Forced to take a step back from the case, Sarah is confronted with the flesh and blood people she's fighting for. She makes a crucial decision.
~~ Cast Credits ~~
Sarah Weddington: Maya Hawke
Harry Blackmun: William H. Macy
Deb: Andrea Savage
Annette: Jenn Colella
Dr. Kaplan: Tirzah Mannes
Flight Attendant: Sarah Erickson
Grace: LaChrisha Brown
Polly: Meghan Grant
Wanda: Kim Yancey Moore
Woman #1: Amy Goodmurphy
Woman #2: Christine Bortolin
Woman #3: Angela Galanopolous
Woman #4: Sarah Erickson
Woman #5: LaChrisha Brown
The following episode contains mature themes and imagery. Listener discretion is advised. From iHeart Podcasts. This is Supreme The Battle for Row Against to Wait, starring Maya Hawk and William H.
Macy.
Appreciate whenever you are ready, mister Chief Justice and Maya pleased the Court.
Episode five. Good for the brief, Ladies and gentlemen.
We've now beg on our initial descent and in Dallas.
We hope you enjoyed your flight.
Thank you for flying with us today. Need a ride.
Stranger, Dev?
What are you doing here?
Sorry?
I didn't have time to make one of those signs with your name on it.
He told me what flight you were on.
Thought you could use a lift?
Really? Yes, really, Sarah? Why is everyone always so surprised that I'm nice?
How is the flight?
I don't have a lot to compare it to, but bumpy, I do not intend to get back on one of those things for a long time.
And how is New York?
Pete say as good as they say pizza?
Is that really what you want to know?
Dev?
I'm just making conversations, Sarah.
Just say whatever you came to say, Dev.
I know you're going to anyway.
And what do I want to say.
You'll probably start with it I told you so you were right not to trust Roy Lucas. Then maybe you'll want to call me a coward, maybe a quitter, a trader to the cause, and whatever other insults you can think of.
Okay, being surprised I'm nice is one thing, assuming I'm just waiting to insult you.
Is actually there.
Was no decision to make.
It was made for me.
I was kicked off the case.
M keep telling yourself that you never want me on this case anyway. Deb you judge me from the start. You didn't think I was radical enough. But let me guess now that Roy Lucas is taken over, you're just positive the case needs to be handled by a lady lawyer, no matter how unradical she is not.
Just to be clear, I haven't said any of that, Sarah. You have, but I know you dead. Oh wow, Look who's judging now? I can see you're mad, Sarah. And you know what mad I can relate to. Who's ever fighting for.
Us has to be mad, big mad, and have skin in the game. Roy Lucas is a damn good lawyer.
I believe you, and I'm sure he'd like to win this thing. It's another notch on his bedpost. But here's the difference. He'd like to win. We need to win.
Roy has experienced Deb the case will be safe in his hands.
Well, if it wasn't safe in yours, you should have told us that before. Now you already won in the lower court, Sarah, I believe in going in with the hot hand.
Just past our exit?
You know, Deb, did you hear me?
This isn't the way to my house?
Where are we going?
Just come with me today?
Where what's going on?
A few weeks ago you assigned be me and other girls from the group to collect stories.
For the supporting briefs.
Yeah, has that going?
We need to submit them to the Supreme Court before argument.
M Look who's interested?
So you haven't quit the case?
No, Deb, I haven't quit the case. Roy's become in lead counsel. He'll be the one to argue in court. But I plan on assisting him. However, I can great. Then come with me, you can assist to collect stories.
I just cut off the plane.
I haven't even seen rong yet.
Sarah. You're acting like you have a choice. I'm driving, Deb.
Come on, you've been give me crep since day one. You know, I just did this for the legal experience.
Time to let the professionals take over.
You should be doing backflips.
Uh huh?
Where are we?
This is the nicest neighborhood.
I got those girl's name from someone I spoke to at the referral service.
You'll see.
Hi are you deb?
I am, and this is Sarah Weddington.
Nice to meet you both.
I'm call me Polly. Come on in my mother's outs.
Your timing is perfect.
Get you anything. I made some lemonade.
I'm fine, Thank you.
Lemonade would be great. Polly. Thanks your friend Annie told me you might be willing to talk to Sarah and me about your situation.
Annie said I could trust you too.
You can. We're putting together a case for the Supreme Court.
I know, but I can't testify.
There are no witnesses in the Supreme Court. Actually, we send them a long documents story called briefs. The more pertinent stories we can include about the women of the law effects the better.
We just want to hear your story, Polly, or may take some notes if that's okay.
Are you an assistant on the case. Missus Whittington.
Yeah, I guess so. So Polly isn't your real name.
I take it. Annie said you wouldn't need my name.
We don't. Polly'll do just fine.
I'd lose my job. You can't let anyone know I spoke to you. My daddy's a lawyer.
If you try to pin this on me.
No one's trying to pin anything on you, Poullie, not on anyone. Pseudonyms work for us for the brief. Long as all the other details are accurate, your real name will be kept under lock and key.
I promise.
I'm sorry to be so.
It's just the way I've been treated all this time. Let's just say I don't have any illusions anymore. But you didn't expect to see a girl like me in this situation.
What kind of girl is that, Polly?
I don't know.
I was a cheerleader. Daddy's a lawyer.
All types of girls need abortions. Polly, you got nothing to be ashamed about.
See the diaphragm failed. You believe that?
And I was not gonna keep my professor's baby ruin my life just because a stupid rubber disc got dislodged.
How far along were you.
I'd only missed one period, but enough to start panicking. I tried to find a doctor, but no one would even talk to me. So I came up with an idea.
I figured if I started the job, a doctor would have no choice.
But to finish it.
If you turn up at the hospital and show them you're bleeding, they have to take care of you.
That's the law.
My aunt Irene wasn't as smart as me. I was not going to be like her. I wasn't gonna rely on the knitting needle and then just try to tough it out. That's how you end up did You must must get a doctor involved to kind of clean it up.
So I was just gonna get it started. It hurt so much, I.
Swear it felt like I was a soldier getting stitched up on a field with no anesthesia. Just gritted my teeth and did what it had to be done. I called the taxi. I told the cab driver not to take me to the Cavolic hospital, to go to the one on Wisconsin instead.
But I'm not great with blood, and there was a lot of it, big streak of blood on the taxi seat.
Actually, I was so embarrassed I was back there trying to wipe it up with my skirt. But I was dizzy. I was so worried I was going to bleed out. Right in the back of this man's cab. I almost fainted.
Luckily the cab driver was a.
Kind man, tells me to put my head back, talks to me the whole time, wanted to keep me awake.
He said he had a daughter my age.
When we got there, I fell right out of the car, hit my head on the curb.
The nurses came running. Remember a lot after that, except.
Except what one nurse was pretty darn cruel whispered to one of the others that I was going to hell. She doesn't need to tell me I'm going to hell. I'm Catholic, I know that, but that's another day's worry.
So it's fair to say your faith complicated the decision about how to handle the unloaded pregnancy.
No, Missus Weddington, it simplified it. Being Catholic is what drove me to getting it done. My mother actually said a few years ago, if you get pregnant, dear, have it taken care of and don't ever let me know about it. Mother's desperate for me to marry us in marry up. She wants me to marry a boy named Perry, actually Protestant.
To Perry. She'd die if she knew I.
Had an abortion, and my Jewish professor's abortion at that. But she'd extra die if I turned up pregnant, my big belly window and all her dreams a social climate.
I'm gonna get some water. Can I get you to anything more?
We actually need to go in a minute.
Polly, I'll just be a sec My throat is suddenly so dry.
I can't believe I'm the one saying this. But your bedside manner could use some work, Sarah, So it's fair to say your faith complicated your decision about how to handle your unwanted pregnancy. Come on, she's a scared twenty year old. Talk to her like a human being.
We need to think like the non male judges who will be reading this dep We need to pretend we're cross examining her if we want these briefs to have any weight, because you know what the justices will be thinking that she seduced her professor, got pregnant, could have kept the baby and raised it with a man with a stable job, or given it up for adoption. But mostly what they'll be thinking is there that she should have kept her legs closed if she didn't want to get pregnant. Sounds like she had a consensual affair and then just turn it the human life growing inside her because her mom would have been embarrassed.
Wow, I'm not saying that's.
What I think, Dad, But what I think isn't relevant.
I went to a Methodist college, just like Polly's not a lot of clothes legs, Sarah.
Everybody's doing it isn't a strong legal argument.
Deb I was just telling you the truth.
Polly, I know you were. I'm just trying to think of what will be helpful for the case winning the justice's sympathy.
Who would be good sympathy?
Huh? Maybe you should include the fact that that I can't have kids anymore at twenty. That's what the doctors told me. Anyway, I probably won't be able to carry a pregnancy. At least I won't have to worry about getting another abortion.
Proud of yourself, Sarah, I particularly no, when did we switch places? I thought I was the cynical, sarcastic bitch and you were the peppy, prom queen.
What I am is a lawyer, deb not a shorthands stonographer. We have to think like the opposition here or the briefs are meaningless. I thought you wanted to win.
I'm sorry, I'm cranky.
Can we stop for lunch before the next one?
I thought you'd never ask.
I swear, Tob I could eat everything.
On this menu right now.
Yeah, I think I've lost my appetite completely.
Oh ladies, what can I get you?
Hi?
Annette?
Do I know you?
It's deb Margulis. We've spoken on the phone. This is Sarah Weddington. When's your next.
Break, lady lawyer? Huh?
What a time to be alive.
Sarah won the case for us in Dallas. She's a transitioning in a role before the Supreme Court.
Though.
Let me guess a man is tagging you out.
How do you and Debt know each other?
I'll take that as a yes, we don't know each other. Actually, we spoke on the phone that preferred me to someone last time I got pregnant.
Yeah, that was before we had doctors we could rely on in that. I still feel guilty.
Hey, I survived and it worked, right, I got unpregnant.
You also ended up in a hospital, still worked Annette.
We're taking stories for our brief If I could start with some basic infone name, age.
Occupation Annette waitress. Obviously I'm not going to give you a last name. Thirty two years old. I know I look older. I have kids will do that to you.
When did you last have the procedure?
Wish I had it thirteen years ago. That's why I'm in this whole mess. This whole mess being my life. I had Marissa when I was nineteen. My boyfriend pulled a disappear and act better than the amazing Randy. My father leaned on the Porschnook's family as hard as he could, but no dice. I'm making it to the altar. My mom was so embarrassed she kept us all inside, including my brothers and sisters. Couldn't show our faces in the neighborhood for two months, and they found me a replacement husband, Bill, he worked with my father at the factory, graciously agreed to raise my little bastard baby girl. I've had four more kids since then.
And does Bill know you terminated the most recent pregnancy.
You got any idea how diired I am?
Do you have kids?
Missus Weddington.
No, I don't.
Bill doesn't get along with the oldest Marissa. The others do, all right, they're little, but him and Marissa. It's bad. And forget about money. This last time you knocked me up, i'd just gotten a job at my kid's school. They fire the pregnant teachers as soon as they find out school policy. I tried to get the abortion before I started showing, but the principal's witch of a secretary caught me vomiting in the bathroom fired me that afternoon.
Where'd you get this one done? A natte?
The guy y'all referred me to told me to bring five hundred bucks and wait outside the Starlight Diner. Where the hell was I going to get five hundred bucks? Might as well have been five hundred thousand. You don't want to know how I got it, but I got it anyway. I was told to get in a blucid end that pulled up to the diner at six am. They blindfolded me. You believe that.
I'm so sorry.
I was shaking. I was so scared. I kept thinking none of my people knew where I was going. What if I never came back? What would happen to Marissa and the rest of them. Maybe they'd think I'd just abandoned them. But when they took off my blindfold, it looked like a real doctor's office. Clean. They gave me a shot, said it was antibiotics, no anesthesia, no anesthesia.
Are you serious?
Well that's pretty typical, Sarah. She had complications from the anesthesia. They could get found out too much of her risk.
Plus they gotta get a cent and out of there quick. Can't be waiting for us to come too. I have given birth five times. How a root canal wants electrocute of myself on the toaster and nothing, Nothing has hurt me so bad as that can.
I just asking it. Why didn't you go to another state? It's legal in California or New York.
How the hell you think I'm going to afford to go to California and take days off, lose this job, and who's going to take care of the kids? Not built? I didn't mean to suggest the hell you didn't. Who is this chick?
Deb Sarah is okay? I know she doesn't look it, but I promise she's one of us.
Well, I gotta get back before the manager starts looking for me.
How's your knowing it?
I'm all right, doctor said, I can keep having kids if I want, hippie, I'll be paying off those bills forever. But yeah, okay, thank you.
For talking to us.
It's useful for the case.
I'm glad it's useful to somebody.
What do you think, Sarah, She's good for the brief.
She's sympathetic, married, she has more kids than she and her husband can afford. The liberal justices will appreciate that, and we can play down the first unwed pregnancy she wishes.
She aboarded, glad she was ethical enough for you.
I want to win, Deb, same as you.
With this court, with Burger and Blackman and Stewart, we need the most squeaky clean cases. We can find girls who remind the conservative judges of their daughters and sisters.
Where are we going now?
Now we go to the hospital with the doctor there, and she has a patient who may be willing.
To talk to us.
But Sarah, you gotta be gentlemen.
I'm not going to attack some poor girl in the hospital.
Deb give me some credit, Doctor Dennis, please.
Don doctor Caplin, Deb, come in, come in. I'm just finishing up a chart.
This is the lawyer I told you about, Sarah Weddington.
Good to meet you, Sarah, you too, Doctor, appreciate your help. I read the coverage from me one at the court here in Dallas. You're a hell of a lawyer. We somehow win this thing in Washington. It will be because of you that.
Thank you.
It's a group effort, though, truth be told, I'll be taking a lesser role in.
The case from here and ow.
You're not abandoning us, are you, Sarah.
No, it's a case like this is like musical chairs. It may be my turn to sit a song out, that's all.
Uh huh.
Tell Sarah what you were telling me over the phone.
Doc.
There's been a three hundred percent increase in pregnant women taking for littlemi trying to induce abortion. These women are giving birth to children with missing arms, missing legs.
Jesus, that's awful.
Women are drinking castor oil, just drinking it from a bottle. At Coca Cola. We've had women come in who inserted paintbrushes and curtain rods into their uterus and an attempt to abort ballpoint pens. I had a patient this morning who was brought in from the bus depot. They found her passed out and bleeding internally.
You got someone for us to talk to.
Doc.
Come with me, Hi, Grace, how are you holding up today?
Better?
I think?
Thank you? Doctor Richard sent me flowers. See they're lovely.
These are the two women I mentioned Grace since deb and this is Sarah, the ones compiling that report for court. You're still up for talking to them?
What do you all want to know?
I'll leave you all to it.
How about we start with the basics. First name age.
My name's Grace. I'll be seventeen in October. Who's Richard? Is that your boyfriend fiance? At least he says he's gonna marry me. That's how I ended up here. We didn't think it was so bad to do it since we were getting married. Anyway, Maybe that's more detail than you need for your four. My mom's always yelling at me from being too frank. Anyway, I didn't get my period, So Richard got a phone number from his buddy who goes to ut We called and the guy said to come to this hotel and Winnetka Heights. It's a white neighborhood. I felt like everyone was looking at us. When we got to the place, the room that were these four big white men. They told Richard to wait outside, but he insisted on staying. I don't think he trusted him. They certainly scared the hell out of me. Told Richard if he was gonna stay, he had to wait in the bathroom. The main one. What I remember most is how dirty his fingernails were. He put him inside of me. He said he was.
Said it was to check how far along I was, but.
He was grabbing me. It really hurt my breast. You can still see the bruises. I knew Richard would come out of the bathroom if I called for him, but he would have stopped the whole thing, and we had to get this done. I did scream once when the man started. It hurt so bad. He said if I screamed again, he'd have to stop. And I just wanted the baby out so bad. I would have done anything anything. I'm sort of glad he didn't give me any anesthesia. I don't know what else he would have done to me while I was asleep. Afterwards, he said I had to get out of there fast.
I felt like I could barely move. I was cramping so bad.
Richard tried to carry me out, but they stopped him, said it would draw attention out front. Somehow we made it to the bus stop next day, though I couldn't even walk.
Richard brought me here after mine. I slept for eighteen hours straight.
Da. I didn't know you.
I didn't know that.
I didn't think my story would be helpful for the brief. But yeah, I was lucky though, cause I was able to go to England, for it was already legal there. A friend of mine from college was living in London. I stayed with her, went to the doctor, went under, recovered pretty quick all there was to it. Slept like a dead person at her flat. But the next day we went for a walk in the park. It's okay when it's legal, it's safe.
Grace, Mama, Oh there you are finally. Are you all right? Oh y'all? Forward is burning up, Grace.
I'm gonna be fine.
Mama.
You disappeared on us.
It was only supposed to be an afternoon.
I didn't think, Mama, s s sh It's okay.
Richard's friend said it was gonna be a real doctor, or almost it was planning to be a doctor, but something happened at the end of medical school or something.
How'd you find me?
I made Richard tell me where you were. Oh, he held out best he could. Grace, You've always told me everything, Mama.
I feel so dirty now. The man touched me, dirty, disgusting. If that's enough, put it out of your mind. Let me talk to your doctor.
Doctor Kaplan is in her office by the nurses station. Ma'am, thank you.
I'll be back.
You ladies get what you needed. You've been really helpful, Grace. Thank you.
Doctor said you're going to court. I'm glad there's some woman doing it. Even the men like Richard to do the right thing. No man is going to care enough. It's not their lives on the line, is it. Are you gonna put the men in jail? Men like my doctor put me here? No, that's not That would be a different sort of case. He should be in jail.
You would have to testify, Grace, go to court.
Point about I don't even know his name? Well I didn't.
I just find a way to get on that abortion flight. Abortion flight, you know, most flights Friday mornings from Dallas to the El Paso. I heard it's one hundred percent women they cross over into Mexico to have the procedure there.
Sarah, you all right, I'm gonna go check on doctor.
Katherlin, missus Weddington. Are you okay?
Doc?
I don't know.
I'm having trouble breathing.
Sit down, put your head between your knees.
Where's Grace's mother?
She went back to see Grace. Take a deep breath. Sarah, Dan, sit up, you know right now?
I just.
I've heard some stories today, I'll bet.
How do you do it?
Doctor?
How do you hear all these stories day at day out?
How do you rebate stand it?
Deb tells me you're quitting the case.
No, No, Deb is wrong. I'm still part of Row. I'm just not going to be arguing the case in the Supreme Court. There are other important jobs to.
Do, Sarah.
Do you know how many female doctors I work with here at Women's Hospital.
I'm bety.
I bet I'm the only one medicine pays, and you know what men will do to keep us out of anything where money flows and praise and recognition. There were a few other women in my med school Cluess, but I don't blame him for taking different paths. It just bothers me because the men think it proves their point. There were not cut out for this. Men couldn't handle a day of what we go through, of what they put us through. I count myself lucky that I was able to stick it out some combination of upbringing, talent, ambition. You might know something about what that's like.
I haven't quit the case, Doctor Caplin.
We need to stick it out, Sarah, for no other reason than to show them we can. No matter how inhospitable they make the world for us, we have to be better than all of them, just to get anywhere. How are you feeling, Sarah, Oh?
To see Doc?
I don't know.
Would you like to meet a few more people.
I threw myself down the stairs.
I took a knitting needle, a coat hanger.
He punched me in the stomach, over and over. I drank cast or till I couldn't anymore.
We were just having fun.
I was raped. He was my father's friend. Here was my brother's friend.
He said, no one would believe me. He said if I told anyone, he'd kill me. He disappeared, He walked away.
I never saw him again.
I flew to Puerto Rico.
I took the bus from our passout. I went alone.
He took all the money I had and demanded more. I bled until I passed out.
I was eighteen, I was I was fifteen.
It hurts so bad.
I almost died.
My friend said my cousin Jenny friend made my mother died.
I never told anyone.
So, Sarah, what are you going to do?
Supreme?
The Battle for Roh from iHeart Podcasts created and written by Aaron Tracy, directed by Rachel Winter, starring Maya Hawk, William H.
Macy, and Abigail.
Breslin, also featuring Andrea Savage as deb Lacrisia Brown as Grace, Kim Yancy Moore as Wanda, Megan Grant as Polly, Jinkolella as Annette Tearsa Mannis as Doctor Kaplan. Executive produced by Eva Longoria, Ben Spector, Rachel Winter and Aaron Tracy, as well as Katrina Norvell and Anna Stump. From iHeart produced by Kelly and Kelly. Executive producers for Kelly and Kelly are Chris Kelly, Lauren Berkovich, and Pat Kelly. Produced by Tamara Black for Kelly and Kelly. Director of Audio Chris Kelly. Original score by Hamilton Lighthauser and Anna Stump edited in sound designed by Paul Tatoskini. For a full list of credits, please see show notes.
This is a production of Unbelievable Entertainment in partnership with iHeartRadio