Episode 156 | The Quest For ‘Menstrual Equity’ & Other Outrageous News

[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’m joined by my co-host, Sheila Crutcher.

Sheila: Hi everyone.

Sarah: We hope you guys had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We know that we had a wonderful time, had too much great food, and enjoyed all the lovely company.

Sheila: Mm hmm. I enjoyed a nice nap in the afternoon before playing some board games with you.

Sarah: Yeah. I tell you what, there’s nothing like a Thanksgiving nap. I don’t know. It’s amazing.

Sheila: The turkey and the carbs.

Sarah: Put on fluffy slippers, and it’s the most amazing nap ever.

Sheila: Yep, it is.

(Laughter)

Sheila: And again, if you hear chewing and stuff in the background, Sarah is not chewing on a bone, that would be the dog, Kodak, who is chewing on a bone.

Sarah: Yes, I’m shaken my bone habit, so.

(Laughter)

Sarah: Well, the theme for this week’s show is “truly outrageous.” And to kick this off: do you hate the terms “feminine hygiene products” and “sanitary napkins?”

Sheila: Uh, i’ve never had any issues with it.

Sarah: Well, if you’re one of the few people in this country who has a problem with these terms…

Sheila: …who has nothing better to do than be outraged over stuff like this…

Sarah: …then we have good news for you! Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law the health Equity and Opportunity Legislative Package, which replaces all instances and variations of the phrases in correction law, public health, and tax law, in favor of more “inclusive language” like “menstrual products and pads.”

Sheila: Mm hmm. And of course, New York would be one of the ones to do this.

Sarah: She said, “We now know more than ever before the positive impact inclusivity has on communities, and in New York we’re taking the steps to ensure equity for all from healthcare to haircare. From simply updating the way certain products are referred to, to expanding access to vital resources for those who may need them most. And as time progresses, so should our laws.” I don’t know about you, Sheila, but I feel better already.

Sheila: Oh, yes. While, you know, they push for abortion and babies being killed in the womb there. Instead of, you know, tackling that issue, they’re…

Sarah: …getting rid of terms like “sanitary napkin.”

Sheila: Yeah, because it might be offensive to somebody.

 Sarah: Well, I’ve always thought the term to be weird, but I’ve never been really upset about it. But, according to State Senator Roxanne Persuad, she said that the bill to update the state’s language when it comes to menstrual products will “help lift the stigma surrounding menstruation.” I didn’t know that there was a stigma, but apparently there is. It’s ongoing. 

(Laughter)

 Sarah: “And it will aid in New York’s mission toward menstrual equity.”

Sheila: Hmm.

Sarah: Now, do you know what menstrual equity is? I don’t even think she knows what menstrual equity is.

Sheila: But again, it’s language manipulation with these people. Just like in our Abortion Distortion video series, like the language manipulation ones, these people just try to manipulate language in order to fit their agenda – even though it’s not true at all or scientifically accurate.

Sarah: You didn’t know that there was a problem for menstrual equity, Sheila, but they’re solving it.

Sheila: Oh, well, good. I’m glad.

(Laughter)

Sarah: It’s no wonder why some people on the left are so mad because they act like there’s this huge stigma and the problem of menstrual equity that they have to solve.

Sheila: These people just come up with problems instead of focusing on real ones.

Sarah: I guess a positive note on this is it does require free menstrual products to be provided to students in private middle and high schools. But considering the budgeting for this, and that it’s New York, it’s probably one of those pads that if you got it for free, you still paid too much.

Sheila: Yeah, it’s probably just going to be like a thin piece of paper.

Sarah: Those vending machines in bathrooms that say “sanitary napkins: 25 cents,” I mean those are probably better.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: As the outrageous news train continues, this next article was brought to our attention by our friends at Operation Rescue. So, apparently, at the University of Tennessee, the University of Tennessee Women’s Coordinating Council, which is a student organization, hosted a abortion pill training event for students last October. The event was led by Maxine Carwile, a former employee of Planned Parenthood.

Sheila: So, all these college students are being taught how to use abortion pills unsupervised, in order to kill children in the womb. That sounds like a great idea.

Sarah: Mmm hmm. By a former employee of Planned Parenthood. Now, it does not say whether or not she has any medical training or not.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: But I’m going to play just a couple of short clips from all of her wisdom that she had to dispense.

Sheila: Hmm. Yeah.

Sarah: So this is the first clip.

Audio Clip: “The most important thing on earth is that if somebody ever does end their own pregnancy or help someone end their own pregnancy, that they keep their mouth absolutely, completely shut. Trust no one basically!”

Sarah: So if you couldn’t understand what she said, she said, basically, ‘anyone who has an abortion or helps someone have an abortion, keep your mouth shut. Don’t tell anybody.’

Sheila: Right. That’s terrible advice because there’s going to be a complication, and someone’s going to end up dying because they were told not to trust medical professionals and to keep their mouth shut.

Sarah: Yeah, that’s a good question. So what about medical professionals? Well, this guru from Planned Parenthood has all the answers. And this is what Maxine Carwile has to say.

Audio Clip: “So medical professionals above all else, should not be confided in. Um, I’m going to say this like probably like 50 times in the next hour, because it’s the most important point. Um, medication abortion via pills shows up exactly the same as a miscarriage. The course of treatment for any sort of complications is exactly the same as a miscarriage. So the most important thing for anyone to know is to say over and over again to any medical professionals, family, friends, anyone at all, ‘I am having a miscarriage. I am having a miscarriage.’ Over, and over, and over again. It’s also why talking about abortion pills is so important, because this is not like the days prior to Roe v. Wade, where the only options were a lot more harmful, like coat hangers, or bleach, or knitting needles. We have abortion pills that are super accessible and cheap, if not free, and ordering online is a beautiful miracle. We have a medically safe way for people on their own to end their pregnancy.”

Sarah: “A beautiful miracle”?!

Sheila: Mm hmm. And she’s telling the students to keep their mouths shut and not trust the medical professionals because Tennessee is a pretty conservative state. And they, you know, they tried passing abortion restrictions and stuff. And so she’s trying to persuade the students…

Sarah: …circumventing laws.

Sheila: Exactly.

Sarah: Because abortion pills are kind of a gray area in the law at the moment.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: And as we talked about, a number of these states are going to be addressing that one way or the other in the coming months and years.

But, for her to say, do not tell medical professionals, that it just shows up like a miscarriage – “it’s the same as a miscarriage.” As we’ve covered on this show before, especially episode 87 – and I will put the link in the description for you to go listen to that, pills can be purchased online, yes. From reputable as well as very sketchy suppliers, especially when you’re talking about trying to circumvent state laws and the ways and the places you get that if you’re living in a state that has banned abortion or banned chemical abortions. And as for it being safe, there are health risks.

Sheila: Oh, yeah!

Sarah: They downplay it and they say, “oh, it’s just about as dangerous as Penicillin or Tylenol.” But, I mean, that’s comparing apples and oranges. And the big things that you have to worry about for complications are retained fetal tissue – which can lead to infections and sepsis…

Sheila: …even death.

Sarah: …even death, and pre-existing conditions such as ectopic pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancy is a huge, huge red flag. The manufacturers of these medications tell you not to take them if you have an ectopic pregnancy. And the only way you can detect an ectopic pregnancy is if you get a sonogram.

Sheila: Right. And all of these complications, and risks, and stuff, happen while being supervised by medical professionals.

Sarah: Mm hmm.

Sheila: And so what’s going to happen when these young females are taking them on their own, unsupervised?

Sarah: Oh, absolutely.

Sheila: And now they’re also being told by this chick, whatever her name is – I forgot. I don’t even care.

Sarah: Maxine Carwile.

Sheila: I don’t even care who she is. She’s meh. But this chick is telling them to keep their mouth shut.

Sarah: Mm hmm.

Sheila: And so it’s obvious that they don’t care about women. They just want to keep on pushing abortion. Because if they truly cared about them, they would say do it in a supervised manner with medical professionals because, even though it’s not safe…

Sarah: Medical professionals have stressed the need for blood, you know, the normal blood tests and that sort of thing, and ultrasounds – even if you’re getting a chemical or medication abortion – they still recommend those things.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: And there is an article in which they studied the adverse events reports, which means anytime something comes to the hospital and it’s coded. Between 2000 and 2016, 73 (percent) of the reports were classified as severe, 20% were life threatening, and 0.75 % resulted in death. Now true, 0.75 resulting in death is a small number, but that doesn’t mean that there couldn’t have potentially been more – because there are people who went to the hospital. And that’s not to downplay those people who died.

Sheila: Mm hmm. And you said 73. That was 73%.

Sarah: Yeah, sorry, 73%. Yeah.

Sheila: And remember that these studies and stuff, they don’t fully have the true scope because a bunch of it goes unreported.

Sarah: Oh, yeah, absolutely. But I’ll have a couple of links to just some stuff that I’ve found, just casually, when getting some of the information here. Because I always like to have links and stuff for you, showing that what I’m telling you is just not made out of whole cloth.

Sheila: Mm hmm.

Sarah: But if you go online and spend time for it, I mean despite the countless CNN articles, you will find reputable studies on this kind of stuff. And they will tell you over, and over again, that retained fetal tissue is a big problem and is one of the big causes of death.

Sheila: Mm hmm. And also if you go online on forums and stuff you can just see people’s self reporting issues that they’ve had, and not even being included in these studies.

Sarah: But telling people to not talk to doctors is dangerous. Medical professionals always insist on you being upfront and honest, because if you don’t tell them something, it can complicate or delay treatment.

 Sheila: And that’s a big red flag if you’re, you know, a so-called medical professional or, you know, person like this chick who tells you not to talk to a doctor and just do it on your own. That is a big red flag.

Sarah: I would wager a guess that she is not a medical professional.

 Sheila: Yeah, brings up a lot of questions. Speaking of which, this article just came out. Let me say that it’s not a confirmed 100 % story.

Sarah: Yes.

 Sheila: But it wouldn’t be surprising if true, because stuff like this has come out in the past. But apparently, media organizations had filed an application in August for the search warrant for Donald Trump’s Twitter account, which is now X, that they wanted to make public.

Sarah: So the search warrant, not the Twitter data, but the search warrant that the Department of Justice filed for his Twitter account and information.

 Sheila: Yep, and they wanted information including…

Sarah: …this is what the DOJ wanted, not the news.

Sheila: …information including every account that liked, followed, or retweeted Donald Trump. So not only do they want information from his personal data, but they want people who follow or interact with him some way, they wanted that information as well.

Sarah: So if you, listening to this, retweeted Donald Trump, your tweets are probably in there somewhere.

Sheila: Well, let’s just be honest. The federal government, especially under the Biden administration and Obama and stuff, they have been building, and building, and building federal databases. Who knows how many you and I are on.

Sarah: Mm hmm.

Sheila: I mean, just because, you know, we’re in the pro-life movement. So we probably have already popped up on several.

Sarah: But this battle between Twitter and the Department of Justice has brought up some interesting questions on legality, especially when you’re talking about Okay, well, we need information on all the accounts that ever liked, followed, or favorited Donald Trump’s tweets.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: And, the reason why we think that this has some credibility, is that the New York Times revealed last September, that prosecutors who were charging Donald Trump with criminal conspiracy, they had obtained 32 private messages from his Twitter account.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: And the content of those messages has not been disclosed, but it was only a small fraction of the larger body of data that Twitter was forced to turn over, under the terms of the warrant.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: So it would not surprise me that this has been included.

Sheila: Right. And again, the Department of Justice has a big target on the backs of Trump and his followers, and it is just going to continue on. And speaking of continuing on, there has been a secret phone surveillance program that has been spying on millions of Americans. So the program run by AT&T – in coordination with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies – has been secretly collecting and analyzing more than a trillion domestic phone records within the U. S. each year.

Sarah: Now, this program is called the Data Analytical Services, formerly known as Hemisphere,

Sheila: Right. And it operates without any kind of judicial oversight. It’s received more than 6 million dollars from the White House.

Sarah: Under the department and the funding that is supposed to go towards fighting drug trafficking, essentially.

Sheila: Right. Because they target criminals. But not only known criminals, but those who have been in direct phone contact with a criminal suspect.

Sarah: Well, this program uses something that’s called Chain Analysis. So it starts with the criminal suspect, and then it targets those who have direct contact with them. And then anybody else that person has had contact with.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: So, essentially, a bunch of Americans who have done nothing wrong are sucked into this program because of how it works.

Sheila: They’re using an excuse, and casting a wide net for surveillance on lots, and lots of victims who shouldn’t be surveyed at all.

Sarah: Well, and let’s clarify, they’re not recording the phone calls.

Sheila: Right.

Sarah: What these records include is phone numbers, dates, times, phone call durations, and locations of the calls, as well as names and addresses of the people.

Sheila: Mm hmm.

Sarah: So when I saw this article, at first I was like, ‘wait a minute,’ but then I started to read on this and it’s… I mean, I’m sure it has some practical applications, but operating without any judicial oversight and the way that they just bulk collect this information, I think violates the Fourth Amendment.

Sheila: And plus the federal government, the state government and local agencies have been using this information.

Sarah: Well, I think the thing that proves that AT&T’s own people know that this is sketchy, when I was reading the Wired article about this, it said, “internal records concerning the program’s secrecy that were obtained by the newspaper at the time show that law enforcement had been long instructed to, quote, never ‘refer to Hemisphere in any official document.'”

Sheila: And so they obviously have wanted to be covering up this program as much as possible because, you know, people are going to be outraged over it – if they knew about it – and rightly so.

Sarah: Yeah, and there’s been several attempts to get rid of this program. However, it’s been able to stay going on because AT&T claims that the phone records are owned by AT&T, not by the government, and that the program is protected by trade secrets and law enforcement privileges. So….

Sheila: Well, as pro-lifers, you know, we’re used to having a watchful eye put on us by the federal government.

Sarah: In fact, you and I have joked, because we figure we probably have landed on some sort of list at some point, and I’ve always joked that I really feel bad for the agents that have to monitor our phone calls and spy on us, because we’re so boring.

(Laughter)

Sheila: Yeah.

Sarah: We’re so insanely boring.

Sheila: Yeah. Well, Life Dynamics – we know for sure Life Dynamics has had its mail opened up before, has had phone taps, and so the American people would be outraged over this story. But for pro-lifers and those in the pro-life movement, it’s just another day unfortunately.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sheila: Everything that’s going on is outrageous, but I want people to imagine what this country would look like if there had been no pro-life movement, if people didn’t continue trying to defend the unborn…

Sarah: …or people never had started. Yeah.

Sheila: And this brings up From The Mouth Of Mark for this episode. This comes from the book, Siege, and this is the quote:

“There would be Planned Parenthood abortion franchises in malls all across the country. Abortion pills would be hanging in bubble packs at convenience store checkout counters, and school nurses would be handing them out like free lollipops. Every hospital would have an abortion ward, and more. This list goes on and on and, naturally, some people would call it preposterous to suggest that these things could happen in America. But fifty years ago, it would have been equally preposterous to predict that one day we would have for profit abortion clinics with toll-free numbers and credit card decals on their front doors.”

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, Mark would talk about abortion pills being in bubble packs at the convenience store and, besides the fact that that sounded kind of old fashioned, I always thought, ‘I don’t know… maybe that’s a bit loony.’ But As we’ve talked about in this episode, which I have the link in the description, we’re talking about abortion pills and Plan B – Plan B is now in literal vending machines on college campuses.

Sheila: Right. When you go into the pharmacy and you want some kind of cold medicine or something, you have to go talk to the pharmacist and they have to get it down for you. But Plan B is just right there for anybody to take it.

Sarah: Absolutely. So, if there’s something you think that is completely outrageous that we missed, we encourage you to submit it as a show suggestion.

If you go to LifeDynamics.com/podcast, we have a page on our website dedicated to the podcast, with a form where you can submit your show suggestions. And I encourage everybody who listens either on Spotify or our website, or go on our website, and respond to the poll or Q& A question for this week. I haven’t figured out what it’s going to be, but there will be one.

(Laughter)

Sarah: So get out there, share your opinion.

Sheila: And continue watching the Abortion Distortion videos.

Sarah: Absolutely. There’ll be some new videos this week. And of course, we have the transcripts that have just been released. So if you want to use them on Twitter to annoy pro-choicers, or if you have a blog post or something that you want to insert the quotes and stuff from, absolutely download that PDF. The PDF is free and it’s there for you to use.

Sheila: Exactly. And, again, Life Dynamics is not here to put up a good fight.

Sarah: We’re here to win.

Sheila: Because winning is how the killing stops.

Sarah: You almost took my line.

(Laughter)

Sheila: Yeah.

Sarah: Thank you for joining us, guys.

[End]