Welcome to the nonprofits.
In our second segment this week, we take another look at Texas and see how they're just making the world into a horrible, horrible place. Helen Green, I almost don't want to know, but tell us anyway. What else is happening down in the lone Star state.
So massagety really doesn't have any limits. And while lawmickers make laws against people who can get pregnant and manifests in really ugly ways, imagine being a doctor in Texas, providing reproductive care for years and having to make some pretty big decisions in regards to you keeping your medical license or refusing people care. This causes some desperate women to seek help from random people who aren't qualified aka
back alley abortions. As more and more people find themselves pregnant and out of options, this manifestation of a broken medical system and sexism that leads to people taking some pretty big risks and arrest for people for the most part, have good intentions yet are underqualified to perform such a risky medical procedure. The anti choice crowd is now seeing the fruits of what they sewed, and the crop is rotten. This story is from ABC thirteen Houston by ABC Houston on March twenty five.
All Right, all right, thank you, Helen.
So we've seen in the article pro choice supporters say that the unnecessary restrictions of access to safe abortions will push pregnant individuals to unsafe methods. Could you expand on what we mean when we say unsafe abortions.
So, for example, the woman for the woman that was in the article, she was a midwife that got arrested and she used a medication that's typically used to induce abortions. Now, luckily she was a midwife, she did have some obstetratics, obstric obstetrician non knowledge. I can say words, she had a at least that metal book medical background. But you're going to see there see things as we go along. People like I always hate using this this word because
this imagey because it's a mixing cringe. Is those you know, using a wire hanger to you know, to induce, you know, to have an abortion. There's sort of medications that you can take, there's there's a bunch of different things that you can do to end a pregnancy. But the problem is is that if you at some point you may need to go see a medical professional. Now, most in a world where women would have access to go just see colleges and ask for one, you know, and discuss
it with our doctor. We are now facing the fact that since a lot of a lot of states are now have abortion either illegal or very very limited, these women are going to start asking, you know, people that may have some medical knowledge to help them, you know, but don't have a license to practice, or they have a license practice but been a completely different field, you know, seek out other help to do this under the radar. And we saw and a lot of women last time
we did is everybody. A lot of woman died. So not the best, guys, it's not the best. I'll go into some.
Stats later, but okay, all right, Well let's jump over to Jimmy.
Then Helen was talking about unsafe abortions, how they might happen, et cetera.
Now, since Roe v. V.
Wade was overturned back in twenty twenty two, it seems like so long ago has Texas seen any changes in pregnancy related health outcomes.
Well, sure they have seen well more pregnancies, they've seen more pregnancies be carried to term. But they're also seeing pregnancies that have congenital failure come the term as well. Women are being forced to carry to term their babies that they end up having to just watch die, you know, when they know that the child is not going to make it in life, but they have to give birth to it anyway because the abortion is illegal. There have
been some studies that I want to reference here. So according to the Gender Equity Policy Institute's study from September twenty twenty four, pregnancy deaths and infant mortality rates in Texas have risen fifty six percent. And this of course, of course disproportionately affects poor and minority communities. And we could liken it back to the conversation that we had on Monday night when we talk about, you know, a lack of access to healthcare, just like there's a lack
of access to you know, other forms of administration. You know, we were talking about driver's licenses and IDs the other night. You know, people in poor communit these have less likelihood of obtaining those things, while the same goes for medical care. And so you know, that is something that's disproportionately affecting African American and Latino folks. A study by John Hopkins University found that African American infant mortality rates are up
eleven percent higher than the Dobbs decision. And yeah, so this is this is just a different world for a lot of poor people, but for a lot of women in general, these abnormalities, you know, they're not allowed to take care of them in the pregnancy. They have to take them to term and then and then watch their
child die, which is unfortunate. I have heard of other statistics, not particularly with Texas, but just as a whole women dying either in birth or excuse me, yeah, while giving birth or because of botched at home ad hoc abortion techniques. That is also a factor to increased death after this and these these studies come from NBC News under Women's Health and then Public Health dot Jhu dot Edu, twenty twenty five, and you can find those studies there.
I just want to highlight one of those stats that you just brought up. Pregnancy deaths and infant mortality rates in Texas have risen fifty six percent. That is insane. That's insane, and it amazes me that Texans aren't furious about this. It's fifty six percent. That's crazy. That's crazy and it's really infuriating to see that kind of thing happen in the modern world and in a modern country,
well in what's supposed to be a modern country. I mean, we can talk all day about how our health outcomes across the board are going down when compared to other developed nations just because we have such a shitty healthcare system.
But I mean this, I don't know.
It just to me that one number alone would be a deal breaking right there.
And does that include long term health complications you can have if your pregnancy goes wrong. It doesn't include women that have gone septic. It doesn't include women that like bleed out in parking lots because they can't get access to the healthcare that they need. So that's just let's just all say anything about that for a little bit, everybody.
Yeah, I mean, Helen brings up a good point. What about the data that's not being captured because it's not being recorded. You know, there's there are people that try to avoid arrest and try to avoid getting other people arrested for helping them because that that, unfortunately in Texas, is a law. But you know, Scott, you say, where where are the Texans. Where are the women in Texas like, forget about forget about your socioeconomic or your racial or
your ethnic differences, whatever it is. You know, women in Texas need to recognize that even if you're a white Christian nationalist woman, women are being impacted by this. And this is not the last stop, right, This only gets worse from here.
So great, Yeah, I mean we're still in the testing phase. You know, they're pushing to see how far what they can get away with and that kind of thing. And yeah, it's it's going to get worse before it gets better unless, you know, unless we turn things around sooner. It's just really frustrating.
Helen.
I want to jump over to you for a second here, and I want to talk a little bit about the law itself. So the article indicated that this particular arrest was made with the help of a whistleblower that may have been taken advantage of the so called Texas bounty law, which rewards citizen whistleblowers with cash bounty in these cases. Are these bounty laws a legitimate approach to law enforcement
allowing for community participation in self policing. I mean, that would be kind of the happy face, you know, way of presenting this or is it more of an attempt to pit neighbor against neighbor and divide us even further would? I mean, do you think that it can be argued that this is actually helping law enforcement or is it really just harming communities.
I want to point out that this story is airing on my birthday and this is a shitty birthday present. I'm just gonna point that out right now. So in regards to what you said, Scott, it's the latter because
it whistleblower. You just said it yourself. And also too, the reason why it has to happen this way is because they can't have a cop you know, searching every home and when you know, I find out a woman is pregnant and find out if she's going to you know, use other means to enter pregnancy right like, they can't, so they have to rely on people reporting. And also since Texas isn't doing that great financially, they they're facing
some serious economic problems as well. This is an incentive, you know, and even people that you know, some people that do have the money, they're just jerks, you know, and they'll you know, pid neighbor gets neighbor. If they're racist, if they don't like a person, I mean, like, you know, I like, I like what happened in Germany, what happened during the witch trials. What happens when you are told to pud neighbor person against person, you're going to start
some people are just going to start squawking. And that puts also puts people like us, who our good people, in a really weird position because if you know your neighbor is performing you know, illegal abortions. But also, on the other hand, if a woman doesn't you know what, if your friend is pregnant, needs to get care, needs to have an abortion. Like let's say she has an
atopic predigancy, which is kills you. It will kill a woman if it goes a term like it will just not term it just because the way that it is attached to, so Floppian tube is the whole thing is bad. So let's just say you know that, what do you do.
Do you risk your friend being arrested because you'll have to report them, or do you risk your friend friend you know, getting you know, some kind of illegal healthcare that may not may or may not be you know, something that they're able to do, and so it puts
people in these really sort of moral coundrees. You know this really and I it's not simple, guys, Like, none of this is simple, because the people that are gonna suffer are not only the person that means to have this medical procedure, but also the people that are Like I said, I think the majority they're going to be Charlton's and terrible people and people that are just going to take advantage of the system because people suck. But you also have you know, people that I think this
woman that got arrested was well intended. She was a midwife, you know, she knew her stuff, you know, and that's one of the better ones. Think of all the people that you know are going to start performing these things, but they don't.
Know what they're doing, right right, Yeah, Yeah, I want to jump over to Jimmy real quick here, Jimmy, I want to so I'm going to give you a scenario here, and it does relate to what we're talking about. Studies have shown that abstinence only sex ed for teens is not an effective way for curtailing teen pregnancy. In fact, teen pregnancy rates and ironically, abortion rates go up in areas that require abstinence only sex ed. It's not that sexual abstinence will not lead to fewer pregnancies.
It will.
If you don't have sex, you're less likely to be pregnant. The problem is abstinence only sex education does not lead to abstinence. So bearing that in mind, let's look at a twenty eighteen study done by the gut Mocker Institute, which found that quote in countries with the fewest restrictions, we're talking about abortion restrictions. In countries with the fewest restrictions, only one percent of abortions were the quote least safe kind. From twenty ten to twenty fourteen, that number jumps to
thirty one percent in the most restrictive countries. So the more a country restricts abortion access, the higher the percentage of these unsafe types of pregnancies occur. During the same period, abortions happened roughly as frequently in the most restrictive countries as they did in the least restrictive thirty seven versus thirty four abortions every year for every one thousand women
age fifteen to forty four. Quick note here that higher number was from the more restrictive countries, So it you know, if anything, it's it's kind of leaning towards increasing the number of ab abortions. My question, then, Jimmy, is so we seem to have a similar situation where the proposed restriction, which harms minority community is at a much higher rate, does not in.
Fact produce the desired outcomes.
So if I were to claim that the harm is the objective, you know, maybe you've heard that as well, the harm the is the goal?
Here? Does this kind of support that claim? Clearly?
Adding these laws does not have the affected outcome that that they're proposing.
Is it intended to be a harmful policy?
Well, let me answer this in two parts. So first I will say that it's probably impossible, all right, I'll lose that. I use that term loosely because unless you absolutely control people's lives, you might be able to control their sexual habits, but it's probably damn near impossible to control the human instinct to reproduce. Everybody wants to reproduce, and even if they don't want a child out of it, it's a lot of fun. At least their body tells them it's a lot of fun, and it's something they
want to do, especially if you're a child. These numbers that are really high for the most restrictive countries. These countries are probably the most conservative countries and the most theological countries. We probably there's likely a correlation between dangerous or secretive abortions taking place in these countries because people do not want to report them, because people don't want to be found out, because young women don't want to
bring dishonor on their families. In a lot of Muslim countries maybe, or a lot of countries where the collective family value is represented by a female's virginity, maybe in places like I don't know, Italy or Spain or some African countries where that kind of thing is used as currency.
So it doesn't surprise me that in countries that would restrict and have more conservative laws, you would have more breaking of those laws, right so that I would say there, I do think that this is harm and it is intended. This is and I'm going to use a term that's maybe a little bit out there, but I don't think we're far off. This is a genocide, if you will,
against women, and particularly against women of minority populations. This is a way for people in power, for the people that want to hoard wealth and keep the status quo as it is today in April twenty twenty five, where the rich are getting richer and the poor are living so chaotically that there's nothing they can do to keep
the rich from maintaining their power. Right if the people in in control right now, who I would say largely are the conservative politicians who want to keep the coffee where it is, who want to keep their seat in the House or the rep or the Senate, whether it's in the state or the national level, who want things to be just like they are and not be challenged with a primary They have to carry this out for the wealthy donors that they have, and what are they doing.
They're targeting the minorities. They're making them scared shitless, not only for reasons of being deported, but also attacking them where it hurts their human instinct, right, taking away their bodily autonomy. And so that I think is what we are seeing. And then again, this is not just this is not just a poor issue. This is not just a Latino or a minority issue. This is a women's issue. And you know, I think that everybody needs to realize that and stand up for the rights that these people,
these people deserve. And Scott, I hope I answered your question.
Yes, yeah, you definitely did. Definitely did, and I completely agree with what you were saying there. I think I think that it is harm and I think that that there is and and I'm glad you brought the religion aspect into it. I think that that's important. That's something that we hadn't touched on yet, which is kind of amazing. You know, the nonprofits, right, that's kind of our niche, right, But you know, it's amazing that we can get so deep into this story and we hadn't even brought up
religion yet. And so that just adds another layer of difficulty and complication to the whole thing.
So may I add something just real quick, please do so. You know, when I was studying my graduate degree, I took on a project that covered female workplace participation, okay, And basically what we found out is that the higher participation rate of a given country's female population, the better
off their economy was. Right, the worst economies had less women in the workforce, Okay, And so I think that and those countries were the most orthodox religiously, whether it was Christian, whether it was Islam, or whether it was some other country right, whether or some other dogma. So countries that have their dogma allow or informing their laws and informing their treatment, informing their treatment of women actually end up hurting themselves. And I think we're seeing that now.
Right, Helen. What's your your perspective on that?
Jim So, Jimmy was just pointing out that, uh, countries that empower women basically are more effective and have higher, uh you know, higher results across the board and all all these different categories.
What what as a woman, what is your take on that?
That's obvious because we're not just Broodmeir's everybody. I know that's shocking. But the more diverse populosity that you have, whether it be women, people of color, you know, across the gender spectrum, across you know, ritual background, but whatever it is, education background, you're going to have a more diverse workforce. That means that they're going to be able to bring their education, their skills, their perspectives, all the
trade into the economy. When you treat everybody as an equal, and that is why they're more successful. But if you're making one person just be you know, the breadwinner, and the other one you know, they're supposed to stay home and like pop out. You know babies, You're not going to have that diversity. You're cutting off your nose to spite your face. And I want to bring something back
to what Jimmy was saying. Yes, this is affecting a woman of minority minority populations now, but guess what they're going to come after birth control, and that affects everybody, every woman that wants to, you know, have some kind of bodily autonomy. So right now, again, just because it's not happening to you right now, doesn't mean it's not going to fucking happen. So we have to be people have to be very very careful about just because it's
not happening to you. But guess what, even if it doesn't happen to you, Like I'm done, like I'm not having any more children, but it affects other women in my life and also just women in general, and I don't and people that can and people that can have babies. So I'm just kind of over this sexism. I'm just done. I'm done with this. Like we have to take care of each other, because it also affects men, the people that get us pregnant, and affects our lives as well.
So this goes, this goes all the way around people. So you got to start taking care of each other and fighting gets this crap.
I agree wholeheartedly, and I think that was very well stated. One last thing this is I just have one last question, and I want to get an answer from each of you, and you can. You can make it as brief or as lengthy as you'd like. We've been talking about the morality of the situation. We've been talking about the business aspects of the situation. We've even touched on a little bit of the legal situation here or the legal aspect of the story. I'll just ask you point blank. We'll
start with Helen and then we'll go to Jimmy. Should Maria Rojas have been arrested?
Why?
Or why not?
Oh God, I'm up two mans because I'm of two minds. Yes, she's a midwife, but also not all midways are trained to do abortions. And also but also also at the same time, though the women's pregnancy, we only had a nine percent chance of of UH being successful so I like, I'm a kind of a double edged sword. I under the law, I don't. I don't agree with the law.
I thing is gross. But even so, even if let's say she did have her medicalized, this was she allowed to perform abortions because midwives had different different medical requirements versus obstetricians. So so if she had done it under you know, if it was legal, I would I was
still I would still have that caveat. But but the major problem, that is what the problem is, is that we shouldn't be having this conversation in the first place, and trying to look, you know, trying to have this top down perspective of it, like, we should not be having this conversation. That woman who had a nine percent chance of her pregnant being successful should have been able to go to an obstrician and talk with him or her and be like, I'm this fretsey is not gonna
be fruitful. I don't want to go through all the pain and agony. And the doctor said, she said yep, and gave her the medical care that she needs needs and that's it. That should have been.
Go ahead.
I'm of two minds as well. She probably should have been arrested for this. What she was doing was illegal, but was she also the hero that some women needed?
You know?
I don't know that if I had the ability, even if it were wrong, to save somebody's life, that I wouldn't do it, you know, So I unfortunately Helen, Helen's right, Not unfortunately Helen's right, but unfortunately we have we have this law in the first place that makes it a criminal act. It shouldn't be a criminal act at all. But she did break the law, and we cannot have rogue medical practitioners. We we don't know if she could have harmed somebody or made something worse. I don't know
that I'm the right legal mind. Hopefully when a decision is made, it's made because they are They receive testimony and fact based expertise from experts in the medical field that help this case along. I certainly think that Rojas recognized that there were people in need, and that they were disproportionately being affected because maybe they were women, or maybe they were Latino, or maybe they were poor, some
combination of them. But yeah, it's unfortunately a situation where she did the right thing, but she still needs to be held accountable.
Right, right, Yeah, I think we can all agree that it's a it's really a systemic problem. It's you know, the law. It's the law that has the problem, not the execution of the law. And you know, but but I think that these kind of stories really highlight the need for some kind of thoughtful, compassionate re evaluation of our legal system. You know, we see this kind of
thing happening, and yeah, I think you're right. I think I think, uh, you know, she probably knew what she was getting into and maybe doesn't even regret I mean, I know they didn't really she didn't really comment in the story for obvious reasons, you know, with ongoing uh you know, a prosecution happening here. But yeah, if I were in her shoes, I don't know if I would regret it at all, you know, and maybe even would
have done it again if given an opportunity. But but we've had really Catholic on top of that.
Right to talk about religion. She she actually did the way way of Jesus and did the right thing to help another human being, and I and has off to that.
Actually, I think that's a perfect place to stop. I think we've had some excellent discussion on this and