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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff

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Speaker 1: I've never told you production of I Heart Radio. Do

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Speaker 1: you like traveling, Samantha, Oh god, I do. And I

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Speaker 1: miss it. Oh I miss it too, and I listeners.

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Speaker 1: I think we might have teased this forever ago, but

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Speaker 1: we were actually going to go to Portugal, and we

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Speaker 1: were going to go this week and it's still on

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Speaker 1: my calendar. So today I woke up to a notification

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Speaker 1: like arrived in Portugal, and I almost threw my day. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm really glad that I didn't have that as a

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Speaker 1: wake up surprise. We're like, you should be in a

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Speaker 1: different country traveling with your famam, and I'm like, shut up.

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Speaker 1: I have to say those like Google reminders are really

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Speaker 1: not helpful during this time of like remember a year

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Speaker 1: ago when you were doing this, like shut up everything,

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Speaker 1: Like you definitely talking to friends talking about what we

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Speaker 1: did maybe last year of this time, and I'm like, stop,

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Speaker 1: stop talking. I don't want to think about where we were.

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Speaker 1: You know. It's funny to me, though, that when that

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Speaker 1: news came out of a possible vaccine way sooner than

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Speaker 1: we thought, I almost panicked because I was like, but

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Speaker 1: I haven't put on clothes, and who knows it was

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Speaker 1: if they'll fit. I haven't seen the light. What will

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Speaker 1: I do? But then after that passed, I started thinking, oh,

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Speaker 1: I could walk outside to the movie theater. Again. Wow.

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Speaker 1: I feel like, even if they do have the vaccine

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Speaker 1: and we are able to get it, I will still

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Speaker 1: wait six months before actually socializing because I don't truly

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Speaker 1: trust what's happening. Yeah, and I mean I remember I

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Speaker 1: heard I heard one of the officials say, and this

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Speaker 1: is all very new, just to put this out there,

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Speaker 1: but I heard some of them. One of them say, well,

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Speaker 1: it might wear off after a while, and I was like, wait,

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Speaker 1: what it's going to be have to re up flusha Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: that is future concern, future episode for apps future possibly

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Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yeah yeah. But I believe one day we

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Speaker 1: will travel against Samantha, And today we wanted to talk

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Speaker 1: about a place we could potentially travel, Poland. Um so,

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Speaker 1: in case you haven't heard, in late October twenty the

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Speaker 1: Polish government introduced a near total abortion ban in that country,

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Speaker 1: sparking weeks of protesting in several cities across the country

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Speaker 1: and a woman's strike. While the country is mostly Catholic.

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Speaker 1: One survey found that of people disagreed with the ruling.

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Speaker 1: Another survey found a much higher number se disagreed, which

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Speaker 1: says something because the pole found that of those surveyed

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Speaker 1: were anti abortion. The deput Prime Minister of Poland claimed

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Speaker 1: that the protests were meant to quote destroy Poland, and

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Speaker 1: he also sent out a call for citizens to quote

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Speaker 1: defend the country and the church. Even before this, Poland

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Speaker 1: had one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe.

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Speaker 1: The ruling party claims the decision was to prevent fetuses

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Speaker 1: with Down syndrome from being aboarded. Opponents in parliament held

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Speaker 1: up packards that read shame, and from what I understand,

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Speaker 1: it got a little like a little bit of a

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Speaker 1: scuffle broke out. Oh yeah, and man, uh, it's really

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Speaker 1: interesting to see how restrictive things have become all over

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Speaker 1: the world, as well as how religion has put a

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Speaker 1: stronger hold in everything. I feel like we have come

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Speaker 1: cycling back to this way. It's interesting to see how

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Speaker 1: it's going around the country. And uh yeah, many companies

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Speaker 1: actually allowed women to take the days off to protest.

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Speaker 1: Uh protests partially inspired by a nineteen seventy five protests

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Speaker 1: in Iceland and demonstrations that took place in Poland in

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Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. So protests in the capital at one point

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Speaker 1: started chanting this means war. And I do find it interesting. Again,

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Speaker 1: also kind of reflective of the US, even how the

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Speaker 1: government is talking about how it's trying to destroy something

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Speaker 1: peaceful protests destroying something instead of looking at it as

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Speaker 1: a freedom of speech. Yeah, and I was in Poland

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Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks, and so this is completely anecdotal.

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Speaker 1: I have no evidence to back it up, but I

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Speaker 1: will say in my personal experience because I was working

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Speaker 1: sort of affiliated with the EU at the time, and

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Speaker 1: I was researching UM the rise of the neo far

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Speaker 1: right in Europe, and UM Poland was the country of

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Speaker 1: all the countries I went to in Europe, which was

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Speaker 1: almost all of them, I met the most very conservative

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Speaker 1: people in passing. It's not like I was searching these

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Speaker 1: people out, but like overall UM, which again totally anecdotal,

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Speaker 1: but I did find interesting and it's something that stood

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Speaker 1: out to me while I was working UM. So back

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Speaker 1: to this abortion in Poland, though there are only one

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Speaker 1: thousand legal abortion the year in Poland women's organizations estimate

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Speaker 1: the number of annual illegal abortions or abortions obtained abroad

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Speaker 1: could be as high as eighty thousand or one d

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Speaker 1: and twenty of those one thousand legal abortions of them

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Speaker 1: were granted DOE to severe fetal defect, which is a

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Speaker 1: reason this new ruling would do away with. Oh and

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Speaker 1: by the way, we should say what the data is

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Speaker 1: that is in November twelve, because some of this is

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Speaker 1: still in motion. UM. And there are these absolutely heartrending

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Speaker 1: accounts from women about the pain that this has already caused,

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Speaker 1: the fear, the sadness, women already in hospitals waiting for

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Speaker 1: approved abortions being asked to leave. UM, and just this

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Speaker 1: fear and uncertainty of what what will we do right? UM.

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Speaker 1: Of course we know there's bigger implications of just sweeping

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Speaker 1: anti abortion laws, and and they're forgetting the people who

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Speaker 1: don't want to have abortion but are having to because

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Speaker 1: of medical issues. UM, which is again oftentimes dismissed in

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Speaker 1: the language of these rhetoric and the laws. That's just

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Speaker 1: something to say. UM. And there aren't really many numbers

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Speaker 1: about how many people attended these protests. The pictures look

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Speaker 1: like it's expressive. One suggested that on one day there

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Speaker 1: were four fifty protests within half a million in attendance,

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Speaker 1: while another source about a million people at night protested

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Speaker 1: across the country and a lot of them being young women.

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Speaker 1: Was organized by the grassroots all Polish Women's Strike. But

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Speaker 1: they are well attended and are the largest mass demonstrations

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties after the communist regime was toppled

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Speaker 1: in that country. Uh they protested on the streets and

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Speaker 1: in churches and in some cases disrupting mass. Of course,

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Speaker 1: police used tear gas and seemingly incited fights between them

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Speaker 1: and all right, counter protesters. Sounds familiar, and their demands

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Speaker 1: aren't just limited to upturning this law, to strengthen and

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Speaker 1: widened rights for women in lgbt Q plus individuals, separation

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Speaker 1: of church and state, among other things. And one the

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Speaker 1: leaders of the group organizing these protests and strikes marta

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Speaker 1: limpart quote, I think it's a whole backlash against the

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Speaker 1: patriarchal culture, against the patriarchal state, against the fundamentalist religious state,

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Speaker 1: against the state that treats women really badly. And these

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Speaker 1: protests have gotten nasty and shown all light on the

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Speaker 1: growing rift between the lgbt Q plus community Progresses and

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Speaker 1: the church, Capital C and All Right groups UM, some

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Speaker 1: in all black with shaved heads and pepper spray, UM,

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Speaker 1: some completely almost completely obscuring their faces. UH. Female journalists

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Speaker 1: have reported being attacked UM during a recent campaign. During

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Speaker 1: his recent campaign, the President of Poland claimed the quote

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Speaker 1: l g b t Q ideology was more quote dangerous

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Speaker 1: to man than communism. Yeah. I didn't want to add

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Speaker 1: in because of course I do. At the Capital protest,

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Speaker 1: they frequently played Darth Vaders themed the Imperial March from

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Speaker 1: Star Wars. I feel like that's getting a lot of

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Speaker 1: planes protests, did it, um. And of course all of

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Speaker 1: this is going on as COVID nineteen cases are going up.

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Speaker 1: The fact that it's the only reason the protesting stopped, right.

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Speaker 1: The government is facing legal challenges and some legal experts

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Speaker 1: say the ruling is against international law, so we'll be

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Speaker 1: keeping an eye on that. And as of November nine,

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Speaker 1: the government has not officially published the ruling, meaning that

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Speaker 1: has not gone into effect, most likely because of these protests,

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Speaker 1: and not only that, support for the government has plummeted

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Speaker 1: in the span of a month, um as has support

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Speaker 1: for the church. The government has offered to compromise and

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Speaker 1: has called for talk with abortion groups, prompting several news

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Speaker 1: outlets to write about how this is an example of

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Speaker 1: successful peaceful protesting and it was largely led by women.

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Speaker 1: Surprise surprise us seems to be a theme with the

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Speaker 1: majority of these protests. It does, UM and we love

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Speaker 1: highlighting highlighting those and if anybody is has been participating

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Speaker 1: in these protests in Poland, UM, we would love to

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Speaker 1: hear your first hand account. Yes, let us know what's

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Speaker 1: going on and then let us know how we can help,

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Speaker 1: but which we probably could look at ourselves. Always good

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Speaker 1: to trail off. It's not like I just I just

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Speaker 1: I just thought about that. I was like, I guess,

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Speaker 1: but name, yeah, let us know what's going on and

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Speaker 1: let us know if there's more that we can do

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Speaker 1: to help UM the fight because this is not just

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Speaker 1: about one country, but it it speaks to all women

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Speaker 1: and all the rights of women and the l g

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Speaker 1: B t Q plus obviously, so we definitely want to

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Speaker 1: support what they're doing. Yes, and we have a couple

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Speaker 1: of ways that you can contact us. You can email

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Speaker 1: us at Steffidea mom Stuff at iHeart Media dot com.

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Speaker 1: You can find us on Instagram and Stuff I Never

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Speaker 1: Told You are on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks

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Speaker 1: It's always to our super producer Andrew Howard. Thank you,

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Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening Stuff I Never Told

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Speaker 1: You the protection of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from

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Speaker 1: I Hear Radio, visit that I Hear Radio app, Apple Podcast,

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