Episode 155 | Where Have The Babies Gone?

[Intro with Music]:

Sometimes controversial, always politically incorrect, and pro-life without exception, without compromise, and without apology. It’s the Pro-Life America podcast with your hosts, Sarah Waites and the president of Life Dynamics, Mark Crutcher.

Sarah: Welcome back to the Pro-Life America podcast. I’m your host, Sarah Waites, and I am joined by my co-host, Mark’s daughter, Sheila Crutcher. Hello, Sheila.

Sheila: Hello. I will always be known as Mark’s daughter.

(laughter)

Sarah: Maybe I should introduce you as my spunky yet controversial co-host. How about that?

Sheila: No, I think being known as Mark’s daughter is good. It’s an honor.

Sarah: Oh no, I can do better. Challenge accepted.

Sheila: I don’t think you can do better than that. And also speaking of co-hosts, we have a little co-host here, Kodak, who of course is chewing on his bone. So if you hear gnawing and scraping and stuff, that’s not…

Sarah: …clattering…

Sheila: Yeah, that’s not one of us, that’s Kodak.

Sarah: Our debate hasn’t gotten that heated. It’s just his bone falling on the floor.

Sheila: Yeah. Keeping him occupied.

Sarah: Well, we’re sorry we didn’t have an episode last week. We have been doing some rearranging around the office and, as a result, it was just far too chaotic to be able to record a podcast.

Sheila: Um hmm. Yes.

Sarah: So, hence we moved it to this week and it’s still chaotic, but we’re making do. Another development that we’ve had, is that we have released all the transcripts for our Abortion Distortion video series, including the ones that have not been released yet.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: So if you’re liking the video series, if you want to use the text in tweets or blog posts – whatever it may be – we have the transcripts in a downloadable PDF document. I will have the link for that in the description.

Sheila: And I gotta say, Sarah, that it looks really nice. You did all the artwork and you gathered all that together and it looks really nice.

Sarah: Oh, thank you. I tried to make it as user friendly as possible.

Sheila: And it is.

 Sarah: So, there’s a chapter index, by overall theme, that you can click on the page number and it will take you there.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: Also, at the very back, there is a subject index, so if you’re looking for something very specific, say like the words “death penalty,” I have an interactive, clickable index there as well.

Sheila: Mm hmm, so it’s very user friendly. And use it in arguments against pro-choicers.

Sarah: Absolutely. Even though we didn’t have an episode last week, we sent out an email letting everyone know. And for those of you who subscribe to our email notifications, you were asked to participate in a poll asking what you thought the ideal family size is.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: And thank you so much for all of you who responded to the poll. The most prominent answer we got was, of course, “depends.” But second under “depends” was actually “four or more children.”

Sheila: Well, honestly, that isn’t surprising for pro-lifers.

Sarah: I was going to say, it’s really not surprising for pro-lifers, but it does kind of reinforce something that was found in our first story that we’re going to cover.

Sheila: Um hmm.

Sarah: The reason why we asked about this is, that there was an article that popped up in my news feed titled, “Millennials Aren’t Having Kids. Here Are The Reasons Why.” Now, I think there’s some things here that they miss and they hit on. But every two years, the Census Bureau quietly asks fertility related questions in what’s called “The Current Population Survey.” Like many countries around the world, as we know and we’ve talked about on this podcast – specifically episode 46, but the world is experiencing a population decline.

Sheila: Umm hmm. For all these people who say, ‘oh, the world is overpopulated, blah, blah, blah,’ the reality is, many countries across the world are experiencing negative birth rates.

Sarah: And we’ve even talked about on the podcast before during the pandemic, when a number of countries were expecting that people being home for several weeks to a few months – depending on where you live, that they were expecting, you know, babies to come out of that. And it didn’t have the results that they were expecting or hoping for.

Sheila: Um hmm.

Sarah: And in a few decades, it’s going to be really a big deal. And there’s going to be economic consequences because of that.

Sheila: I mean, you already are seeing consequences of it – especially in European countries, and Japan, and China. So we’re already starting to experience those pains from it.

Sarah: Oh yeah. But it’s minimal as opposed to what it will be in a few years.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: So anyway, they do surveys about the population. And one thing that they’ve noticed is that since the mid 1980s, the rate at which families produce only one child has ironically been flat. It has stayed consistent. Something like one in five American women ages 25 to 44 just have one child. Families with three or more kids were more common, but that plunged in the 1980s.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: And the number of women who had no children has risen.

Sheila: Mm hmm.

Sarah: What they have found is that both married and unmarried Americans have shifted towards childlessness in the millennial era.

Sheila: There is still time for millennials to have children; but as of now, it’s looking like millennials aren’t having children.

Sarah: One of the things that they were looking at when they’re looking at childlessness is, well, how many children do people want?

Sheila: Mm hmm.

Sarah: Could it be that people just don’t want children? So what they found is that there’s a very small percentage of people who don’t want any children.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: Even among millennials. Just above that, one of the least popular answers was only one child. Only three percent of Americans considers one child to be the family size. What they found was that about 44 percent said three children would be ideal and the parents who have that many kids are much more likely to have the precise number of kids. So what they’re finding is multiple children or none. So either you really want children or you don’t want them at all.

Sheila: Well it makes sense, because families who want more kids – they really want kids and so they’re really going to try to make that happen.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sheila: Now, people are getting pregnant later in life. And so that does cause people not to have as many kids. And then also, there are some people who have only children. They do that because of different reasons. Sometimes it’s because they physically can’t have more than one child. Or like me, I was adopted. And adoption is really expensive. And so oftentimes people can’t afford more than one child.

Sarah: Yeah, I mean they are quick to point out that just because there’s a number of Millennials that have only one child or no children, there’s still time for many Millennials to have children. So by the time that the millennial generation gets out of the childbearing years, the results could be very different. It could be just delayed.

Sheila: Right, We’ll just have to see.

Sarah: We’ll have to see, but they’re noticing overall that there is a lateness compared to other generations, and they have different theories about that.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: The most popular theory was economics. You know, the fact that the millennial generation, compared to other generations, has had a lot of financial setbacks. Like right when you and I were in college was the big bank bailout in 2008 and unemployment spiked real bad, you had people losing their homes.

Sheila: Well, now a lot of millennials say that because they have student loan debts, they don’t want to have children while they have a bunch of student loan debts…

Sarah: Yeah.

Sheila: …and when they can’t afford houses as well.

Sarah: Another theory is because of marriage rates; because marriage rates have steadily declined.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: And unmarried people are much less likely to have children. Especially when you consider economics, because when you have dual incomes your economics tends to improve – not always.

Sheila: And plus you get tax benefits and stuff.

Sarah: Mm-Hmm. But one thing that they found when they were theorizing about economics and childlessness, they noticed that millennials were late to home ownership, which makes it harder to start families. But the levels of childlessness have actually accelerated, despite the fact that their home ownership rates have grown recently.

Sheila: Um hmm.

Sarah: So, they’re not necessarily sure that economics is the answer.

Sheila: Like I said, they’ve come up with all these different theories, but they never once talk about the respect and want for life.

Sarah: Oh, yeah. But before we get to that, because I think you’re hitting the nail on the head though, I think it would be irresponsible for us to not mention the fact that yours and my generation especially had the emphasis of education and career really drummed in. The generation before us had some of that, but not, I don’t think, to the extent that we did.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: And I think there’s a lot of millennials, female millennials who have put their focus on education and career, who are delaying having children because they put all that focus over here.

Sheila: Well, it is a cultural shift from the emphasis, you know, on women not being mothers, but getting careers, to the introduction of birth control – how it’s, you know, it’s considered normal to delay and alter your natural cycles and stuff just so you don’t have children.

Sarah: Um hmm.

 Sheila: These people can list all of these different reasons. But overall, it comes down to an attitude. It comes down to an attitude about life and about children. There are plenty of examples, like for instance, there’s a website called Reddit. It’s kind of like different forums and stuff. – and they have anti-children forums, like child free. And there’s just an anti-life, anti-children sentiment nowadays in culture.

Sarah: Well, I think the big thing, from what I remember, Abortion rates were highest in the 90s. There was a period right after abortion was legalized that the abortion rates were Increasing, and then I think they peaked around somewhere around in the 90s and then they started to drop. So If you think about that, that’s going to have an impact for the number of children – and especially the impact that having legalized abortion has had on these subsequent generations.

 Sheila: Um hmm.

Sarah: What most people don’t realize, is the number of generations that were born after Roe versus Wade was the law of the land. It’s only the Millennials and then you have Gen Z – we are one of the few generations that have been born after Roe was legalized. So yeah, of course our opinions on birth control, and children, and, you know, whether or not to have children at all is going to be wildly different from all the generations before Roe.

 Sheila: Uh huh. Again, we’ll just have to see what happens, because millennials are getting older. And so maybe more and more we’ll start having children. So we’ll just have to see what impact it has. And Gen Z… who knows with Gen Z?

(laughter)

Sarah: Who knows with Gen Z? They’re the wild card. Yeah, absolutely. Well, speaking of having children, we have a short, interesting story that has come up. Sheila sent me this article and the headline just had me do a double take. Here’s the headline: “U.S. Woman With Rare Double Uterus Expecting Babies In Both.”

 Sheila: This isn’t like a twin situation.

Sarah: And when I first read this, I was like, “Wait a minute. This can’t be real.” But apparently, 0. 3% of females have something that’s called, and I’m going to butcher this, Uterus Didelphys. It’s a rare condition where a person has a double uterus, so two uterus, each has a fallopian tube. And Kelsey Hatcher, a woman in the United States, is one of those women with double uteruses. On top of having a super rare condition, she is now one of one in fifty million who is pregnant in both uteruses.

Sheila: Um humm.

Sarah: The last case occurred in Bangladesh in 2019. So she’s hoping to go into labor and give medicated natural birth to both babies with a due date of somewhere around Christmas. But the uteruses will contract at different times, which could be minutes, hours, or even days apart.

Sheila: Man!

Sarah: I’m gonna do a question. If you guys listen on Spotify, you can naturally interact with poll questions. But if you don’t, I’ve created a new feature on our website. So if you go to the episode post on our website, I will have a poll question there that you can interact with. And this week’s poll question would be: would you do a natural birth – knowing that they could be born minutes, hours, or days apart, OR would you rather do a cesarean section for both children to have them born at the same time? I am curious to what our female listeners would say, because I know I have an opinion. But just let us know.

Sheila: I wonder if she knew she had this double…

Sarah: She did.

Sheila: I mean, you have to.

Sarah: It said that she knew, like, since she was, I think, 17

Sheila: Yeah, you have to.

Sarah: And she’s had several other children, but this is the first time that she is having a double pregnancy. And it says that both babies are thriving.

Sheila: Man, that’s quite the story. That’s going to be quite the story for family reunions and stuff.

Sarah: I know, right?

Sheila: That’s crazy.

Sarah: If anybody wants to read up on this to see that this is a very real thing, I will put the link in the description from Cleveland Clinic so you can read all about it. It is interesting.

Sheila: Yes, it is.

Sarah: Absolutely.

Sheila: Speaking of interesting, well, I don’t say interesting in a good way. But the Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau…

Sarah: (joking) …your favorite person.

Sheila: Yes, he’s lovely. (Sarcasm) Recently said in a speech that, “killing of women, of children, of babies in the Israeli – Hamas war must stop.” This is the same guy who, adamantly is pro-abortion and euthanasia, who acts like he cares about these women and children and babies.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sheila: How could he care about them when he doesn’t care about any others?

Sarah: Yeah.

Sheila: This is clearly just a PR talking point for him.

Sarah: Yeah, well, you know, it’s a common reaction for everybody to see the news headlines of what’s going on over in the Middle East and hearing these children and their heads being cut off and all this other stuff, to be revolted and wanting it to stop. But some of the same people who are shocked and outraged about this have no problem with a baby being aborted up to the moment of birth.

Sheila: Right. And them having their legs and arms torn off.

Sarah: And if you think an abortion is any more humane than what’s happening to those children, you’re wrong. The only difference between these children is location. That’s it.

Sheila: Exactly. And because they’re still developing or that they haven’t been born yet, these people, you know, try to make it out like they don’t have an equal right to life. And they can get away with it because our society turns a blind eye and doesn’t look into what’s happening in the womb.

Sarah: If you’re pro-choice and you’re listening to this podcast, first off, thank you for listening. I know you could choose any other pro-life podcast to hate on at the moment, but I genuinely welcome you to hate on this one.

(laughter)

Sarah: I’m serious. The thing I would ask you to think about is Hamas rationalizes the killing of these children because it suits their agenda, right? Because of hate. Pro-choice people rationalize the killing of living human beings. They call them fetuses. They call them parasites. They call them inhuman because it fits their needs.

Sheila: Mm-Hmm.

Sarah: Tell me the difference…

Sheila: There isn’t.

Sarah: …between Hamas rationalizing the killing of these infants versus a pro-choice person rationalizing the killing of the unborn child. Tell me how it’s different.

Sheila: It’s not. They have to do mental gymnastics and come up with the most absurd arguments to try to rationalize it.

Sarah: And if you’re a pro-choice person who is listening to this and saying, ‘Oh, well, it’s different because they’re inhuman, or they’re just a fetus, or it’s a glob of cells,’ first off, you need to go back to your basic biology class. And second of all, you need to take a hard look.

Sheila: Mm hmm. Right.

Sarah: The lack of respect for human life and the rationalizing of killing human life because it fits your needs results in a lot of horrible things like this next story.

Sheila: Mm hmm. So this next story comes out of the UK. There was a baby girl named Indy Gregory who recently died. She was an 8-month-old girl who was in the hospital on life support. She suffered from a rare mitochondrial disease and the parents were wanting to keep her on life support, try to get her medical help. Well, a justice Robert Peel ordered that the girl be taken off the life support despite her parents wishes. And despite the fact that the Italian government granted her citizenship and issuing emergency measures so that she would have been able to go and receive care in Rome, with no cost to the NHS and no cost to the UK taxpayer.

Sarah: Yeah, and Peel twice, not once – but twice, blocked Gregory’s transfer to Italy for specialist treatment.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: So this goes beyond, ‘we’re not allocating our resources for this child.’ It’s ‘nobody can give resources to this child.’

Sheila: Right! I mean the Italian government had it set up. They had it cleared. The parents wanted this. The Italian government wanted to help this child. They were willing to pay the cost and it wasn’t about resources. It was about the anti-life sentiment from the UK government.

Sarah: And unfortunately, this poor young girl is not the first to experience this. Similar cases happened to Alfie Evans and Charlie Gard. Not only were they both children that the British courts ordered to be taken off of life support or off of life sustaining treatment, they were also similarly denied the chance to receive treatment in Italy by the UK courts.

Sheila: Right. So, I mean, this isn’t a one time thing. It’s obvious that the UK government has an anti-life stance. And also, the father of Indy Gregory said that she responded to touch, that she could experience happiness. So, this wasn’t about suffering either.

Sarah: Like I say, this treatment that we have for life now has been compromised and has gotten to this point because of legalized abortion.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: Because legalized abortion for children with disabilities, has been marketed and sold as compassion.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: But as we’ve pointed out on this show, it is a bastardization of compassion.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: Like I say, this is what it leads to.

Sheila: Exactly.

Sarah: How are you going to tell us that it is compassionate to force these parents, not even in their own home – they originally were allowed to take her off life support in their own home and the court said no.

Sheila: Yeah.

Sarah: So how is it more compassionate to force the time and the place of the ending of this child’s life, despite other people saying, ‘we will take on the burden. We will take this child, we will help this child,’ and the government’s saying ‘nobody can – this child will die.’

Sheila: Um hmm. Exactly. And speaking of government interference, this is actually a good story.

Sarah: Um hmm. We wanted it to end on a positive note.

Sheila: Yes. And so, of course, this is coming out of New York. The court recently instructed New York to leave the Catholic Sisters of Life alone. So, Sisters of Life, operates a pregnancy resource center in New York City. They did a lawsuit against the state officials who wanted access to their private internal documents.

Sarah: Let’s clarify. The reason for this is, last year, the very pro-abortion state of New York passed a law that authorized the state commissioner of health to gain access to private and sensitive internal documents of pregnancy resource centers that don’t offer or refer for abortion.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: This is not for everybody. This is specifically aimed at crisis pregnancy or pregnancy resource centers.

Sheila: That access was without cause and without a warrant.

Sarah: In my opinion, it looks to be like a law that allows a legal fishing expedition.

Sheila: It is.

Sarah: They want to shut these places down because New York, like California and some other states, have set themselves up to be abortion havens. Not just abortion havens, but abortion meccas.

Sheila: Mm hmm. Exactly. And they can’t have these pregnancy resource centers standing in the way and operating.

Sarah: Yeah. Thankfully, because of the lawsuit, New York agreed to issue a court order and ended their authority to request data and information. However, this does not comment on the legality of the law, which in my opinion violates against unreasonable search and seizures.

Sheila: Oh, yeah. Mm hmm.

Sarah: And the order does not apply to pregnancy resource centers other than the Sisters of Life. So, New York can still use this against other pregnancy resource centers.

Sheila: So, it’s good that Sisters of Life won.

Sarah: Mm hmm.

Sheila: But this is just going to pop up again in the future.

Sarah: Mm hmm.

Sheila: And it’s something that New York is going to continue to try to push.

Sarah: Like I say, I, I honestly do not understand how it is legal because it does violate the fourth amendment.

Sheila: It’s not legal, but that doesn’t matter to these people. These people will do anything to keep abortion going.

Sarah: Mm hmm.

Sheila: And I mean, that sums up perfectly the mindset of the pro-abortion lobby. Cause from this week’s From the Mouth of Mark goes along with this. From my dad’s blog post, Eliminating the Competition, Mark wrote, “In the minds of the pro-choice gang, the term a woman’s right to choose really means a woman’s right to choose abortion. So make no mistake about it, their Vendetta Against Crisis Pregnancy Centers is designed for one thing and one thing only – to limit the options women have when deciding whether or not to kill their children. These people clearly understand that when women see their unborn children on an ultrasound screen, many will choose not to kill them. And if that sort of thing is not nipped in the bud, it will inevitably lead to lower profits down at the local death camp.”

Sarah: Well said. Absolutely.

Sheila: It’s all about the profits for them. It’s all about abortion.

Sarah: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Pro-Life America podcast. Again, I encourage you all to either go on Spotify or our website and participate in this episode’s Q& A or poll question. We’ve had some for the past few episodes. They’re up there that you can go interact with those and let us know what you think.

And be sure to follow the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. In addition to Spotify and our website, we’re on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio and of course the list goes on.

Sheila: Mm hmm. And as we gear towards Thanksgiving, I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving / turkey day.

Sarah: Oh, yes, absolutely! Because next week is Thanksgiving, isn’t it?

Sheila: Mm hmm. I can’t believe it.

Sarah: I mean, it creeps up on us.

Sheila: Mm hmm. It does.

Sarah: Yeah, so from all of us to you, Happy Thanksgiving.

Sheila: Mm hmm.

Sarah: We hope you enjoy this time with your families and friends.

Sheila: Friends, family, loved ones.

Sarah: Mm hmm.

Sheila: Well, until next time, Life Dynamics is not here to put up a good fight.

Sarah: Mm mm. We’re here to win.

Sheila: Because winning is how the killing stops.

Sarah: Thank you so much. We will see you after Thanksgiving.

[End]