logo
episode-header-image
May 2022
9m 2s

Roe v Wade

Bbc World Service
About this episode

In 1973, a landmark decision was made in the US Supreme Court which made abortion legal. The late Sarah Weddington brought the case, even though she was fresh out of law school at the time. She spoke to Chloe Hadjimatheou in 2012. Sarah Weddington died in December 2021.

(Photo: Sarah Weddington pictured in 1979. Credit: Getty Images)

Up next
Yesterday
Washington DC’s Mount Pleasant riot
In May 1991, a female police officer shot and wounded a young immigrant from El Salvador in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood in Washington DC in the United States. It sparked several days of disturbances in the largely Hispanic area, as the population vented its frustrations at y ... Show More
9m 29s
Aug 26
Creating CAPTCHA
In 2000, as the internet expanded, websites faced a growing challenge to stop spam bots from flooding their systems.To separate humans from machines, researchers at the United States’ Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, created the Completely Automated Public ... Show More
10m 7s
Aug 25
The creation of the International Criminal Court
In 1998, at a conference organised by the United Nations, a blueprint was devised for what would be the world's first permanent International Criminal Court.Judge Phillipe Kirsch chaired the Rome conference that led to the formation of the court. He tells Gill Kearsley about the ... Show More
10m 23s
Recommended Episodes
Jan 2022
Roe v. Wade: America's Landmark Ruling
On January 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas law banning abortion, effectively legalising the procedure nationwide. The court held that a woman’s right to an abortion was implicit in the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Roe ... Show More
33m 58s
Aug 2022
Abortion in the UK
As the right to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy is challenged on the other side of the Atlantic, today Betwixt the Sheets we are looking at the history of abortions here in Britain. This is the second episode in our two-part series on abortion in the US and the UK. First, ... Show More
40m 34s
Jan 2020
The story of George Stinney Jr
How a 14-year-old boy became the youngest person to be executed in the USA during the 20th century. George Stinney Jr was sent to the electric chair in 1944. He had been tried for the murder of two young girls, but when the case was reviewed by a court in South Carolina in 2014 h ... Show More
10m 3s
May 2022
Will abortion be banned in America?
A leaked document from America’s highest court suggests that it is ready to strike down a 1973 landmark case that made abortion legal across the US. If that does happen then it will be down to individual states to decide how they react. Charmaine Cozier explores whether this mean ... Show More
24m 9s
May 2022
The Story of Roe v. Wade, Part 1: Who Was Jane Roe? (From the Archive)
This week, the release of a draft Supreme Court opinion striking down Roe v. Wade has put a spotlight on the 50-year-old case that redefined abortion in America.Today, we revisit a two-part series that first ran in 2018 about the history of the case and the woman behind it.In Par ... Show More
23m 18s
Jan 2023
Roe v Wade and abortion in America
Fifty years ago, Jane Roe become the centre of a ruling that would fuel US politics for the following decades. The Roe v Wade case gave women the constitutional right to abortion, until 2022 when it was overturned by the US Supreme Court. Claire Graham speaks with Katty Kay about ... Show More
18m 33s
Apr 2021
The first woman in the US Supreme Court
Sandra Day O'Connor was appointed to America's top court in 1981. She'd been nominated by newly-elected Republican president Ronald Reagan. Also in the programme: an eye-witness on the beaches during the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, the worm that unlocked secrets of genet ... Show More
49m 53s
Jun 2023
Introducing: Supreme: The Battle For Roe
Introducing the new audio drama Supreme: The Battle For Roe starring Maya Hawke and William H. Macy. At 26 years old, Sarah Weddington stands in a courtroom for the first time in her life and argues the defining case of her era: Roe V. Wade. Supreme tells her unlikely story, as w ... Show More
2m 17s