[00:00:07] This is Missy Martinez Stone, and you're listening to the centered podcast, where we have unifying conversations on the divisive subject of abortion.
[00:00:28] Hi, and welcome to the Centered podcast. I'm your host, Missy Martinez Stone. And today I'm going to do something a little different.
[00:00:39] There are a lot of stories in the news right now that involve abortion. And especially with the election coming up and abortion being a priority subject on both sides and both parties, there is a lot of information going around and a lot of people doing things that are putting abortion at the forefront of the news cycle.
[00:01:11] And what I want to do is take some time to find things that we can all agree on in these stories because they're making the news, because they are extreme or they're maybe a little bombastic. And I want to give space and take a moment to really consider the real life impact of what is happening in the news and on these stories.
[00:01:41] And regardless of where you stand on abortion, where can we agree on how it's being handled by the people that are being highlighted?
[00:01:56] I am planning on doing episodes like this every once in a while when the subject of abortion is prominent in national news stories, because, you know, we tend to get in our silos and get in these echo chambers where we are only hearing our side. And I want to take a moment and find that center, find that thing that we can agree on and especially have the opportunity to call out extremism or, you know, hold people accountable for using abortion and victims as props, as political props. It's just unacceptable.
[00:02:41] So I'm going to take some time to talk about that. But first, I did want to share something that happened within our own organization that I think a lot of people would find disturbing, something that we discovered in an investigation that we did.
[00:03:02] We had a recent victory.
[00:03:06] It's hard to even call it a victory.
[00:03:08] We corrected very dangerous behavior, and it was in the midwest.
[00:03:18] A woman reached out to us, and she had witnessed something that was pretty troubling.
[00:03:24] And it was an older woman in a school official vehicle taking a young girl who seemed to be in high school to an abortion facility on a day that abortions were being performed. Now, there's a lot of conjecture here.
[00:03:51] Do we know if she was a minor? No. Do we know that she went and had an abortion? No. But there were enough red flags around the situation that it at least called for an inquiry to ensure that this young girl was safe and that nothing illegal was occurring. Because what we have found is that in these cases where young women, especially minors, are being brought to abortion facilities, even if they are victims of abuse. The abortion facilities are well known. It's been documented over and over and over again. I don't need to hash this out, but we have many, many documented cases of abortion facilities not reporting abuse on minors, even though they are mandatory reporters by their states. And a lot of states have very strict, mandatory reporting rules for this reason.
[00:04:57] And so we wanted to ensure that this young woman was safe, and the eyewitness that reached out to us wanted to ensure that this young woman was safe. And because it was a school official vehicle, we knew where she had come from.
[00:05:15] And our team reached out to the school and made some inquiries, you know, just inquiring, like, can a school faculty member take a student to a medical appointment without, you know, their parents?
[00:05:33] And the immediate answer was, no, no, you can't. Which, you know, seems like common sense. I mean, school officials, you know, should not have the ability to take students to medical appointments. I mean, that's. That seems like it would be a given. This is where I want to appe, you know, the average person and say, okay, take the. Take abortion out of it.
[00:06:10] Would we allow this kind of behavior in any other medical situation? Right. Could a faculty member take a student to a dentist to get their wisdom teeth out?
[00:06:26] That's a very. That's a similar. You're going, you know, sedation, it's not, you know, outpatient surgery. You know, that is something like that would be insane. If we found that a faculty member at a school was just taking kids to get their wisdom teeth out, everybody would be in an uproar. And so we have to take that logic and then apply it to the situation because it helps us remove that distortion that happens when it comes to the issue of abortion, because a lot of times we lose our ability to be objective either way, right when we're talking about abortion. So to ground the conversation, let's say this faculty member took this girl, regardless of if she was a minor, to an oral surgeon and got her wisdom teeth out without her parents knowing.
[00:07:24] That would be considered extremely inappropriate, illegal, because you can't do any kind of surgical procedure on a minor without parental consent, and it's absolutely against school policy.
[00:07:43] And so we were suspicious about this case, you know, from the beginning. Again, you have a school official car being used, a woman who we were able to identify on the school website as having worked there in what seemed to be a high school student showing up at an abortion facility on the day that they're doing abortions.
[00:08:11] And the school immediately investigated the case and seemed pretty alarmed based on our correspondence.
[00:08:23] And, you know, we recently followed up and said, okay, what happened? And we were informed that disciplinary action, you know, has occurred. And it's actually triggered procedural changes at a school level. And this is not the first time. I can't. I can't quite talk about the other cases yet because they're still ongoing. But this is not the first time that we have triggered institutional change because of our inquiries, because we identify loopholes and bad actors, and then they have to. These institutions have to go back and clean up their policies to ensure these things don't happen again.
[00:09:11] And we have been assured that disciplinary action has been taken against everybody involved.
[00:09:22] And the school itself has implemented procedural changes to address this to keep this from happening ever in the future.
[00:09:33] And, you know, it's important to note that, yes, Wisconsin, if she was a minor, it was absolutely illegal what happened. But even if she wasn't, even if this high school student was 18 years old, the school still has a policy that says you cannot take a student to a medical procedure without, you know, parental consent.
[00:10:00] And so we see that as a huge victory because what it's going to do is ensure in the future this does not happen again.
[00:10:11] And it, you know, we're waiting. We've asked for clarification on, you know, what type of disciplinary action was taken or, you know, what are these procedural changes, because we want to see.
[00:10:25] But the response was.
[00:10:28] Was promising. I mean, it was very. It was very quick, and they did an investigation and it was handled. And that is good, you know, that's promising.
[00:10:43] But this very well could result in, you know, if it was this specific school in this entire district. Does this policy now apply to schools all across the district? We don't know. We're waiting to hear, but I would imagine it would. And so this is one of those cases where it was a little faster than our normal cases, which is amazing.
[00:11:10] But this is just one of many, you know, that we're working on right now that I still can't share about. Right. Like, thank God we got some closure on this one.
[00:11:23] But there's still a lot more that involve children, that involve kids, that involve minors. And this is one area of the abortion debate that I think the average person can understand, you know, and push against the abortion industry is their handling of children. And that just because it's an abortion procedure doesn't mean that the abortion industry gets to circumvent, you know, parental rights doesn't get to circumvent. Mandatory reporting rules that these young girls are victims of serious trauma, a lot of times abuse.
[00:12:14] And they are being influenced by who knows who.
[00:12:23] And we have to do our best to protect them from further harm.
[00:12:30] And allowing these women to be these young girls to be taken to abortion facilities by anybody is so, so dangerous and especially by a school official.
[00:12:49] Those should be people that we can trust with our kids. And so I think, you know, as I talk to people about this case, I would imagine, you know, even my friends here who are not pro life, some of my dearest friends, I would say if I told them, hey, a school official took a high school student to get an abortion, they would say, I'm sorry, what?
[00:13:13] Like, that is unacceptable. And I think there needs to be a pushback, you know, against the abortion industry, that the way they handle minors, the way they handle children is just absolutely unacceptable. Again, regardless of where you stand on abortion, which, you know, leads me to my next point.
[00:13:41] The big stories right now in the news are obviously surrounding the election. And abortion is a big subject, especially for the Democrats. They are pushing against, you know, the overturning of Roe versus Wade and the states that are restricting abortion. They are using that as a rallying cry.
[00:14:08] You know, it's been well documented that the Democrats platform is, you know, abortion in all situations for whatever reason and taxpayer funded. It is very, it's a very extreme platform. And I know that most Democrats probably don't actually agree with that platform, but that's the platform that the party has chosen to take.
[00:14:35] And with that platform comes a lot of influence by organizations like Planned Parenthood and, you know, a lot of the bigger abortion advocates groups. And so they are present at these rallies and this week at the Democratic National Convention.
[00:15:01] And when I saw the video of the van, you know, everyone's talking about this, this van or bus that's going around saying free abortions and free vasectomies, this Planned Parenthood van.
[00:15:16] I've seen a lot of conservative outrage, understandably.
[00:15:27] But for me, it had more to do with how callous and how trivial planned Parenthood was making these life altering decisions.
[00:15:44] You know, abortion or a vasectomy, that is a life altering decision.
[00:15:50] And the people that are making these decisions, they are not, this is not an easy decision, especially when a woman is abortion minded.
[00:16:03] You know, if you've talked to any of them, and I've talked to pregnancy centers all over the country, they will tell you they are wrestling. They are wrestling. They are heartbroken. They are scared.
[00:16:16] And to trivialize it in a way where you're just driving a bus around and saying, free abortions, it takes away the weight of that, the weight of that experience.
[00:16:36] And even considering, like, there probably were people there that have had abortion experiences, that was probably really triggering for. And I just found it really inappropriate in the sense of it's taking something that they, the platform itself, the party itself would say, this is a private decision between a woman and her doctor. This is a woman's decision. We want to empower women. And yet to deploy such, I don't know, just deploy these tactics of just driving this bus around like it's nothing to give out. Free abortions and free vasectomies, it really discounts the people's experiences with these procedures. And not to mention their medical procedures can be taken very seriously and done by professionals.
[00:17:41] And are you going to get that type of care on a bus or a van outside of a political convention?
[00:17:51] So I just found it tone deaf. I found it very inconsiderate of the women that they are supposedly trying to empower and serve because it just makes it lessens their experience, trivializes it in a way that I think a lot of people would find really hurtful.
[00:18:20] And, you know, the other one I saw was people were marching and they were wearing mifepristone and misoprostol costumes. And again, you know, I don't know who these people are. I can't speak to their intentions. And maybe this is their own way of coping. You know, I don't want to believe that these people are evil, but I do want them to take a minute and maybe consider the harm that they're doing.
[00:18:50] Because when I looked at those pills, my first thought was, what about the woman who is so scared, who is alone in her bathroom in so much pain? Because we've been told over and over again, this is an extremely painful experience. These women are getting these pills online without a doctor doing an exam prior. They're alone. They're usually scared. They're in so much pain.
[00:19:23] They're emotionally distraught.
[00:19:26] And you're just walking around in these pill costumes like it's nothing, like, how do these poor women feel?
[00:19:38] I don't think it's empowered.
[00:19:42] I don't think it's supported by the democratic party when they've just gone through something horrific and emotional and painful.
[00:19:56] And the message that the party is sending is, well, you can just hop on this bus and it's not a big deal. We're wearing this costume because it's not a big deal. I don't think she agrees to.
[00:20:08] I don't think a lot of women would agree.
[00:20:12] And, you know, I just, I want the Democrats to be aware not only, yes, as someone who identifies as pro life, not only is abortion so harmful, it kills children, it's the death of a human life, I believe, but the women that you are claiming to serve and claiming to empower you just did a lot of harm, too, by taking something that probably changed their life and making a joke out of it. And I find that heartbreaking.
[00:20:59] And I think a lot of people should find that heartbreaking.
[00:21:03] And I think it would be appropriate, you know, if even regardless of where you stand on abortion, if you identify with the Democratic Party, I think it would be appropriate to say whatever, have your stance on abortion, but this was inappropriate. Start calling them out and say, this is not okay.
[00:21:31] This is trivializing something so painful, and start pushing back on this extreme normalization and start pushing back on this. Abortion is not a big deal trope, because it is.
[00:21:52] It is.
[00:21:55] And I think that's something that a lot of people can get behind.
[00:22:01] You know, in the long term. I would love to see the Democratic Party change their views on abortion, change their platform.
[00:22:11] That would be great.
[00:22:13] I don't see that happening anytime soon, but we can push for it.
[00:22:17] In the meantime, what are some small steps we can take? What are things that we can push against?
[00:22:24] And I think this might be one of those things. So those are the main stories right now. Those are the things that are on my mind.
[00:22:33] I want to continue watching. I'm sure more is going to come up as the election gets closer and closer. If there's a particular story you want to hear our perspective on, feel free to send it over to infoenterclientsafety.org dot. I want to be able to speak on as many of these as I can and just offer a different perspective maybe than the one that everyone else is saying. Just something to consider.
[00:23:05] So that's all we have for today. Thank you for listening to a special episode of something in the news we can all get behind. We can all agree on, something in the news we can all agree on. If you want to find out more about the center for Client Safety, you can go to www.centerforclientsafety.org. you can find us on all of our
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[00:23:32] You can find me on socials issymartinesstone and be on the lookout. We have a couple new episodes coming down. I would say one of them is probably one of my favorite conversations I've had so far. I know I say that about a lot of them, but trust me, it was very amazing. I'm really excited to share, so keep a lookout for new content coming out every other Friday. Have a great day.
[00:23:59] Bye.
