Speaker 1: Hello, America. This is Robert Evans. I am sitting in
Speaker 1: a car on top of a mountain like a professional
Speaker 1: person recording my podcast, which is this podcast Behind the Bastards,
Speaker 1: and we've had yet another, I mean, really bad introduction. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I feel bad about this one. I actually
Speaker 1: like that one. Oh you like that one, Sophie. That's yeah.
Speaker 1: Well do you think that only people in America in
Speaker 1: the US listen to Solid Points. If there's non Americans
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast, what the hell are they doing?
Speaker 1: Like this is they don't get our freedom, our freedom
Speaker 1: of speech, that's ours and ours alone, Caitlin. The best
Speaker 1: thing about freedom of speech is limiting it to a
Speaker 1: small number of people. Yes, I don't agree, but I
Speaker 1: see your point. Yeah, I firmly disagree with what just happened,
Speaker 1: and I take back my praise of your introduction. Hello,
Speaker 1: international listeners, we love you. Yeah. I bet they're from
Speaker 1: all over the world. Yes, Canada, yes, Japan. Yes, Canada
Speaker 1: is just Alaska's Mexico. Mexico and Canada are both much
Speaker 1: better countries. Um, almost spit my soup on the mic.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it was a bad time to try
Speaker 1: to eat soup. Sorry, I took a week in rural
Speaker 1: America to to clear my head and get some writing done,
Speaker 1: and it has made me insult our neighbors to the
Speaker 1: north and south for no reason. You did that before?
Speaker 1: Come on, I did, I did? I did. I love
Speaker 1: insulting nations for no reason. Well, my guest today, as
Speaker 1: as you just heard from, is Caitlin Duranti. Caitlin, how
Speaker 1: are you doing today? I'm doing very well. I'm delighted
Speaker 1: to be here now, Caitlin. You're the co host of
Speaker 1: the Bechtel cast Um and you you have guessed it
Speaker 1: on behind the bastards before. We had a long talk
Speaker 1: about I think a man both of us consider a
Speaker 1: dear friend now, Lafayette Ron Hubbard. Yes, yes, he just
Speaker 1: he's coming to my birthday party soon. Oh good. You
Speaker 1: know I think he's at all of our birthday parties,
Speaker 1: convincing our small children to deliver letters for him on
Speaker 1: his boat crusade to find gold in the ocean. Yes, god,
Speaker 1: I miss him. Well, we're not talking about that today, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: And we're talking about the goat Testical doctor either, right, No,
Speaker 1: we're not talking about the goat Testical got about her,
Speaker 1: that fucker that guy. Yeah, like Alex Jones, but with
Speaker 1: goat testicles. No, today we're talking about the free birthing community. Caitlin,
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of the free birthing community. I
Speaker 1: don't know that I have, Robert. Oh boy, Caitlin. Yes,
Speaker 1: you're you're gonna, You're gonna enjoy this. I mean, so,
Speaker 1: I I got where to start. I I wrote a
Speaker 1: little introduction here, and I don't think I'm gonna read it.
Speaker 1: I think we're just gonna we're just gonna dig into it. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the nexus of my introduction was that back in the day,
Speaker 1: you know, there's this one website that's kind of like
Speaker 1: the Tower of Babbel for the Internet, that Something Awful Forums.
Speaker 1: It's where four Chain came out of. It's where like
Speaker 1: doxing was very first practiced. It's where a lot of
Speaker 1: like meme culture originated from. UM and that those forums
Speaker 1: had a motto, and that motto was the Internet makes
Speaker 1: you stupid. And it was just at the time, because
Speaker 1: it's like the late nineties, early two thousand's is when
Speaker 1: like Something Awful was really at its most relevant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it was, and it was and you were you
Speaker 1: remember then Caitlin, when the Internet didn't really matter, when
Speaker 1: like it was just sort of the silly thing, and
Speaker 1: people like mainstream TV or news kind of made fun
Speaker 1: of people who were on the Internet a lot, like
Speaker 1: it wasn't taken very seriously, and so I think that's
Speaker 1: what the motto kind of meant then, was just like
Speaker 1: the Internet's dumb. But as the years have gone by
Speaker 1: and the Internet has eaten the world, I've come to
Speaker 1: believe in those words very literally. The Internet does actually
Speaker 1: make people stupid um and I think to the free
Speaker 1: birth in community in particular is a perfect example of
Speaker 1: how this works, because, thanks to the wonders of the
Speaker 1: modern Internet and most particularly Facebook, a bunch of otherwise
Speaker 1: well meaning, functional human beings have left a trail of
Speaker 1: dead babies in their wake, not because they wanted to
Speaker 1: kill babies, but because the Internet broke their brains. And
Speaker 1: that's the story we're going to tell today. Wow, okay,
Speaker 1: sided this is a dead baby episode. Oh my okay,
Speaker 1: wait okay. Initial question, preliminary question, do you know anything?
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about the free birthing community, but
Speaker 1: I have a feeling that there's got to be some
Speaker 1: overlap between it, and just based on what I think
Speaker 1: it is, based on the name alone, overlap between that
Speaker 1: community and the anti vaxers. You absolutely, oh yeah, okay
Speaker 1: for god, oh my god. Um yeah, it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: pretty cool, Caitlin, and I want to welcome you, by
Speaker 1: the way, into a really rarefied circle of of Bastard's
Speaker 1: pod guests. Uh. Currently, Sophia Alexandria Billy Wayne Davis are
Speaker 1: the only two members of the Dead Babies Episodes sub club,
Speaker 1: So very can we get a couple of aircorns in
Speaker 1: there for for the third member of our Dead Baby Triumvirate? Yes,
Speaker 1: I just added so much. Are you wandered, Caitlin? I'm
Speaker 1: so honored? And what what a group to be a
Speaker 1: part of. I mean, the I and Sophia, I mean,
Speaker 1: what what terrific people, so rarefied air verified air now, Caitlin. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you, if you, or at least sorry not even you, Caitlin.
Speaker 1: If you the listener at home have heard about the
Speaker 1: free birthing community recently, it's probably because of a fabulous
Speaker 1: NBC News article by Brandy's a Drowsney that dropped a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago, and the article's title was I
Speaker 1: brainwashed myself with the internet. Uh. It is the story
Speaker 1: of a twenty eight year old woman on the West Coast,
Speaker 1: pseudonymed Judith, who found yourself slowly drawn into a series
Speaker 1: of online communities of women who believe that the best
Speaker 1: way to give birth is with no medicine, no doctor,
Speaker 1: and no midwife. So, you know, we're all aware that
Speaker 1: there's like home birthing um sort of like communities and stuff.
Speaker 1: These are people who are like that, but they're like,
Speaker 1: but midwives are evil too. Oh wow, I don't want
Speaker 1: anyone who knows that goddamn thing about medicine around for
Speaker 1: my birth. Like that's the gist of these people, A right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's a fun thing that I hadn't realized existed
Speaker 1: until I read this article. And the t l d
Speaker 1: R of the story is that Judith left her baby
Speaker 1: in her belly for way too long, more than forty
Speaker 1: two weeks, because these people believe, among other things, that
Speaker 1: having your labor induced, you know, medically is um is
Speaker 1: on an awful thing to do and an unnecessary thing
Speaker 1: to do. So she was pregnant almost three weeks past
Speaker 1: the nine month mark and refused to go to the
Speaker 1: hospital and her baby died inside of her um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the first time we've had a first dead
Speaker 1: baby on page one. We're not even halfway through page one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I bring that out in people, you know, the dead,
Speaker 1: the dead babies. I don't know what I meant by that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I got wet. I just my presence encourages people to
Speaker 1: talk about dead babies, as I think what I meant, Well,
Speaker 1: that's good. Well we'll be talking about a number of
Speaker 1: them today. So obviously, Judith's story was a traumatic, painful nightmare. UM.
Speaker 1: And she's far from the only person that this kind
Speaker 1: of nightmares happened to as a result of the free
Speaker 1: birth in community. Uh. The NBC article itself links to
Speaker 1: a November two, eighteen Daily Beast article by Emily Sugarman.
Speaker 1: The article's title is she wanted a free birth at home,
Speaker 1: when the baby died, the attacks began, and it's it's
Speaker 1: the story of a woman named Lisa and her would
Speaker 1: be daughter, Journey Moon. Uh. Lisa got drawn into the
Speaker 1: free birth in community via like Facebook groups and podcasts,
Speaker 1: and her baby died. Uh. And then she was harassed
Speaker 1: by a bunch of people online who are angry that
Speaker 1: she'd killed her baby who had been infiltrating these free
Speaker 1: birth and communities. It's a mess of a story, and
Speaker 1: the tales of these two women comprise about of the
Speaker 1: public discourse around free birthing at the moment. It's kind
Speaker 1: of very recently burst onto the scene. But there's so
Speaker 1: much more here under the surface, uh, than is even
Speaker 1: in both of these very well written articles, And today
Speaker 1: I I felt like what I could do to add
Speaker 1: to this is dig a little bit deeper into where
Speaker 1: the free birth in community comes from and the individual
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call himbastards who were aspond posible for starting
Speaker 1: what is effectively a weird cult dedicated to getting people
Speaker 1: to basically kill their babies by not having anyone who
Speaker 1: knows anything about medicine around when they come out of people.
Speaker 1: Cool fun story. Can't wait? You sound really motivated by
Speaker 1: this to be a part of this fun tale. I
Speaker 1: so am you. You have no idea, just I I
Speaker 1: have no ability to like emote with my voice, but um,
Speaker 1: I am very excited to learn about. Call that v moting. Okay, Yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: free birthing obviously has its origins and the natural home
Speaker 1: birth movement, and the term home birth started being used
Speaker 1: in the mid eighteen hundreds as hospital births became more common.
Speaker 1: At present, most so called developed nations, you know, that's
Speaker 1: the term generally used. I don't like it, but it's
Speaker 1: kind of hard to find. Counter terms sometimes have home
Speaker 1: birthing rates of less than one percent um. It's broadly
Speaker 1: accurate to say that the end of home birth thing
Speaker 1: as a normal thing, you know, the end of that
Speaker 1: being the way most babies were born has corresponded with
Speaker 1: a massive reduction in the rate of both infant and
Speaker 1: mother deaths in childbirth. So we stopped giving birth at home,
Speaker 1: started giving birth in hospitals with doctors and a lot
Speaker 1: less babies and moms die, right, pretty obvious. But here's
Speaker 1: where it gets weird, because the situation isn't quite that simple.
Speaker 1: The United States today has one of the highest infant
Speaker 1: mortality rates in the Western world. Six of our infants
Speaker 1: die for every thousand live births, which puts the US
Speaker 1: on par with such healthcare powerhouses as Serbia and Malaysia.
Speaker 1: Despite regular advances in technology, matters, matters are actually getting
Speaker 1: a lot worse for American mothers at a startlingly rapid rate.
Speaker 1: A pregnant woman in the US today is fifty more
Speaker 1: likely to die in childbirth than her mother was. Yeah, like,
Speaker 1: that's an enormous jump in mama and baby deaths. We
Speaker 1: woul account for that? What accounts for that? Well, there's
Speaker 1: there's a number of intersecting factors here. One of the
Speaker 1: ones given regularly is eroding social support for women. Um
Speaker 1: So as a result of this like crusade against birth
Speaker 1: control and planned parenthood by the right in our country,
Speaker 1: women's access to obstetric services in rural U S counties
Speaker 1: has collapsed. UH. Nine percent of all rural American women
Speaker 1: lost hospital obstetric services between two thousand and two thousand fourteen. UH.
Speaker 1: The shocking expensive birth plays a major role in this.
Speaker 1: Two people who just can't afford to to do it
Speaker 1: in a hospital. So between the cost and the sheer
Speaker 1: lack of access, the fact that growing communities of American
Speaker 1: women have been turning to home birth is not weird
Speaker 1: um and it's not necessarily harmful either. The Netherlands actually
Speaker 1: has a really high rate of home births. In two
Speaker 1: thousand nine, the largest study of its kind was conducted there,
Speaker 1: analyzing more than five thousand births and finding no difference
Speaker 1: in the birth or death rates of home births versus
Speaker 1: hospital births. And you'll hear the studies cited a lot
Speaker 1: by home birthing advocates, and they all tend to leave
Speaker 1: out something critical, which is that the home birthing there's
Speaker 1: in this Netherlands study, we're all women who were determined
Speaker 1: by a doctor beforehand to have low risk pregnancies. So
Speaker 1: if you have a competent midwife and if a doctor
Speaker 1: is consulted first to make sure you're a low risk pregnancy,
Speaker 1: home birthing can be perfectly safe. That's the one thing
Speaker 1: I want to get out of the way first. But
Speaker 1: our free birthing friends who are going to be talking
Speaker 1: about today, they don't use midwives and they for sure
Speaker 1: as ship don't consult doctors um. And most of the
Speaker 1: Facebook groups with these people gather explicitly list advising another
Speaker 1: person to seek medical attention as a bannable offense. So
Speaker 1: they'll say, like, if you advise anyone to go to
Speaker 1: a doctor to induce pregnancy to like talk to an O, B. G.
Speaker 1: Y in or whatever, um like, we'll kick you out
Speaker 1: of the group because this is not about that. Okay,
Speaker 1: so they these are the people I feel like, these
Speaker 1: are the people who, like if they were uh, you know,
Speaker 1: convicted of a time, or they had to go to
Speaker 1: court or something, they'd be like, I'm going to represent myself,
Speaker 1: Like I don't need a lawyer, I'm on my own. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's that phrase, like a person who defends themselves in
Speaker 1: court has a fool for a lawyer. I guess a
Speaker 1: person who delivers their own baby as a fool for obstetrician. Yes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the first Facebook page that comes up now when
Speaker 1: you google free birth Facebook group currently hosts an image
Speaker 1: meme that says we are all descendants of someone who
Speaker 1: birthed at home without a licensed midwife. Um, and that
Speaker 1: is true, But you could just as easily say we're
Speaker 1: all descendants of someone who died at home giving birth
Speaker 1: without any sort of medical assistance, because that's equally true. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we all have a gramma here who got through a
Speaker 1: couple of babies and then couldn't make it past fifth
Speaker 1: or sixth or whatever. Right, Yeah, this is gonna be
Speaker 1: a fun one. That just made me think, like, who, like,
Speaker 1: did I have like a great great great great grandmother
Speaker 1: who like died during childbirth, but like their baby survived,
Speaker 1: and like I'm the descendant of Yeah, that's got to
Speaker 1: be true for us. Of us, there's no one who's
Speaker 1: somewhere in their family line doesn't have multiple people who
Speaker 1: died during childbirth. Like that's that's just a guarantee, just
Speaker 1: because of the way the world biology and ship worked
Speaker 1: and works. So when we're when we're trying to unravel
Speaker 1: the mystery of how this deadly freebirth and community came to,
Speaker 1: because I wanted to kind of trace it back to
Speaker 1: its origins. And my first question when I started doing
Speaker 1: that was when did this whole movement split off from
Speaker 1: just the home birthing movement? And as best as I
Speaker 1: can tell, a lot of it traces back to the
Speaker 1: story of one woman named Catherine's Skull now MS. Skull
Speaker 1: was a former Chicago police officer, and she was pregnant
Speaker 1: with her fifth child um back in two thousand eight.
Speaker 1: She was admitted to Rush University Medical Center and received
Speaker 1: an unpleasant surprise. Her normal obstetrician was out of town
Speaker 1: on vacation, so instead of the doctor she was comfortable with,
Speaker 1: she was attended to by a stranger and a stranger
Speaker 1: who happened to be a really big asshole according to MS. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he sucks. This guy's Dr Scott Pierce is his name,
Speaker 1: and he apparently started their interaction by yelling at her
Speaker 1: for not coming in earlier and not calling before coming in.
Speaker 1: He informed her that because she had not given them
Speaker 1: enough warning, there was no time for him to give
Speaker 1: her pain medication. Then he told her that she deserved
Speaker 1: to be in pain for not giving the hospital more
Speaker 1: lead time, saying sometimes pain is the best teacher. Well,
Speaker 1: it's like, not not a great doctor. Um. He next
Speaker 1: gave her an extremely rough vaginal exam that, like she
Speaker 1: described as unnecessarily rough and painful while she was in
Speaker 1: mid contraction um, and then he ordered her to begin
Speaker 1: pushing before she was fully dilated. He told her repeatedly
Speaker 1: that her baby might die, and had a loud phone
Speaker 1: conversation in the next room about abortion, telling another one
Speaker 1: of his patients that stupid woman, she has no business
Speaker 1: being pregnant. So pretty bad story. Yeah, yeah, not how
Speaker 1: you want a pregnancy to go. Um. And Catherine Scholl
Speaker 1: is not the bastard here. She filed a civil suit
Speaker 1: against Dr Pierce. Uh. He was eventually fined five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars and sentenced to one year of medical probation, which
Speaker 1: seems like a reasonably fair punishment for his crime. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would well find only five and I think the
Speaker 1: fine could have been higher. The fine should have been higher.
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, he was definitely like when a medical
Speaker 1: board looked into it, they found out that like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this guy's behavior was completely unacceptable and the story of
Speaker 1: so like Catherine School did nothing wrong. Um, she was
Speaker 1: abused by a doctor, she filed a suit against him,
Speaker 1: and he was punished. You know, we could argue the
Speaker 1: punishment should have been more, but her part of the story,
Speaker 1: she acted perfectly reasonably. But the story of Catherine's School
Speaker 1: took off like wild fire among the networks of mommy
Speaker 1: blogs dedicated to the natural birthing movement UM, and without
Speaker 1: knowing it, school became a rallying point for other women
Speaker 1: who had bad experiences with their doctors during childbirth. School
Speaker 1: story helped to galvanize a community of birthing extremists who
Speaker 1: had started organizing online, and one of the very first
Speaker 1: and perhaps the founder of the free birthing movement was
Speaker 1: an Australian woman named Jeannette Frasier. Jeanette founded the website
Speaker 1: Joyous Birth in two thousand seven. In December of that year,
Speaker 1: she coined the term birth rape in a blog entry
Speaker 1: to refer to what she thought people like Dr Pierce
Speaker 1: were doing to their patients. Birth rape. Yeah. Um so
Speaker 1: here's here's kind of her explaining what that means. I
Speaker 1: don't care if you don't like the word or the idea.
Speaker 1: It's real, So get used to it. Survivors are angry
Speaker 1: and we're starting to talk about it. Remember that old
Speaker 1: anti violent slogan, Well, it means even in hospitals and
Speaker 1: even in stupid hospital gowns, when I say no, it
Speaker 1: means no. When you shove your arm and a woman
Speaker 1: who's screaming no, that's rape. When you rupture those membranes
Speaker 1: because you have to tick the box that comply with protocol,
Speaker 1: even when the woman screams no, that's rape. When you
Speaker 1: slash a woman's vagina with scissors and she's screaming no,
Speaker 1: that's rape. And on the streets that would earn you
Speaker 1: a jail sentence. Your green gown is not protection. Do
Speaker 1: that to me and I will charge you. Don't forget it.
Speaker 1: We are angry, and we are powerful. We have survived
Speaker 1: your raping protocols, so we can survive anything. Be afraid,
Speaker 1: and don't underestimate us. And I'm curious kind of for
Speaker 1: your thoughts on that. I'll tell you sort of where
Speaker 1: eye land on this, which is that I'm sure there
Speaker 1: are a lot of things that happen to women who
Speaker 1: are giving birth that they may say no about. Because
Speaker 1: once you're giving birth to a baby, the doctor is
Speaker 1: going to like legally has to do whatever he can
Speaker 1: or she can do to make sure that baby comes
Speaker 1: out alive. And you might not in the moment want that,
Speaker 1: but you're in a hospital and that's kind of the
Speaker 1: way hospitals go. And I'm I'm personally like, obviously I'm
Speaker 1: very pro choice, but at the point in which that
Speaker 1: baby is coming out, like the doctor is equally beholden
Speaker 1: to the baby and to the mother. Um, that's kind
Speaker 1: of how I think, Yeah, I'm interested in Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean the child. Like that's that does like complicate matters because, um,
Speaker 1: you know, on one hand, you have you know, I
Speaker 1: kind of see what she's saying, um in this in
Speaker 1: this definition of this term um of you know, doctors
Speaker 1: like you know, doing things that could be considered rape
Speaker 1: or assault. Um. And like you know, the women are
Speaker 1: you know, the people who are giving birth not giving consent,
Speaker 1: but you know the doctor is doing something that they
Speaker 1: deem medically necessary for you know, the safety of the
Speaker 1: baby perhaps. So that is a very complicated thing. UM. Okay,
Speaker 1: so I okay, well let's let's do this. Uh. I
Speaker 1: don't know if if you know this, Robert or um,
Speaker 1: if any listeners are aware of a podcast that I've
Speaker 1: been working on called Sludge An American health Care Story
Speaker 1: so um, and this is all about a recent experience
Speaker 1: I had with the um American health care system. Spoiler
Speaker 1: shit it's it was ship. So I. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that every you know, healthcare experience of every person
Speaker 1: in the US is shitty. It's not if you have
Speaker 1: a million dollars or more so. But you know, I
Speaker 1: this is all to say that I have hearing people's
Speaker 1: stories because I've started to interview other people with their
Speaker 1: sort of medical nightmare stories, and I'm learning all these
Speaker 1: different things about how certain like medical protocol is not
Speaker 1: very good. Um. One specific example I will site is
Speaker 1: the way that the medical community treats like intersects baby
Speaker 1: these um, which is horrible, and they perform procedures and
Speaker 1: surgeries that the babies can't consent to um and that
Speaker 1: the parents often don't know enough about the situation, you know,
Speaker 1: just all these things. So on one hand, like, yes, uh,
Speaker 1: they're like having people who know about childbirth and who
Speaker 1: know about um protocol for medical protocol for childbirth should
Speaker 1: be present um at a childbirth. But there's also certain
Speaker 1: things that medical professionals sometimes do that are perhaps violating patients. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have very complicated feelings about it. Is really complicated.
Speaker 1: I don't like calling it rape because I don't know.
Speaker 1: Rape is a very specific thing. And I understand how
Speaker 1: some of the trauma you know of of undergoing being
Speaker 1: forced to undergo a medical procedure you don't uh want
Speaker 1: to undergo UM or don't you know are are are
Speaker 1: kind of not present enough mentally to like understand what's
Speaker 1: happening to you because you're in this like really altered state. Uh,
Speaker 1: Like I understand how that would be traumatic, UM, but
Speaker 1: I I feel weird about saying that. Like if a
Speaker 1: doctor does something you don't want because he's trying to
Speaker 1: save your baby's life, um, that that's the same as rape.
Speaker 1: That that's weird to me. I do, but like there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of ship obviously that like yeah, doctors do
Speaker 1: without the consent of the baby, like with intersex babies.
Speaker 1: And also like you can make an argument about circumcision
Speaker 1: where it's like that's not a medically necessary thing you're
Speaker 1: doing and the child should maybe have some say and
Speaker 1: what happens to its own body. Um So like yeah,
Speaker 1: like this is like this whole issue. Like there, I
Speaker 1: I want to kind of highlight that, like, while this
Speaker 1: community we're talking about I think is fundamentally toxic, there
Speaker 1: are some reasonable questions that like start that we're being
Speaker 1: asked at the start of this, and I think this woman,
Speaker 1: Jeanette Fraser, is going too far and kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about her more in a bit, but I
Speaker 1: don't think like there she's entirely and these other people
Speaker 1: are entirely coming out of an unreasonable place. The health
Speaker 1: care system and the child birthing system in this country
Speaker 1: is fucked. And like the fact that women today are
Speaker 1: likely to die in childbirth is as much evidence as
Speaker 1: you need to know about that. Um, I wonder it's
Speaker 1: really messy. I wonder if she just came up with
Speaker 1: that term birth rape because it sounds sort of like
Speaker 1: birth rate. And she's like, won't this be a catchy
Speaker 1: phrase or something I don't like? Um, I think you
Speaker 1: know what? That might be the case. We'll we'll see
Speaker 1: if you how you think about that? When we finished
Speaker 1: talking about Jeanette Fraser. But Robert, do you want to
Speaker 1: know what else is a really catchy phrase? Oh? I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, do you want to know what? Won't
Speaker 1: perform medical procedures on your child? Gina tell you without
Speaker 1: their consent? Oh, I think that's our our our our
Speaker 1: sponsors who offer that. That is the only guarantee we
Speaker 1: make about our sponsors, Mike Bloomberg and the Raytheon Corporation.
Speaker 1: They will not order surgery on your children. I can't
Speaker 1: vouch for Mike Bloomberg on that. No, he will. He
Speaker 1: will absolutely order. Yeah. No, why we shouldn't have en
Speaker 1: Raytheon will as well. Um, so enjoy these words from
Speaker 1: our sponsors, who may, in fact order your children to
Speaker 1: undergo medical procedures that are not strictly necessary. Adds We're back. Okay,
Speaker 1: So we're talking about this woman Jeanette Fraser who coins
Speaker 1: the term birth rape um, and she has this website
Speaker 1: Joyous Birth and Joyous Birth advocated for legal reform around pregnancy,
Speaker 1: and the core ideology on display there is the same
Speaker 1: core ideology that we saw creep up later in the
Speaker 1: free birth in community UM, and the basic idea is
Speaker 1: that women should be the absolute arbiters of what happens
Speaker 1: during their pregnancy, which, like, there's aspects of that that
Speaker 1: sound reasonable, but like, obviously I do think there is
Speaker 1: a certain point where we're like, no, you you've got
Speaker 1: too human beings here now, and like you don't get
Speaker 1: to make every I don't know. I have a lot
Speaker 1: of issues in general with the amount of control parents
Speaker 1: have over what happens to their kids bodies. That worries me. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: so yeah, this is a really messy and complicated thing, um.
Speaker 1: But Joyous Birth it was very clearly from the beginning
Speaker 1: focused around the desire to like not have any medical
Speaker 1: procedures performed on your children, to do it all naturally
Speaker 1: or holistically, with like whatever remedies you could whip up
Speaker 1: in your kitchen. It had a forum with a few
Speaker 1: dozen members, and that forum had threads with titles like
Speaker 1: strep question mark, question mark? Can this be treated without antibiotics?
Speaker 1: Another ear infection? Dot? Dot dot? What can I do
Speaker 1: to avoid the antibiotics? So not only so once they're
Speaker 1: children have been birth, assuming they survive, there's there against
Speaker 1: all medical Yeah that's really the kid's life. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of talk about how can I avoid
Speaker 1: antibiotics for my children with bacterial infections? Uh. One of
Speaker 1: the threads from Mummy Juice just says blood and pooh
Speaker 1: question mark, which I'm sure it does not end with
Speaker 1: a happy story. So uh, not a great community. We
Speaker 1: can agree there's some problems with the way uh childbirthing
Speaker 1: is handled by the medical establishment. But like, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're typing out, my kid keeps getting ear infections, why
Speaker 1: how can I deal with this without treating it with medicine? Like, baby,
Speaker 1: you're doing a bad job. I don't know. Just give
Speaker 1: that kid some some goat testicles, secure all as we learned,
Speaker 1: or audit the child, give me lead out you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I it's it's it's pretty cool. Um. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: not exactly sure when all these women started using the
Speaker 1: term free birth to describe what they were advocating, but
Speaker 1: by March of two thousand nine that change had happened.
Speaker 1: Um And the first time I run across the word
Speaker 1: free birthing to refer this community is when Jeanette Fraser
Speaker 1: was interviewed by a website called The Age. Uh and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from that interview. This is right before
Speaker 1: she was supposed to give birth to her fifth child.
Speaker 1: Janette Frasier is in labor. Her plan is to drop
Speaker 1: the baby on the lounge room floor or wherever feels
Speaker 1: good at the time. Has she called the hospital to
Speaker 1: let them know what's happening. When you go on a
Speaker 1: skiing trip, do you call the hospital to say, I'm
Speaker 1: coming down the mountain? Can you set aside a spot
Speaker 1: for me in the emergency room? I don't think so,
Speaker 1: says Fraser, who's breathing sounds strained. Amazing logic. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: they generally do have medical professionals at ski lodges and
Speaker 1: stuff because of the dangers of skiing. But yeah, this
Speaker 1: is pretty much where we're in the conversation that started
Speaker 1: with me calling Frasier and asking if it was true
Speaker 1: that her organization, Joyous Birth, was advocating that women go
Speaker 1: it alone, giving birth at home with no midwife or
Speaker 1: general practitioner or bags of resuscitation gadgets. Free birthing. Plenty
Speaker 1: of women do it, she says. In fact, Fraser is
Speaker 1: doing it right now. I prefer to be an autonomous
Speaker 1: care provider, she says, So that's kind of the terminology
Speaker 1: used here. Yeah, I mean, okay, so I'm obviously all
Speaker 1: for like giving women agency over their bodies, right, Like
Speaker 1: that's important and it absolutely so it feels like this
Speaker 1: community they like started with that, but then have taken
Speaker 1: it far too far to the I mean, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure you're going to get into this soon, but like
Speaker 1: all I mean if we prefaced it the dead babies, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: so like obviously the results aren't often good, it seems
Speaker 1: with this, uh, with free birthing, but like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: just it's so annoying that they're like doing this under
Speaker 1: the guys of like, yes, women's autonomy and agency and
Speaker 1: look how important it is, because that is important, but
Speaker 1: then they've like bastardized it into this like disgusting killing
Speaker 1: baby enterprise. Like yeah, it's and it's it is frustrating
Speaker 1: to me that they're kind of co opting a lot
Speaker 1: of the language of the pro choice movement because it
Speaker 1: was like, when that baby is, you know, a clump
Speaker 1: of cells, when it's it's not capable of living independently
Speaker 1: in any way, shape or form. I I think it
Speaker 1: would be horrible to give anyone but the mother control
Speaker 1: over her own body. But the point of that thing's
Speaker 1: been in there nine months and it's coming out and
Speaker 1: it can survive on its own, Like this is no
Speaker 1: longer just you here. There's an independent, living human being
Speaker 1: that also has rights. Um. Yeah, And it is kind
Speaker 1: of messy drawing that line, but certainly at the point
Speaker 1: at which your forty one weeks pregnant, um, I think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, especially just because like there, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about childbirth. Uh, nor will I
Speaker 1: because I don't intend to have children ever. But like
Speaker 1: there are so many people who do intend to have children.
Speaker 1: Who's still like, there's there's only unless you're trained as
Speaker 1: a midwife or a medical professional. It seems like a
Speaker 1: really dangerous thing to go at it. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: like these are people who are kind of like refusing
Speaker 1: for there to be any kind of like reasonable middle
Speaker 1: path here because you know, the evidence does show that, like,
Speaker 1: if you're checked out by a doctor war hand and
Speaker 1: you have a midwife, home birthing can be a totally
Speaker 1: safe process. But they're like, no, funk that midwife thing
Speaker 1: and fuck checking with a doctor. That's all a violation
Speaker 1: of my rights. Um, which is dumb. I think. I
Speaker 1: think it's a dumb way to do things. It's not good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So Jeanette is probably the clearest case for the founder
Speaker 1: of the free birthing movement and her baby, who she
Speaker 1: was pregnant with when that article was written. Roisen was
Speaker 1: born five days after the article dropped. Janette delivered him
Speaker 1: without assistance in her home, and Roisen was born alive
Speaker 1: but not breathing. His heart was not beating properly. He
Speaker 1: was not stillborn, but he did come out in immediate
Speaker 1: need of expert resuscitation, and unfortunately no expert was available.
Speaker 1: And all Janets are Nica creams and herbal childbirthing remedies
Speaker 1: were useless in the face of this cold reality. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from the coroner's report about her her
Speaker 1: dead baby. Quote. Essentially, miss Fraser was quite unprepared for
Speaker 1: what happened. There was not even a hard flat surface
Speaker 1: available on which Royson could be placed for resuscitation. So
Speaker 1: these three amateurs, Miss Fraser, Mr. Stokes and Miss Deuce
Speaker 1: first placed the child on the rim of the inflatable pool,
Speaker 1: and when that proved unsatisfactory, used a chair. They were
Speaker 1: unable to abandon the chair and place Royson on the
Speaker 1: floor in order to effectively administer CPR, because the placenta
Speaker 1: not having been delivered, that was as far as she
Speaker 1: would reach. Evidently, it appeared to nobody present to clamp
Speaker 1: and cut the cord, and anyway, Miss Deuce told the
Speaker 1: inquest she had not been aware of the ready availability
Speaker 1: of any equipment to enable her to do so. According
Speaker 1: to Missduce, further difficulties were encountered in administering CPR because
Speaker 1: Royson was slippery and difficult to hold, and evidently it
Speaker 1: did not occur to anybody to wrap her in a towel,
Speaker 1: though there were towels nearby. Yeah, yeah, it's sucked up. Wow.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and it came like this, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is like straight up negligence right where like that I
Speaker 1: would I would say, so the baby died and the
Speaker 1: mom was responsible, Like is she a murderer. Now like
Speaker 1: does she face No, she legally know and in most
Speaker 1: parts of the world she will not legally face consequences
Speaker 1: for this. Um. You know, it's kind of thing we're
Speaker 1: only just now within a pretty recent period of time
Speaker 1: where like parents would get start to get in trouble
Speaker 1: in some places for like refusing to give their kids
Speaker 1: necessary blood transfusions because of a religious belief, Like you
Speaker 1: can still get away with that actually in a number
Speaker 1: of places. Um, So this is this is not a
Speaker 1: thing where like the women who do this are generally
Speaker 1: prosecuted at all. Um. Although, yeah, I would agree with you,
Speaker 1: this seems like negligence of maybe a criminal nature. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like manslaughter. Maybe I don't like some baby slaughter.
Speaker 1: Baby it's a horrible phrase. So that's Jeanette Fraser, one
Speaker 1: of the founders of the Free Birthing movement, and the
Speaker 1: other woman usually given as a founder for the free
Speaker 1: birthing movement is Laura Shanley. She was interviewed in December
Speaker 1: of two thousand eight, the same month Catherine's Skull filed
Speaker 1: charges against her doctor, uh and she was interviewed for
Speaker 1: an ABC News article titled Mothers to Be saying no
Speaker 1: to modern medicine. Now, that article does not use the
Speaker 1: term free birthing, which is part of why I think
Speaker 1: Jeanette Fraser probably gets the credit for that, but it
Speaker 1: does mention a dead baby, Laura Shanley's dead baby. To
Speaker 1: be precise, Shanley had successfully delivered her first four children
Speaker 1: at home. She delivered the fifth two, but he had
Speaker 1: a rare heart deformity and he died. Shanley claims that
Speaker 1: said nothing at all to do with the fact that
Speaker 1: she chose to give birth without any expert medical care present. Quote.
Speaker 1: If you have a baby that's born at home, and
Speaker 1: especially in an unassisted birth, regardless of the fact that
Speaker 1: the coroner said this baby would not have survived, you know,
Speaker 1: there are still people that will blame me for my
Speaker 1: baby's death, Shanley said, And that's just something I have
Speaker 1: to accept now. I'm not competent to diagnose whether Shanley's
Speaker 1: child would have died if he'd been born in a hospital.
Speaker 1: But someone who is competent is Dr Amy Tutor, an
Speaker 1: obstite Ristian gynecologist who runs a blog called The Skeptical
Speaker 1: oh B and focus is mainly on busting misinformation about pregnancy.
Speaker 1: She has a special hatred for free birthing and notes
Speaker 1: of Miss Shanley's pregnancy she made no attempt to stop
Speaker 1: the premature birth of a son and watched him die
Speaker 1: in the bathtub. So yeah, two founders of the movement
Speaker 1: to dead babies. That's where we're starting here. Okay, cool stuff, huh,
Speaker 1: really really cool stuff. Caitlin is looking at me like, Sophie,
Speaker 1: why did you bring me here? How you feeling, Kitlin? Um?
Speaker 1: You know, I am really just frustrated by the willful
Speaker 1: negligence of this this movement. I'll buy your supe plantation
Speaker 1: next time we get dinner. Thank you so much? Are
Speaker 1: we are five pages in Caitlin, and we have four
Speaker 1: dead babies, so we are almost one dead baby per
Speaker 1: page to this. Wow? Yeah, what cool? What a rate?
Speaker 1: What a rate? So Shanley and Fraser were the two earliest,
Speaker 1: loudest voices and the splinter of the home birthing movement
Speaker 1: that turned into free birthing. Uh. They both lad large
Speaker 1: online communities that increasingly pushed their members away from trusting
Speaker 1: actual medical professionals for anything. Dr Tutur blames them for
Speaker 1: a lot of this, and she considers their activism to
Speaker 1: be the result of extreme emotional immaturity, and she wrote
Speaker 1: on her blog quote free Birthers are monstrously egotistical, reflexively
Speaker 1: defiant of authority, unwilling to admit mistakes and capable of
Speaker 1: accepting responsibility for their own actions, and entirely devoid of
Speaker 1: any empathy for their suffering babies. Yeah, says sums up
Speaker 1: for me that I wonder if they're all just like narcissy, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: narcissis yeah, Like, um, I don't need a doctor. I'm
Speaker 1: a genius and I can handle this on my own.
Speaker 1: I don't think all of the women who get sucked
Speaker 1: into it are I think most of them are probably
Speaker 1: pretty normal people who are kind of maybe more inclined
Speaker 1: to like sort of hippie dippy stuff and liked like
Speaker 1: off the grid, a lot of like off the grids,
Speaker 1: sort of like you know, back to nature, almost survivalist
Speaker 1: kind of women get really into this because they're attracted
Speaker 1: to the idea of self sufficiency. But I do think
Speaker 1: the people at the head of this movement, the women
Speaker 1: who are sort of like driving it, I think there
Speaker 1: is a lot of narcissism, um and you can see
Speaker 1: that in the things that they say. Um uh. For example,
Speaker 1: in the wake of her baby's death, Janet Frasier made
Speaker 1: this defiant statement, my birth rape with my first child
Speaker 1: is traumatic. My still birth was not. Mm hmm yeah.
Speaker 1: Um that just sounds like a lie to justify what
Speaker 1: she's doing. And also like, regardless of what happened with
Speaker 1: your first child, that baby is alive, it gets yeah,
Speaker 1: your other baby is not, and yeah, note the difference,
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, yeah. So another story that a doctor
Speaker 1: to tour sites of like kind of narcissism at the
Speaker 1: heart of a lot of these free birthing people is
Speaker 1: the case of a woman named Paula p A A
Speaker 1: l A. Her infant son was born extremely early, weighing
Speaker 1: only one pound six ounces. He had to spend four
Speaker 1: months in the n I See You and only survived
Speaker 1: due to intense medical intervention. Paula was forced to give
Speaker 1: birth in the hospital because something was very clearly wrong
Speaker 1: with her pregnancy, but she still insisted on giving birth
Speaker 1: as close to alone as she possibly could. And I'm
Speaker 1: just going to read what she wrote on her Facebook
Speaker 1: page for a community of other free birthers because it's
Speaker 1: it's fucking wild. I took out my ivy lines. Nothing
Speaker 1: was being pumped into them at that point anyway, and
Speaker 1: my hospital bracelet. I wanted to take a shower with
Speaker 1: both arms free of junk. I figured they could put
Speaker 1: that crap back on me if it was an emergency,
Speaker 1: but I needed to feel like myself again. Did dimension
Speaker 1: They tracked and measured everything that came out of my body.
Speaker 1: Shortly thereafter, she was an actively her with the premature baby.
Speaker 1: She retreated to the hospital bathroom to decide what to do.
Speaker 1: Option one, she wrote, called the nurses and either be
Speaker 1: prodded while berthing right there, or be wheeled in for
Speaker 1: an emergency C section. Option to wake my husband and
Speaker 1: labor with him secretly, but then I know he'd lose
Speaker 1: his cool and call for help. Option three labor by
Speaker 1: myself with my baby just us, and I'd birth him
Speaker 1: and catch him and then call for help. Obviously, I
Speaker 1: went for option three. It seemed like the safest thing
Speaker 1: for my baby and myself At the time. The studies
Speaker 1: I'd read didn't report benefits for a C section for
Speaker 1: babies of his age. That vaginal would have been safer,
Speaker 1: and I knew he'd get drugged up and controlled by strangers,
Speaker 1: was going to make things dangerous for me. After a
Speaker 1: couple of painful contractions by the toilet, I laid out
Speaker 1: a couple of Chuck's padge to catch the blood and crap,
Speaker 1: I wish there was coming. Yeah. So, and she she
Speaker 1: writes like this about like how good it is and
Speaker 1: how important what she's doing is for the safety of
Speaker 1: her baby, um, and ignores the fact that her baby
Speaker 1: only surve life, being born four months prematurely because of
Speaker 1: intense medical intervention, because of doctors and nurses working incredibly
Speaker 1: hard with advanced equipment to keep the baby alive. Um.
Speaker 1: She makes it all into a story about how cool
Speaker 1: it is that she gave birth hiding alone in a
Speaker 1: bathroom without telling any of the medical professionals around her. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that's also this movement seems, among many things, like
Speaker 1: a disdain for science. Like they're just like science is,
Speaker 1: um not cool? But you know when you feel my
Speaker 1: baby potentially like the fact that I'm in control and
Speaker 1: not some doctor, right not, I mean, it's it's the
Speaker 1: like I said, it's the anti vaxer thing, right, It's
Speaker 1: just like, um, how could this possibly help even though
Speaker 1: this like that. It's just yeah, the the ignoring, the
Speaker 1: the science, the fact expind it all. Wowika, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty cool, Caitlin, it's pretty cool. I love it. Yeah
Speaker 1: so um. Paula gave herself enormous credit for cheating the
Speaker 1: system and giving birth unassisted while ignoring the hard work
Speaker 1: of professionals. Her defiant interpretation of a situation she probably
Speaker 1: made worse was interpreted as a story of self reliance
Speaker 1: by her fellow free birthers instead of a cautionary tale.
Speaker 1: It reinforced dangerous ideas in the heads of dozens of women.
Speaker 1: In the years since Jeanette Fraser's baby died, the free
Speaker 1: birthing movement has grown like the old right, like the
Speaker 1: bleached drinking cult, like Q and on, and like dozens
Speaker 1: of other toxic subcultures in the fertile substrate provided by Facebook.
Speaker 1: Like every subculture, it developed its own media ecosystem, with
Speaker 1: its own popular podcasts and news websites and influencers, all
Speaker 1: of whom prey upon the ever growing market of hippie,
Speaker 1: dippy new mothers to be who don't trust Western medicine.
Speaker 1: And that's how Judith, the subject of that viral NBC
Speaker 1: article found out about free birthing. I'm going to quote
Speaker 1: from that article. Now. Judith worked at a flower shop.
Speaker 1: The daily drive was an hour outside of town, time
Speaker 1: she filled by listening to podcasts. When she got pregnant,
Speaker 1: she devoured episodes of The Birth Hour and Indie Birth,
Speaker 1: popular programs on which women shared their childbirth stories, which
Speaker 1: ranged from hospital to home births. But it was the
Speaker 1: Free Birth podcast that really spoke to Judith. Build as
Speaker 1: a supportive space for people who are learning, exploring, and
Speaker 1: celebrating their autonomous choices in childbirth. The podcast features Emily
Speaker 1: Saldia thirty five, a Los Angeles freebirth advocate and founder
Speaker 1: of the Freebirth Society. The group has forty six thousand
Speaker 1: followers on Instagram and it's podcast hit a million downloads
Speaker 1: last month. Yeah, that's too many. My podcast doesn't even
Speaker 1: get that much. And it's amazing, not horrible downloads. A
Speaker 1: million downloads in a year. Okay, well, yeah that too
Speaker 1: many downloads to Instagram followers, that's thousands of women potentially
Speaker 1: endangering their babies. Um, which is God not great, not ideal. Robert,
Speaker 1: do you want to know what will not endanger I don't.
Speaker 1: I can't even vouch for this because we are because
Speaker 1: we're absolutely supported by Mike Bloomberg. Actually, Sophie, I'm glad
Speaker 1: you brought that up because I have this new ad
Speaker 1: copy from Mike Bloomberg. So I'm just gonna read that
Speaker 1: right now. Vote from Mike in he will endanger your babies.
Speaker 1: That's the Mike Bloomberg promise. He absolutely promises to endanger
Speaker 1: everyone's baby if elected president, and it is in fact,
Speaker 1: the only promise he's willing to make. So, you know,
Speaker 1: a bold stance by Mike Bloomberg. You gotta respect it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you heard it here, folks. That is an official Bloomberg
Speaker 1: campaign ad. Mike Bloomberg will endanger your babies. Nod A required,
Speaker 1: No India required. He'll do that for free. All right,
Speaker 1: here's some other ads. We're back. So we're talking about
Speaker 1: this kind of network of free birthing media circles, primarily podcasts,
Speaker 1: and this is part of you know, Caitlin, Podcasting has
Speaker 1: been good to both of us. Um I make u
Speaker 1: my living at it, and I enjoy it, and I
Speaker 1: think I enjoy other people's podcasts that they make, including
Speaker 1: the Bechtel Cast. Your podcast. I worry a lot about
Speaker 1: podcasts though, UM, and this is we're getting a little
Speaker 1: off topic. But like if you read mine comp which
Speaker 1: everybody ought to UM, one of the points Adolf Hitler
Speaker 1: makes is that like the written word, essentially newspapers and
Speaker 1: books by philosolity, that none of that ship convinces large
Speaker 1: amounts of people of anything. The human voice is what
Speaker 1: can can change people's minds and huge numbers and shift
Speaker 1: the destinies of nations. Like that's what is the right
Speaker 1: voice at the right time, UM. Saying the right things
Speaker 1: can be hypnotizing to large numbers of people, and I
Speaker 1: think that's what happens to UM. To this young woman, Judith,
Speaker 1: she's she's spending two three hours a day in the car,
Speaker 1: she lives out in the sticks. She's listening to the
Speaker 1: podcast to help pass the time. And these women on
Speaker 1: this free birthing podcast, in the way that podcasting hosts
Speaker 1: become to us, becomes sort of like surrogate friends, and
Speaker 1: she trust them. And obviously she trusts these women on
Speaker 1: this podcast more than she trusts some doctors. She's going
Speaker 1: to meet a couple of times, UM, and it's probably
Speaker 1: going to be very short on time and like that.
Speaker 1: This is one of the things that scares me about podcasts. Um, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I hadn't even fully I tell you rather, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hadn't fully appreciated the power of the voice, the
Speaker 1: human voice, and how influential it can be. That is scary, Okay,
Speaker 1: I will Yeah, I think on this a bit. I mean,
Speaker 1: on the lighthearted an event, we can tell people to
Speaker 1: buy bolt cutters and and and the like to to
Speaker 1: break into the mansions of the wealthy when society collapses.
Speaker 1: But like on the dark side of it, all this
Speaker 1: stuff happens too, so it's really a mixed bag podcasting. Thanks. Well,
Speaker 1: didn't we learn about this with Dr John Brinkley? Was
Speaker 1: that his name? Who like we found that whole radio
Speaker 1: thing and was just hawking his his uh fake medicine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's many people over the rail knew about this. Is
Speaker 1: that back in the day, you know, Brinkley was only
Speaker 1: able to do that because he had a huge amount
Speaker 1: of money from his goatball business to establish a radio
Speaker 1: station with. Now anybody can do this. Anybody with any
Speaker 1: really fucking dumb idea can build a whole community dedicated
Speaker 1: to that dumb idea. For whom that dumb idea will
Speaker 1: become more important than anything else, even the lives of
Speaker 1: their children. So the podcasts and supporting art industry. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's good stuff. It's real good stuff. Everything's a nightmare.
Speaker 1: So on the Free Birthing Podcast, Emily Saldia hosted the
Speaker 1: most positive stories of free births. Judith was particularly taken
Speaker 1: by the tale of one woman who gave birth out
Speaker 1: in an unpowered yurt in the mountains of California, with
Speaker 1: quote only her husband and a dog she called her midwolf.
Speaker 1: Oh no, do not obstetricians. They're wonderful animals, but they
Speaker 1: cannot help in a birthing. No. That also just ruined
Speaker 1: puns for the rest of my life. I know, and
Speaker 1: to this day, I know, to this day the woman
Speaker 1: who decided to call her dog her mid wolf. That's
Speaker 1: the thing she's proud of. Stuff is that bit of
Speaker 1: word play. And I hate it Wolf. I can't get over.
Speaker 1: I'm looking in and is shaking her head, going this
Speaker 1: is not right, but this is this is like an
Speaker 1: aspect of this stories. Like a lot of these women
Speaker 1: are like off the grid women, women who live on
Speaker 1: arms and stuff, who are actually like probably really competent
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways because it's hard to live
Speaker 1: that way. I have lived that way, and it's incredibly
Speaker 1: difficult and it requires an amount of fortitude. And that's
Speaker 1: probably why women like Judith are able to go weeks
Speaker 1: past their due date and like the horrible pain that
Speaker 1: that involves, because they're tough people. Um and I there's
Speaker 1: an extent to it, like I, I fucking hate hospitals,
Speaker 1: um and I avoid them at all goddamn costs. I
Speaker 1: like living out in the middle of nowhere. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I like not relying on anyone for you know things
Speaker 1: of of of my daily necessities. I enjoy that. I
Speaker 1: understand those impulses. But when you're bringing a baby into
Speaker 1: the world, your personal level of comfort with you know,
Speaker 1: all that matters less than the child's survival. It just does.
Speaker 1: That's part of being a parent, right, is that, like
Speaker 1: you put the child first. That's why I don't have
Speaker 1: a kid. That's why we've been able to perpetuate the species. Yeah,
Speaker 1: caring for the I know, I put Robert over myself.
Speaker 1: I pick Robert over myself all the time because he
Speaker 1: used my son. But I know, I know, and uh,
Speaker 1: that's why you've got three bullets in your shoulder. I know.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate you jumping in between me and that
Speaker 1: California Highway Patrol officer. But that's a story for another
Speaker 1: day and another podcast. Um. So, Judith becomes obsessed with
Speaker 1: these stories of you know, these women having free births
Speaker 1: in these like amazing and exotic locales in the woods
Speaker 1: on top of mountains in foreign countries. Um and she
Speaker 1: she like like loves this stuff and listens to it
Speaker 1: every day and and recalled later to NBC, I became obsessed.
Speaker 1: I would just wonder what's my story going to be like?
Speaker 1: And think I want my story to be as badass
Speaker 1: as their stories. So you see, like there's a level
Speaker 1: of danger here too, and the way that online communities
Speaker 1: do everyone pushes each other more extreme. You gave birth
Speaker 1: in an unpowered your well, fuck it, I'll give birth
Speaker 1: and a ave or something like that. Like So, like
Speaker 1: many Americans, Judith entered into this world with a distrust
Speaker 1: of doctors. She'd been put under anesthesia as a child
Speaker 1: and found the experience frightening. As a college student, a
Speaker 1: doctor shrubbed off her in her ear pain, ignoring what
Speaker 1: she thought was a real issue. Quote, just calculating all
Speaker 1: the experiences I've had with doctors, I never felt heard,
Speaker 1: I never felt listened to. And this is an extremely
Speaker 1: common complaint from women who give birth in the United States,
Speaker 1: very common. A lot of women will tell you I
Speaker 1: didn't think the doctor was listening to me. I didn't
Speaker 1: feel like they cared about my pain or my situation.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean it's not just then that's I mean,
Speaker 1: listen to sludge, you guys, listen to Yeah, like, every
Speaker 1: every part of my story is that many people's stories,
Speaker 1: which is why we need such a major overhaul of
Speaker 1: the American healthcare system, because it is full of a
Speaker 1: lot of medical professionals who are uh you, you know,
Speaker 1: exhibiting certain biases against certain demographics of people, largely women,
Speaker 1: people of color, queer people, people with invisible disabilities, plus
Speaker 1: size people. I mean, so many groups of people are
Speaker 1: ignored or their pain isn't believed or anything like that.
Speaker 1: And uh, like, I can understand why certain people would
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, I don't want to deal with like
Speaker 1: the health care system. It's completely screwed me over, it's
Speaker 1: completely neglected me. But I mean so that, I mean,
Speaker 1: the problem it is this system that is so broken.
Speaker 1: But it's a lot of the problem is like everything
Speaker 1: you've said is very valid, and I would add to that,
Speaker 1: a lot of where these women go wrong is like
Speaker 1: they recognize that the system is fucked up, and it is,
Speaker 1: and they say, like the problem is then the doctors,
Speaker 1: we need to just not have doctor is involved, and
Speaker 1: it's like no, no, no. A big part of the
Speaker 1: problem is actually there aren't nearly enough doctors and they're
Speaker 1: all overworked. So even like the really good ones and
Speaker 1: the ones who are capable of, like you know, transcending
Speaker 1: those biases are also just like overworked and exhausted and
Speaker 1: sleep deprived and piste off a lot of the time.
Speaker 1: And maybe theyre don't give you the best bedside manner
Speaker 1: because they're they're doing way too much work. And if
Speaker 1: we had a lot more doctors, not only would you
Speaker 1: have a wider a variety of life experiences among medical professionals,
Speaker 1: and so you'd have more doctors who might understand members
Speaker 1: of these groups, but you would also have less exhausted
Speaker 1: doctors and so they'd be able to provide better care. Um,
Speaker 1: there's so many problems with our So what we need,
Speaker 1: what we need is for anyone who's considering starting a podcast,
Speaker 1: don't do it. There's too many. Become a doctor instead,
Speaker 1: every single one of you. Stop listening to our podcasts
Speaker 1: and go to medicals. You know how easy it is
Speaker 1: to just become a doctor. Just do that. Look, if
Speaker 1: you're listening to this podcast where you're putting up drywall
Speaker 1: for your job as a day labor, drop that fucking
Speaker 1: drywall hammer or whatever you used to put up drywall
Speaker 1: and go become a doctor right now, right now. Podcasts over. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So um. Judith is kind of very primed by her
Speaker 1: past bad experiences with doctors to distrust doctors in the
Speaker 1: first place. So when she starts listening to this Free
Speaker 1: Birthing podcast and hearing its hosts used terms like industrial
Speaker 1: obstetric tyranny, and birth rape, she was ready to graft
Speaker 1: those words and the idea behind them onto her life.
Speaker 1: She watched the Free Birth Society's introduction video hosted by
Speaker 1: instructor Yolanda Norris Clark and the business partner of Emily Saldayah,
Speaker 1: the host of the Free Birthing podcast, and I want
Speaker 1: you to listen to how Yolanda introduces herself in this video, Sophie,
Speaker 1: that's your queue. Oh, that's my cue. That's your cue.
Speaker 1: I'm Yolanda Clark. I'm a writer, a birth consultant, and
Speaker 1: I'm the director of Education with the Free Birth Society.
Speaker 1: And my passion and mission in life is to share
Speaker 1: the open secret that birth is not an inherently medical event,
Speaker 1: but a spontaneous function of biology, and that it is
Speaker 1: the pregnant woman herself who possesses inalienable authority over her
Speaker 1: birth process. I woke up to the truth about birth
Speaker 1: almost eighteen years ago, and since then, I've dedicated my
Speaker 1: life to studying birth and supporting euphoric birth. And I've
Speaker 1: given birth myself to seven healthy babies in my home
Speaker 1: without any involvement from medical professionals at all, from conception
Speaker 1: to emergence. I like how she includes uh, conception in there.
Speaker 1: I didn't need a doctor present when I was fucking.
Speaker 1: Fucking is easy. It doesn't require a doctor. Clearly childbirth
Speaker 1: is the same. Yeah. Look, I don't need a doctor
Speaker 1: around when I'm shooting off mc gunn, So why do
Speaker 1: I need a doctor when I accidentally shoot my son? Yeah?
Speaker 1: These wild leaps of logic are Yeah. I also if you.
Speaker 1: You weren't the guest for our episodes on Keith Ranieri
Speaker 1: in the next um cult. But if you go back
Speaker 1: to the old videos of what's her name? That that
Speaker 1: lady who was on Smallville, Alison Mac, Alison Mac talking
Speaker 1: to Keith Ranieri, and listen to the cadence of their
Speaker 1: voices and compare it to the cadence of Yolanda's voice.
Speaker 1: They all talk the same way, with the same sort
Speaker 1: of speech patterns, and I find that very interesting. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so to quote Hitler, yikes to quote Hitler. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know what, There's a couple of things I'll quote
Speaker 1: Hitler on in a sense of agreeing with him, and
Speaker 1: one of them is how to convince a bunch of
Speaker 1: people of something I only knew how to do it.
Speaker 1: He wasn't bad. I'm only quoting the quote that you
Speaker 1: already said from mine, CLO. But just like the power
Speaker 1: of the human voice, right, So, yeah, I hope there
Speaker 1: are people out there. I know that we were would
Speaker 1: probably edit this out. No, it was wonderful. You cannot
Speaker 1: edit audio. You cannot edit a human voice. Um, so
Speaker 1: I hope there are enough people out there who can
Speaker 1: like detect those like Culty like and now like the
Speaker 1: just like propagandy. Yeah, that whole cadence to pick up
Speaker 1: on the bullshit that they're spewing. And listeners couldn't see,
Speaker 1: but she was doing this like almost like conductor like
Speaker 1: hand motion the entire time. That was also very flowy
Speaker 1: and swaye and Culty, Yes, thank you so much. Um yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean I think, I mean, Robert, obviously you picked
Speaker 1: up on it. Like, I just hope that for the
Speaker 1: people out there who like listen to all these podcasts
Speaker 1: out there, and they can, like they can tell when
Speaker 1: people are being scary and spewing propaganda bullshit, and I
Speaker 1: hope that they understand that when I tell them to
Speaker 1: purchase bolt cutters and uh and okay um. So later
Speaker 1: in that video, Yolanda warns against inducing labor, calling it
Speaker 1: an eviction from the womb and basically arguing that it's
Speaker 1: traumatic to the infant. She brags about taking her pregnancies
Speaker 1: well past the normal forty weeks. In Yolanda's eyes, the
Speaker 1: idea that the risk of still births rises rapidly after
Speaker 1: forty two weeks is nonsense. She states, Babies come out.
Speaker 1: Babies always come out, so when Judith's pregnancy crept past
Speaker 1: forty two weeks, she assured herself it was fine by
Speaker 1: remembering Yolanda's words. She also sought reinforcement from her friends
Speaker 1: in the free Birthing Facebook group. Things were not fine,
Speaker 1: of course, and her baby was in fact still born.
Speaker 1: The only good news in this terrible story is that
Speaker 1: this horrific tragedy shocked Judith out of the weird little
Speaker 1: Internet cult she'd gotten drawn into. As she told NBC,
Speaker 1: I think I brainwashed myself with the Internet, and I
Speaker 1: that's what happened. The Internet like the fact that Judith
Speaker 1: was capable of realizing this and acknowledging the bad decisions
Speaker 1: that that set her on this path should key you
Speaker 1: in on the critical fact that she's not a dumb person.
Speaker 1: She's a person who did a dumb thing with a
Speaker 1: horrible consequence, but she herself as an intelligent, capable, reasonable
Speaker 1: human being. The Internet made her stupid. This doesn't take
Speaker 1: away from her culpability in the tragedy, and she definitely
Speaker 1: has quite a lot here, but it does highlight a
Speaker 1: critical reality. Without this massive ecosystem totally tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of people and hundreds of dedicated content creators. Judith would
Speaker 1: not have been able to convince herself to make these
Speaker 1: bad decisions. This, this just wouldn't have happened in an
Speaker 1: age in which this, this Internet infrastructure didn't exist. The
Speaker 1: train of things that led to Judith stillbirth bears tremendous
Speaker 1: similarities to the radicalization pathway for numerous neo Nazi and
Speaker 1: white supremacist terrorists. Some dumb kid comes across a really
Speaker 1: transgressive podcast or a review of a movie they like
Speaker 1: by some YouTuber like Stefon Molineux, and that leads them
Speaker 1: to other content and eventually a more extreme communities, and
Speaker 1: after a few months or a few years, you've got
Speaker 1: yourself a committed white supremacist. And as is the case
Speaker 1: with all these new Nazis we're dealing with, there are
Speaker 1: specific individuals to blame for creating the radicalization pathways in
Speaker 1: the free birthing community. The Internet may have made Judith stupid,
Speaker 1: but it didn't do so on its own, and the
Speaker 1: two people most responsible for the spread of the free
Speaker 1: birthing movement and it's modern deadly dimensions are Emily Seldiah
Speaker 1: and Yolanda Norris Clark. They wind up in every single
Speaker 1: one of these stories. Take the case of Lisa, a
Speaker 1: twenty nine year old Californian who talked to The Daily Beast.
Speaker 1: Lisa had been living off the grid in an eco
Speaker 1: friendly sort of you know situation in the middle of
Speaker 1: nowhere when she found a free birthing page on Instagram.
Speaker 1: The idea immediately appealed to her, and she joined the
Speaker 1: Free Birthing Facebook group that Emily Seldia ran. Like Judith,
Speaker 1: she kept her new friends up to day with her pregnancy.
Speaker 1: Quote been in labor for days. Thought I was in
Speaker 1: transition at PM, but now it's three am and it's
Speaker 1: intensely painful. Like I just want to lie down and
Speaker 1: for the pain to stop for a second. Saldiah reached
Speaker 1: out to her via Facebook messenger to give support. Other
Speaker 1: group members left comments like you're a legend. It will happen.
Speaker 1: Like Justine. Lisa's pregnancy went on for far too long.
Speaker 1: Her baby was also born dead. She made a quick
Speaker 1: post to the Freebirth Societies Facebook group and people they're
Speaker 1: sympathized with her, But the important work of radicalizing other
Speaker 1: pregnant women to avoid hospitals and even midwives continued, or
Speaker 1: at least it would have if not for what happened next.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to quote from the Daily Beast again here.
Speaker 1: A group of concerned outsiders worried the free Birthers were
Speaker 1: being reckless and set up fake sock puppet accounts to
Speaker 1: gain intrigue to the private group and monitor its members.
Speaker 1: The interlopers saw themselves as centuries keeping watch over alternative
Speaker 1: lifestyle practitioners. They believe we're putting their babies in harm.
Speaker 1: The sock puppets took screenshots of Lisa's comments and posted
Speaker 1: them in their own groups, sparking instant outcry from their followers.
Speaker 1: Some of them marveled at why anyone would take such
Speaker 1: a risk with the pregnancy, while others blamed Seldia for
Speaker 1: luring impressionable women into a dangerous practice. Others were more vicious.
Speaker 1: The twat from the Free Birth Society needs drop kicking
Speaker 1: out of a fucking window. One person wrote, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: mind seeing this monster swinging from a light post at it. Another.
Speaker 1: So that's all the Internet that you and I know
Speaker 1: and love, Caitlin Um. Yeah. These eruptions of death threats
Speaker 1: and outrage by anti free breathing activists came to follow
Speaker 1: every new dead baby story. When baby journey Moon died
Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen, the weight of attention and outrage
Speaker 1: leveled against the Free Birth Society caused Emily Saldia to
Speaker 1: close all four of her Facebook groups. And here's what
Speaker 1: she wrote in the post announcing this and oh boy,
Speaker 1: strap in for this one game, dear community, it is
Speaker 1: with a heavy heart that we officially announced the closing
Speaker 1: of our four wonderful groups here on Facebook as of
Speaker 1: November one. All members will be removed in the group's
Speaker 1: closed permanently. As many of you know, a member of
Speaker 1: our private Freebirth Society group tragically lost her baby during
Speaker 1: the birth process earlier this year. The painful reality is
Speaker 1: that babies do sometimes die in all settings, including the hospital,
Speaker 1: and every pregnant woman was content with the possibility of
Speaker 1: death which exists for each of us. Babies just die uh.
Speaker 1: Emily went on to complain about her own death threats,
Speaker 1: the ones that she had received from anti free birthing activists,
Speaker 1: and closed the post by announcing, in light of all this,
Speaker 1: we at Freebirth Society and are advancing our plan to
Speaker 1: move off Facebook to a safe and private membership platform
Speaker 1: m hm. Patreon. Yeah, that's actually exactly what they're doing.
Speaker 1: It's not Patreon, but that's the exactly the goal. This
Speaker 1: is a grift um. The private membership platform is not free.
Speaker 1: It cost a hundred and eight dollars to be a member.
Speaker 1: And since her Facebook group had more than six thousand
Speaker 1: members when she closed it down, the amount of more
Speaker 1: or forty six thousand members which she closed it down,
Speaker 1: the amount of money on the line here is potentially significant.
Speaker 1: And that's not the whole of the grift it's barely
Speaker 1: the start. Emily and Yolanda run a web's free Birth
Speaker 1: Society dot com on it. You can buy a coffee
Speaker 1: table book she rises, an annual edition of The Wild Mother,
Speaker 1: which is another thing these people call themselves for. You
Speaker 1: can also pay for a number of different cool services, Caitlin,
Speaker 1: you're gonna love hearing about this. There's the Lighthouse Leaders
Speaker 1: Group coaching series from a hundred and seventy five dollars,
Speaker 1: Birth Trauma Debrief for a hundred and fifty dollars, Radical
Speaker 1: Birthkeeper Consultation for a hundred dollars, Self Mastery coaching for
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty dollars, an undisturbed birth education and
Speaker 1: prep for a hundred and fifty dollars. Now, I bet
Speaker 1: you wondering what is what is Radical Birthkeeper Consultation? I
Speaker 1: am wondering that, Please tell me. So I looked into
Speaker 1: it and it turns out it's a guide for other
Speaker 1: women to start their own business in the radical birthwork field.
Speaker 1: Cool Is there a market for that? Well? Because these
Speaker 1: ladies are making bank and Yolanda make it. A ton
Speaker 1: who wouldn't want to make money off of this? It's
Speaker 1: like making a money as a midwife, but with all
Speaker 1: all of that pass key training and apprenticeship and learning
Speaker 1: useful medical ship. Oh good god. Here's a quote from
Speaker 1: the the page for that that thing new to birthwork,
Speaker 1: not sure where to start, or maybe you've been attending
Speaker 1: births for a while and you're feeling sick. If you're
Speaker 1: called to Radical Birthwork, identified by us as Standing within
Speaker 1: four Women, we are here to help you brainstorm business
Speaker 1: ideas and dive into all things birthwork. We have effectively
Speaker 1: coached many women who want to launch their birth businesses
Speaker 1: but don't know where to start or feel stymied by
Speaker 1: the pressures that they perceive from general social climate around
Speaker 1: birth or worry as to what and how to charge
Speaker 1: for their services. During the session, we will help you
Speaker 1: cut through the noise of self judgment and help you
Speaker 1: clarify your birthwork superpower and project your vision to the world,
Speaker 1: implement your passion and translate it into working with women
Speaker 1: with the highest integrity. This is a sixty minute session
Speaker 1: that will be done over FaceTime or zoom. Okay, so
Speaker 1: let me let me understand this. So they are basically
Speaker 1: they offer this service where you can consult with someone
Speaker 1: to learn how to be a person who will be
Speaker 1: present at free births, just to like help out in
Speaker 1: case anything goes wrong. So they acknowledge the need for
Speaker 1: people to be there, just people with actual medical medical training. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh wow, Okay, this is kind of where I start
Speaker 1: to see it as like I don't think like Justine obviously,
Speaker 1: the one we've talked to the most, like there was
Speaker 1: no grift for her. She just thought this was the
Speaker 1: best thing to do um and she was wrong. But
Speaker 1: these women, Yolanda Emily Seldiah and Yolanda Norris clark Um,
Speaker 1: these are people who just want the respect and money
Speaker 1: that a real professional like a midwife or a doctor
Speaker 1: receives as a result of what they do, but they
Speaker 1: don't want to take any training or get any kind
Speaker 1: of license or be told by anyone that whatever crazy
Speaker 1: ideas they have about birth are aren't like right. So
Speaker 1: they've just built up this community where they're treated like
Speaker 1: real medical professionals and essentially train other people and how
Speaker 1: to give birth without actually knowing how to train other
Speaker 1: people how to help give birth with no train like
Speaker 1: train people to not be trained. Yeah, it's mind boggling.
Speaker 1: It's incredible. And if you decide, Caitlin, that you want
Speaker 1: comprehensive coaching and how to free birth your own baby,
Speaker 1: Emily and Yolanda will be more than happy to help you.
Speaker 1: For a price. Their full coaching package is a bargain
Speaker 1: at just eight Oh yeah, well, I have decided that
Speaker 1: I want their help, so I'm going to start saving up.
Speaker 1: Midwives have to go to a place. Just give it
Speaker 1: on Skype baby, that's the way easier. Now. I can't
Speaker 1: say for certain that Lisa, one of the mothers whose
Speaker 1: baby died, was actively paying Yolanda and Emily for birth coaching,
Speaker 1: but the fact that she's mentioned getting Facebook messages from
Speaker 1: Saldia makes me think that she was uh and the
Speaker 1: precise wording of how the Daily Beasts discussed this as
Speaker 1: suspicious to me. Quote Saldaia says she provided no advice
Speaker 1: to Lisa and never even spoke to her on the
Speaker 1: phone doesn't mean she didn't. Different medium Maybe then, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe I found Yolanda Norris Clark on Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker 1: She goes by bao house wife and sends out free
Speaker 1: birthing memes and updates to her combined twelve thousand followers.
Speaker 1: Here's one example. The idea that governments could ever have
Speaker 1: the legitimate jurisdiction to designate birthworkers or license birthwork in
Speaker 1: any capacity should be preposterous and outrageous to everyone. The
Speaker 1: fact that it isn't, and that so many women especially
Speaker 1: have accepted and even welcomed the appropriation of midwife re
Speaker 1: by the patriarchal, false authority of the official institutions just
Speaker 1: reinforces the task that we have at hand to rewild
Speaker 1: and re authenticate our relationship to ourselves, to motherhood, to
Speaker 1: our bodies, to our children, and to each other. Hashtag
Speaker 1: radical birthkeeper, hashtag radical birthwork, hashtag house wife, hashtag free birth,
Speaker 1: hashtag homebirth hashtag wildbirth, hashtag free birth Society, hashtag free
Speaker 1: birth Society, Radical Birthkeepers School, hashtag radical birthkeeper School, hashtag
Speaker 1: free birth Society. Okay, so these are like the turfs
Speaker 1: of birth there, these are birth turfs. Yeah, they're like you,
Speaker 1: we were so right before you said they were like
Speaker 1: co opting certain like language in terms of like pro
Speaker 1: choice language, and then but then they've just taken it
Speaker 1: to this such this horribly harmful radical Yikes. She has
Speaker 1: her own branded means. One of them reads governments have
Speaker 1: no business in birth. Birth belongs to women, which like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but when your baby dies because you like ignored science, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the baby has some rights too at the point at
Speaker 1: which it's coming out. Yeah. Now, the kind of this
Speaker 1: kind of language is powerfully effective to the women who
Speaker 1: wind up in these groups. Studies have been done on
Speaker 1: the freebirth and community in the US and Australia and
Speaker 1: four key things come up over and over again when
Speaker 1: women say how they found this community. And I'm quoting
Speaker 1: from a paper commissioned by Evidence based Midwifery. So this
Speaker 1: is a midwives like organization, rejection of the medical and
Speaker 1: midwifery models of birth, faith in the birth process, autonomy,
Speaker 1: and agency. There was a prevailing sense of choosing to
Speaker 1: freebirth in order to retain choice, control, and autonomy over
Speaker 1: their bodies during the birth process. It's about control. Another
Speaker 1: analysis I found on the conversation backs up this interpretation quote.
Speaker 1: Where home birth services were available, some women did not
Speaker 1: want the routine care that is provided by midwives. This
Speaker 1: was largely due to the belief that routine care practices
Speaker 1: would cause interference that would get in the way of
Speaker 1: their ability to birth safe. Additionally, they were concerned that
Speaker 1: they may face coercion should they decline aspects of care
Speaker 1: provided by the midwives. Therefore, they did not want care
Speaker 1: imposed upon them during childbirth. The researchers findings across all
Speaker 1: studies agreed that women ought to retain full control and
Speaker 1: autonomy throughout their experience of giving birth and need they
Speaker 1: felt maternity services were unable to meet. Yeah, because you can.
Speaker 1: You don't. You can't. It's not you don't own the baby.
Speaker 1: Once it's coming out, it's not your property, a thing.
Speaker 1: It's like it's leaving, it's it's it's getting on out
Speaker 1: of there. Yeah. Oh gosh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I just
Speaker 1: you hate you hate to see it where they're like,
Speaker 1: they're like, yes, women's autonomy and agency and like, these
Speaker 1: are things I so strongly agree with, and they're but
Speaker 1: they're they've just taken into this horrible, horrible place. They
Speaker 1: really do it rules Like I don't enjoy getting a
Speaker 1: pap smeir, but I'm not going to do it to
Speaker 1: myself because I don't fucking know how. Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: given myself a pap smeir, but I don't know what
Speaker 1: a pap smear is. So I I just kind of
Speaker 1: you know, Robert May I explained to you what a
Speaker 1: pap smear is. I think the reality of that situation,
Speaker 1: Caitlin is between me and my hammer. I'll let you
Speaker 1: look at it. I'm pretty sure I'm good at it.
Speaker 1: It's unpleasant, to say the least. I'm starting the self
Speaker 1: schmir community actually, oh, the free schmeing, free smears. A
Speaker 1: lot of people say men cannot get and give themselves
Speaker 1: pap smears, even hammers, but my Facebook group says otherwise. Uh, Well,
Speaker 1: as long as um babies are not dying, I guess
Speaker 1: that's that's what's important here. No, no babies dying, some
Speaker 1: some people, some adults. Yeah, uh now, the sad reality
Speaker 1: is that more and more babies are going to keep
Speaker 1: dying as a result of the free birthing movement. Emily
Speaker 1: Saldaya and Yolanda Norris Clark will continue podcasting and meming
Speaker 1: and making bank while America's infant mortality rate ticks ever higher.
Speaker 1: The NBC article that came out earlier this year helped
Speaker 1: to highlight the movement, but in the end it may
Speaker 1: just draw more women into the movement's mall. That's certainly
Speaker 1: what Emily Saldiah thinks. In the immediate wake of the
Speaker 1: NBC article, which was focused around the death of a
Speaker 1: child from someone who followed Emily's instructions to a t
Speaker 1: she posted this on Instagram. Hey guys, no podcast this week.
Speaker 1: Decided to prioritize self care and create some spaciousness to
Speaker 1: relax and be fully present with my baby after an
Speaker 1: insane month of working my ass off on this membership launch.
Speaker 1: I'm extremely proud of what we've built and it feels
Speaker 1: so good to be off Facebook. Thank you for the
Speaker 1: outpouring of love and support I've reach received in this
Speaker 1: hard as fun past six weeks. Someday, when I'm ready,
Speaker 1: I will talk at length about my experience on this
Speaker 1: full on cyber attack, but for now it's only furthered.
Speaker 1: By resolving this work, truth and light will always shine
Speaker 1: brighter and carry more endurance. And in the words of
Speaker 1: Lena Dunham, no one that actually knows me thinks I'm
Speaker 1: an asshole, and that's what matters. When you know and
Speaker 1: love who you are, you're unshakable. The bright side of
Speaker 1: all this weird media attention is it's brought a ton
Speaker 1: of women to this movement. So fuck yes to transmitting
Speaker 1: people's traumatized shit energy into something powerful and exciting. Big
Speaker 1: bicep emoticon, fist emoticon, And to all the haters out
Speaker 1: here that have gotten weirdly obsessed with me, I still
Speaker 1: got all the love in my heart for you, and
Speaker 1: I will keep fighting for you, whether you're with me
Speaker 1: or not. Fire emoticon, hert emoticon, hert emoticon, hertomoticon, heart emoticon,
Speaker 1: heart emoticon. Hashtag Free Birth Society, hashtag the Free Birth Podcast,
Speaker 1: hashtag haters Gonna Hate Strong Women hashtag smash the patriarchy,
Speaker 1: hashtag calling bullshit hashtag light winds hashtag I Am Not
Speaker 1: afraid hashtag strong as fuck hashtag Lena Dunham, You Inspire
Speaker 1: Me hashtag by by Facebook women are taking advice on
Speaker 1: their babies health care from this person. That's so scary. Also,
Speaker 1: if I like, if I if it like, if I,
Speaker 1: I can't even speak it's amazing, it's astonishing, labbergasted. I
Speaker 1: think if I if like, if my feminism ever inspired
Speaker 1: like free birthers to be like, yeah, smash the patriarchy,
Speaker 1: I will I don't know what I will do. I
Speaker 1: will have to just like log off and never be
Speaker 1: present in the world again. Like if my message somehow
Speaker 1: gets convoluted to like this version of scary radical free
Speaker 1: birth feminism horrifying. Yeah, yeah, you don't have to give
Speaker 1: birth in a hospital, but you do have to consult
Speaker 1: medical professionals about your birth to do so responsibly, because
Speaker 1: when you decide you're bringing a baby into the world,
Speaker 1: it's not all about you anymore. Um, But it is
Speaker 1: all about you when you're performing a home pap smear
Speaker 1: as a man. And that's why you should join my
Speaker 1: Facebook group man Smearing, where we're teaching each other how
Speaker 1: to recapture pap smearing from the medical industrial establishment and
Speaker 1: the feminist establishment and remail and rewild pap smears for
Speaker 1: all of the men who have access to home depot hammers.
Speaker 1: I don't even know how to respond to that, cait Um,
Speaker 1: I will say this if what wouldn't it be funny
Speaker 1: if they were like m r A s out there
Speaker 1: who were like um, men should be able to get
Speaker 1: pap smears too. And then and then they go on
Speaker 1: and buy a speculum or sorry, a hammer and hammer
Speaker 1: the male pap smear is performed with a hammer. I see, um, well,
Speaker 1: I just I just keeel good, feel great. I just
Speaker 1: keep going back to like one of the roots of
Speaker 1: the problem that off that births the free birth movement.
Speaker 1: See what I did there, Midwolf okay, um is the
Speaker 1: broken American health care system. And if we totally find
Speaker 1: a way to fix that, I feel like there would
Speaker 1: there would never be a need any any you know
Speaker 1: mother's to feel the need to have a free birthing experience. Um.
Speaker 1: So that I mean, I mean, gosh, I feel sick. Well,
Speaker 1: if you're feeling sick, that means it's the perfect time
Speaker 1: to plug your plug doubles, because nothing cures your ailments
Speaker 1: like a solid plug. Thank you well, I'll start with
Speaker 1: Sludge and American Healthcare Story, my podcast about my experience
Speaker 1: finding out that I had gall stones and the very
Speaker 1: long and arduous process that it took from me to
Speaker 1: get surgery to get them taken out. So check out
Speaker 1: that and it's amazing. Thank you so much, Sophie. I
Speaker 1: keep um saying, yeah, I'm releasing season two soon and
Speaker 1: I don't know when that's going to happen, but it'll
Speaker 1: happen someday. But season two focuses on other people's medical
Speaker 1: nightmare stories. So fans and medical nightmares. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I want, I will sure, Yeah, I'll have anyone on
Speaker 1: if anyone has a medical that's the other thing. If
Speaker 1: people have medical horror stories, UM, please email them to
Speaker 1: me at Sludge Story podcast at gmail dot com. Um,
Speaker 1: I'll probably feature them on the podcast again when I
Speaker 1: start releasing episodes someday. Um. Yeah, I just I want
Speaker 1: to have faith in a health care system. Um, it
Speaker 1: just needs to be very much revamped. So um yeah,
Speaker 1: let's work on that society anyway. Um. You can listen
Speaker 1: to my less of a bummer podcast, The Bechtel Cast,
Speaker 1: which is also still kind of a bummer sometimes because
Speaker 1: it's all about how, um, most movies are horrible to women. UM,
Speaker 1: so you know sometimes they're not, though, and those episodes
Speaker 1: are nice. Um. And then you can follow me on
Speaker 1: Twitter and Instagram at Caitlin durante um and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's that's about it. And you can find
Speaker 1: me on the internet at man schmearing dot com and
Speaker 1: the man Smearing Facebook group where we talk about how
Speaker 1: to reclaim our wherever you do that from doctors and
Speaker 1: the them an atriarchy. Um. That's that's at the end
Speaker 1: of the episode. So what Robert meant to say is
Speaker 1: he's at I Ride Okay on Twitter or at Bastard
Speaker 1: Spot on Twitter. On Instagram, we have a te public store.
Speaker 1: Robert also hosts Worst You're Ever. Uh I have Twitter, yes,
Speaker 1: so like your Twitter. I've actually never I've actually never
Speaker 1: said it out loud. It's why Underscore, Sophie Underscore, Why
Speaker 1: Anderson Content. That's it, okay, So why Sophie, I why okay?
Speaker 1: And then because you're a professional, okay, So follow Sophie
Speaker 1: Ray Lectorman at on Twitter at why Underscore, Sophie Underscore
Speaker 1: Why and then he features Anderson content. I thought the
Speaker 1: whole handle for a second. Was that professional like you,
Speaker 1: I'm a hack in a fraud. That episode