responses of both feminists and anti feminists to motherhood, what is a woman's responsibility in child rearing and childbearing? And I think that feminists have been misinterpreted as being anti motherhood. When in fact, I think what a lot of us are trying to say is that we are pro motherhood, but we are pro motherhood in a conscious, aware way. That motherhood is not simply a function of biology. motherhood is a set of practices, a set of moral attitudes, a set of responsibilities to children, and that In, I would say 99% of the cases, women getting abortions are taking the practice of motherhood very seriously. They're not acting morally,

Robert Lipsyte 20:10
they don't want to bring a child into the world that they're not going to be able to take care of properly.

Rosalind Petchesky 20:15
And they want to prepare that very much. And also, they want to prepare themselves, to, in fact, be the kinds of nurturers caretakers and to share with men or with other women in that responsibility in the fullest, and the clearest way possible,

Robert Lipsyte 20:34
because Sidney, sometimes, it really seems to come down, one would think that it comes down to the fetus versus the woman.

Sidney Callahan 20:44
Well, that's what I would contend that we can never have our maternal and maternity taken seriously, if we start out, saying that the first right is to kill our offspring. And by the way, I don't think everyone is as nurturance as Roz and the feminist movement. That's not I don't think the total picture there, but

Robert Lipsyte 21:05
Let me just stop you for a moment because you use the phrase to kill our offspring. And that's off putting to me, in the sense that it's not a born child. It's not an offspring yet.

Sidney Callahan 21:16
Well, it's part of the human community. Genetically, it's related. It's took a million years of evolution to get that far

Robert Lipsyte 21:23
That is a religious viewpoint

Sidney Callahan 21:25
I do not think so i think that that's metaphysical, viewpoint, metaphysical and moral belief, like all women are equal to men is not a religious play. A i metaphysical, thought that life begins at conception is not a metaphysical belief, woman, men who are agnostics could believe that. So I think a religious belief is there is a God and one should worship it. But I think you can have metaphysical and moral beliefs. All people have equal protection under the law, the unborn are a member of the human community blue. Well, I don't think they're persons but the neither. I think there are people who are on the way to becoming like us, human beings like us. I have been that everyone around here has been that. And I think that if we think that motherhood can be built for maternity care, it can be built on the idea that if I choose to have you, you have rights, that's what men always tell women. If I choose if I want you you have rights, if I don't, you have none. And I think this idea that we make humans human by our choice is a very dangerous and very debilitating idea for our culture. You're the mother of six, yes, I am, I had seven I had one sudden infant death. And I think that, that the experience of having children, having children empowers women, I had them all with natural childbirth, before that, people thought that was the right way to do it. And I had to fight the medical establishment for that. So I should say, I'm very much in favor of the ERA, I'm very much in favor of contraception. I'm very, very worked in the peace movement, because I don't think you can kill innocent people by nuclear arms against capital punishment. For me, this is an extension of the liberal ideology to another group. And I think that many people like me,

interview concludes. Lipsyte thanks Callahan and Petchesky . He announces the program and himself. show end.

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