The Truth about Abortion: How We Got Here & What Your Family Needs to Know | S6 E2

Gaby Alessi:

Hey, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in to the family business podcast with the Alessis. Today, my sisters and I are going to dive in to a hot topic that I think you're really going to enjoy. So get ready, turn up the volume, and enjoy the new episode on season 6 of the family business podcast.

Stephanie Muiña:

I Hello, everyone, and welcome to the family business podcast with the Alessis. Today, we have something very special. We have, of course, the Alessi girls, I Alessi Muiña girl, and we're here with our girlfriend, old school, old time friend, Cristina Martinez Squiers. Do you wanna say hi here?

Cristina Squiers:

Hi, everyone. It's such it is such a pleasure to be here today.

Gaby Alessi:

We're so excited to have you, Cristina. Steph, give them some background on Cristina, who she is to us, I And all the memories that we have, she showed us Legally Blonde. Yes. Mean Girls. Mean Girls.

Cristina Squiers:

The classics? 

Stephanie Muiña:

The classics. I We would stay up in, their house and just watch all of these old movies that you introduced us to at way too young of an age, but we had a good time.  But, yeah, we've known Cristina all of our lives pretty much, and it's been really cool to watch her in her life, which you can explain, but it's I been honored to say you are a true family friend Yes. That we've been raised with. So

Gaby Alessi:

We're so used to you being a Martinez. That's how you know you've known somebody is that you you're, You're used to calling them by their maiden name, but, Cristina Squiers, let's get into this a little bit and and tell people a little bit about you. And I know it's awkward for you to Say this. So I'll say this for you.

Cristina Squiers:

Thank you.

Gaby Alessi:

If it helps you. Okay? I'll brag about you. So first, Cristina, you are the daughter of some of the founding family members of this church. They've been on this podcast with David and Mory Martinez. Those are your parents. 

Lauren Alessi:

Yeah. 

Gaby Alessi:

Give it up for them. They're in the back listening as well. Not only that, but you've served in this church. Your parents taught you how to serve.  You walked in line with that. So you served in this church. You graduated from Westminster. You were in the soccer team of Westminster.

Cristina Squiers:

Oh, wow.

Stephanie Muiña:

Oh,

Cristina Squiers:

I was very mediocre.

Gaby Alessi:

You could just say, like, you're the captain of the soccer team. 

Cristina Squiers:

I was, but because of my leadership, not my football abilities.

Gaby Alessi:

There it is. So captain of the soccer team at Westminster Christian School. You graduated from Princeton University, which is huge. I You worked in the foster care system right after that, then you went to law school. Yes. She's not done, guys. She had to go to law I school

Lauren Alessi:

It's a long list.

Gaby Alessi:

It's a long list.  It's a long time. To represent kids that were in the foster care system, but now you're in a different I Lane, similar to the whole foster care system, but it's it's different, and we're we're gonna talk about that today. But can you kinda share your process from Princeton to the foster care system to even law school and where you're at today.

Cristina Squiers:

Yeah. Absolutely. And there are ties to a lot of ties to Metro in that story. I remember when I was in college I Trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I actually approached David Roman, and I told him, hey. I'm feeling this tug in my heart to either work with women who are involved in the sex trafficking I or with kids in foster care. What do you think? And he is the one who actually pointed me towards foster care. And he said and this was long before he and Paola I even thinking about foster care. That was on their radar. So crazy how God works. And he told me, I think that's where you'll have a bigger impact. And he kinda said it off the cuff. We weren't in the middle of a prayer meeting or anything like that, but it really stuck with me. And so I ended up writing my senior thesis in college on the foster I care system Mhmm. Went to work in foster care, and my eyes were just so open to what kids who are abused and neglected go through. So I ended up going to law school thinking I would represent kids in foster care, do something along those lines. I took a small pivot to work in the corporate world to get that experience under my belt I for a few years. And then last year in the springtime, really felt this tug on my heart that it was time to leave that and to do something more along the lines Foster care are the reason I went to law school. And so I was praying about it, and I kind of defaulted back to those 2 things. Well, maybe I'll work with I Women who are sex trafficked, maybe I'll work with kids in foster care, wrestling through that. And I felt God tell me so clearly, if you care about women and children, you have to work in the abortion space. I Wow. And I remember really struggling because I thought, well, if I work in foster care or work with women who have been sex trafficked, Everybody will love me. Everybody will support what I do. It won't be political no matter who they are, what they believe, what their Political beliefs are everybody could get behind this, and I would not have to awkwardly explain what I do when people ask me what I do. so I really struggled, and I just felt over and over God saying, if you care about women and children, this is the thing that you have to be doing. So I ended up through a crazy series of god winks and moments getting this offer for a job at the firm in I in the country that does the most abortion litigation. So I took the job, and my 1st day on the job was the day that the draft of Roe v Wade leaked. I Crazy. It was so crazy, and I feel like if there was any doubt or lingering, you know, wondering, did I make the right decision? God was like, no. This is exactly I what they're supposed to be doing.

Gaby Alessi:

Jeez. Oh my gosh. So what do you do now? What is your current job for that for that place, and what do you do? What does your everyday look like? I

Cristina Squiers:

Yeah. Yeah. So I do the majority of what I do is abortion litigation, which usually involves representing states who have been sued by groups like planned parenthood over their abortion restrictions. Sometimes we work with think tanks who are working on abortion issues from a medical or scientific perspective, and we represent their view in a court case that's going on. So they're not one of the parties, but they wanna weigh in from a medical or scientific perspective. So those are the 2 things I mainly do. Help states defend their abortion laws and then work with medical and scientific pro life organizations who want their perspective in abortion litigation to help the judge understand the issues.

Gaby Alessi:

So you see every day the reality of abortion? 

Cristina Squiers:

Every day.

Gaby Alessi:

You see the good, bad, and the ugly. Yes. Or maybe just the bad and the ugly. Yeah. So

Lauren Alessi:

There's no good.

Gaby Alessi:

Yeah. We wanna we wanna break that down today, and we wanna have this conversation, as as Women, really, as sisters, we're all basically sisters, and we wanna dive deeper into the conversation of abortion. We want to address the reality of it, I and see what's behind the curtain, what's behind the narrative that you see every single day. So we come at this conversation first as women, obviously. We're all women. Yes. All of us are in the childbearing age in this season of having kids. There are 3 moms in this podcast in this booth and two pregnant women and pregnant moms in this booth. If you did not know, Christina is pregnant with her 4th child.  Yes. We are. But like I said, we wanna look at the heart of this conversation first. So what we're going to address today is what is it?  What is abortion? What's the reality of it? What do you see that many of us don't see? Yeah. The majority of people do not see about this topic.  But then also, we kinda wanna start talking about, you know, to the women or family members of women that have had an abortion. They have had or have had gone through or have gone through this. Excuse me. And and how do we address that I part of this conversation, and I'd love for Lauren to share about this because Lauren has some experience 1 on 1 with women in the past. So, Lauren, can you share about this, the grace I nd and how we help women.

Lauren Alessi:

Yeah. For sure. So, I mean, first, I would wanna say, to anybody listening, whether you're skeptical about it, whether you're for it, whether you're against it. Just from what Cristina is explaining, I'm already like, okay. Hold on. Really, I have to force myself to really listen to what she's saying because there's so much information in what she's saying. And usually with this topic specifically, People either shut themselves off and they're like, I don't wanna hear it because I already know what they're gonna say, or they're like, yes. I already believe in what you're gonna say, so I don't really need to listen. And it's so easy to either get offended or to just be right there next to Cristina and agree with her. But I just wanna encourage everybody listening, Really open your ears wherever you stand and really try to listen even if you have to slow the speed down and get every word in because even now it's like, Cristina, already I have to be like, okay. Listen to the words she is saying because it's a lot of rich information.

Gaby Alessi:

I feel like I have to have a dictionary open. Yeah. It's But I wanna do it.

Lauren Alessi:

I I I really wanna hear what you have to say. So that's the first thing I wanted to say. But also, if there's anybody listening, we we talked about this before. I Some people are very open about where they stand with abortion, whether pro or against. Some people are a little skeptical. You know, I wouldn't do it, but, you know, it's good if my family member if they needed that option, where some people have had an abortion. And there are a lot more women

than we would ever think who have been through an abortion, and This is not a judgmental conversation coming from us saying, you know, you're the enemy. You're the bad one who's had an abortion. And I have experience working in a pregnancy center counseling women who have gone through abortions, and it's a very sad thing to see the reality of that. And so we're not coming from a place of judgment, and I know that I can speak for all of us here that that's not what we're trying to do here. We're really just trying to release information that We're blessed that Cristina has, but, no, we're not coming at it from a judgment perspective. We're really just trying to share information. So I That's what I would first like to say. 

Cristina Squiers:

Yeah. And I just wanna add to that. It's interesting being on the legal side of it. I haven't been involved in a single lawsuit where there were I Actual women who needed an abortion or had an abortion were involved. Mhmm. And I think people don't realize that that this the the battle here is not against women who have I had an abortion, and women who are seeking an abortion, have had 1, may have 1 in the future, they are not the enemy. You know, the Bible tells us that our enemy is not I Flesh and blood.  It's principalities and powers. Yes. And there is a very deeply entrenched powerful ideology behind abortion that we're against and that we're about. This is not about specific women. And the reality is these specific women are not at the front lines fighting this fight. It's people Theoretically, on their behalf, who I think really feel like they are helping them. Yeah.

But it's organizations, like planned parenthood, other organizations, clinics. It's not the actual women on the front lines of this, so I think that's important to keep in mind too. 

Stephanie Muiña:

That is so good. I love that you mentioned planned parenthood because I want to start off our first question of this podcast to Cristina about the history of abortion. Where did this begin? Who conceived the idea of this? Did it start off with abortion or did it start off with something else? What is the history behind abortion?

Cristina Squiers:

Yeah. It's really interesting because abortion has been around for 1,000 and 1,000 of years. There's even, you know, some references I to it in the old testament, but the landscape really changed when birth control kind of came on the scene and became very prevalent. And a lot of people don't realize I There's several things about birth control a lot of people don't realize. Number 1 is that the woman who really led the charge, Margaret Sanger, I For, you know, the the original planned parenthood clinics were involved with birth control. She really loved the charge, and she was involved with the eugenics movement. I of their the goal was we need birth control kind of twofold. Number 1, to empower women, which we're gonna address.

This idea that I Women need to control slash deny their reproductive capabilities and ignore that fundamental part of them  To empower them, that was, you know, number 1. And number 2 was this can be a tool, birth control and then abortion, I to eliminate people that we deem unfit for society, and that could be people with disabilities. That could be people of certain races. That could be gender. I mean and these are not Farfetched conspiracy things. Right? We see, like, in China's one child policy where girls are abandoned all the time, girls aborted all the time. I And I think those concerns about discrimination and eugenics, meaning the killing off of a certain type of person with a certain characteristic or trait, are still very prevalent today.

Stephanie Muiña:

Yeah.

Cristina Squiers:

Like, in Scandinavian countries, like, you know, Sweden and Denmark, there are virtually no kids with Down syndrome because they are all aborted. 99.9% of them.

Richelle Alessi:

 Jeez. Wow. 

Cristina Squiers:

Virtually no kids with Down syndrome. And as technology gets more and more able to tell us information earlier and earlier, Decisions about who gets to live and who doesn't are based on gender, on disability, Yeah. On race, on things like that. And so the the roots of this movement dating back to birth control that have carried through through abortion, they're still playing out today on a very significant level in this country and around the world.

Stephanie Muiña:

And when did the narrative start to change? Like, when did it become a woman's empowerment Idea.

Cristina Squiers:

Yeah. That's really interesting because I think when Roe v Wade happened in 1973, it was obviously a hot button topic back then, and that was I Kind of on the tail end of a lot of women's rights movements, women becoming more prevalent in the workforce, kind of the backlash, the 1950s, I You know, model of the mom at home, making the perfect dinner, being the perfect housewife. So there was a a shift there in terms of, you know, like I And and with the sexual revolution, which is tied into all of this too that I can do whatever I want with my body, and I don't have to  endure any of the consequences of it. And I don't have to be responsible for any of the consequences of it because I have a right to do whatever I want wit hmy body.

Richelle Alessi:

 Yeah.

Cristina Squiers:

 And so that was very much tied into it, and the narrative really changed. But there it's also swinging back. There are, I think, a lot more of the country is very divided on this issue, but it it really is divided in a sense of, like, 50-50. There are for every pro choice person that's super passionate, there's a pro life person. And I A lot of the polling shows that most people are actually have a pretty moderate view of abortion despite what you hear in the news and what plays out on the legal landscape, which is mostly the extreme views, but the vast majority of people have a pretty moderate view of abortion.

Stephanie Muiña:

 Yeah. Because I I can't imagine like, with Lauren just explaining, There are a lot of people that you may know that could have had an abortion in the 1 in 4 women.

Cristina Squiers:

 So the reality is that we all either know somebody or There are people that we are close to that have had an abortion, and we just don't know.

Stephanie Muiña:

Mhmm. And it's so insensitive to me that they want to paint all of these stories with the picture of women's empowerment. Mhmm. When there are women in very deep distress about that decision.

Lauren Alessi:

Yeah.

Stephanie Muiña:

And I feel like there's Two powers at play, and it's so sad because they're trying to shut out these women's true sadness about the decision they made trying to get over it. And the only person that's explaining grace is Christians that are saying, hey. You can get back up on your feet. In fact, you can use this as a testimony to help other women Yep. To Choose the road of motherhood and love it, but the other side is proclaiming, no. This is your body. That was your choice. You're gonna be so much happier without it.

Cristina Squiers:

Yeah. And there's been a big shift in that in the last 20 to 30 years. So around the time that Bill Clinton was president, there was this tag, you know, phrase that everybody said, safe, legal, and rare. That was from even the most pro choice perspective. That was kind of the mentality. We want abortion to be safe, legal, and rare. And Fast forward 30 years later to today, it's the exact opposite. It's not just it's none of it's not safe. It's not many places, it's not legal anymore,  And it's not rare. I mean, I think every year, somewhere between 750,000 and a 1000000 and a half women have an abortion. Sheesh. And that number varies, but between those I She arranges every single year. A ton of women, will get into the safety and lack of safety of abortion, but also this idea that I Not just that it's empowering to women. We now particularly in the debates that were happening last summer with the Dobbs case when Roe v Wade got overturned, People celebrating their abortions, which that is a very different cultural narrative than existed in the past even during the women's rights movement

Stephanie Muiña:

You're right. Around the time of Roe v Wade, people standing up. I forget that actress on the Academy Awards who's basically said, I would never yeah. Michelle Williams. I I would not be here today if I had not had an abortion. That kind of narrative of I cannot accomplish anything as a woman. My life would not be what it is today I Unless I had an abortion. That didn't exist 20 years ago.

Lauren Alessi:

Jeez. And and for those listening that are probably like, okay. You know? She I Graduated from Princeton. She's been to law school. She's done all this, but, you know, maybe she doesn't really know all she's talking about. And you bring up Roe v Wade I That was overturned last year. Christina, please let the audience know, your partake in that and and your role in that and what you did to kind of I Help Roe v Wade get overturned.

Cristina Squiers:

Yeah. So I wish I played a significant role. I really didn't. I like I mentioned, I kind of switched jobs into this I industry into the abortion litigation right at the time that Roe v Wade was getting overturned. I had been a part of some cases I Before that, where states were trying to do things like eliminate certain types of abortion. So before Roe v Wade, the battle was kind of how can we I Restrict abortion in a way that at least gets rid of the most grotesque forms of it. So for example, they would there was a law passed in several states where they I mandated that when a child is gonna be aborted, they at least kill the child first before dismembering it Mom. Which I hate to be graphic, I But we have to use the real words and real terms for things.

Cristina Squiers:

And so for a surgical abortion, that's what it entails, which anybody who has an abortion after 10 weeks has a surgical abortion, and they

Gaby Alessi:

 After 10 weeks?

Cristina Squiers:

 After 10 weeks.

Gaby Alessi:

Okay. So just to set the scene, how many weeks pregnant are you?

Cristina Squiers:

I am 9 weeks pregnant.

Gaby Alessi:

Wow. Okay. And her belly is almost the same size as Stephanie. How far along are you?

Stephanie Muiña:

I'm 5 months, but I have a tiny belly, 

Gaby Alessi:

but How many weeks? Do you know how many weeks?

Stephanie Muiña:

I'm 20 weeks.

Lauren Alessi:

Okay.

Stephanie Muiña:

20 weeks

Gaby Alessi:

. So it just shows you in 1 week. After that, and you see how far the baby has already developed and what needs to happen.

Cristina Squiers:

Yeah. And I think maybe we can talk about that for a minute because I think for a lot of people that say, well, I would never have an abortion, I But it's okay for everyone else. Mhmm. A lot of people just don't know what an abortion entails. So there's 2 types of abortions you can have, a medication abortion and a surgical abortion. Yeah. I The medication abortion used to only be legal up to 7 weeks. They just changed it to 10 weeks, which is very debatable scientifically and from a medically medical safety perspective.

Cristina Squiers:

But up to 10 weeks, you can have a medication abortion, which involves taking 2 separate pills that induce a miscarriage. And there's no doctor follow-up required. You I Literally induce a miscarriage at home and kind of deal with the consequences. And I think any woman who's been through a miscarriage knows that that's not an easy thing physically, emotionally, mentally to process. I After 10 weeks, you have a surgical abortion. And when you think about 10 weeks, I think my baby right now is the size of a gumball, so it's still so tiny. I But the way they do the abortion is through suction, which means literally vacuuming out the baby, or as the baby gets a little bigger, they dismember it. So they rip it apart Piece by piece.

Cristina Squiers:

And because they have to know that the whole baby has been taken out, they have, like, a metal tray, basically, the doctor does, and they take out piece by piece and put it on the tray. I And I heard doctors testify in court, the heart's still beating when I put it on the tray. Pull out a finger, pull out a toe. And, again, I don't say this to shame anybody or to be grotesque, but I think a lot of people just have this image that the the baby just poofs away, and they don't wanna think about what is actually happening and why that matters, Our policies and our laws about what's happening to these babies.

Gaby Alessi:

Yeah. You said you've heard doctors testify in court. Yeah. So doctors have said this because I know a lot of I stuff you're gonna say, you pass right through it because you you're used to this, but it is something that people, our listeners, have to sit in. You've heard doctors admit to that. Yeah. That they've heard those things. I think what's interesting is that they say it's your body, but that thing, once it's gone, once it's dead, we need to get it out of you because it's not a part of you.

Gaby Alessi:

Yeah. Even though it's your body of your choice, but it can't stay in for you too long because then you can get infected. You can have other other things. It's just an interesting, narrative in that.

Stephanie Muiña:

Can I ask a quick question? Only because we have a very wide audience listening to this. Roe v Wade was first put in place in the seventies. I was not even a thought in the seventies. I'm gonna be very honest really quickly. I did not understand the weight of Roe v Wade when it was overturned until I saw the celebration from it from Christians. And then I thought, oh my gosh. Okay. I should do

my research. 

Gaby Alessi: Yeah. 

Stephanie Muiña:

And very, very briefly, can you explain the weight of Roe v Wade Yeah. What it entails?

Cristina Squiers:

I Yeah. So Roe v Wade was a big shift in terms of abortion access. So the Supreme Court basically said there is a constitutional right under the US constitution, I I won't bore people with a lot of the technical details of that. But in this provision that basically talks about liberty broadly, that there that liberty entails a right to have an abortion. 

Gaby Alessi:

Okay.

Cristina Squiers:

And it was kind of on a long line of cases that you have a right to contraceptives, you have a right to rear your children the way you want them to, you have a right to marry and have an interracial marriage, those kind of that kind of mindset. You also have a right to have an abortion. And from the moment it was decided, it was highly controversial. And To be honest, I never thought in my lifetime I would see it overturned. And it was so deeply entrenched, and the longer a case is out there a lot the longer a precedent, which just means, like, a decision is out there, the harder it is to overturn because people will say, well, everyone's relying on this now. Yeah. And that was a big argument in overturning Roe v Wade. Well, so many women have relied on this for 40 years. And so, Roe v Wade. Well, so many women have relied on this for 40 years. And so last year, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade saying that it was egregiously wrong from the moment it was I because the US constitution says nothing about abortion, that you cannot find in the words that you have a right to liberty, I a right to terminate your pregnancy. So they sent it back to the states, which is very interesting from a pro life perspective I because before you were kinda fighting on 1 battleground, which was just at the federal constitutional level, and now you're fighting at 51 battlegrounds because you have all 50 states, I And then there's still federal battles happening. So the landscape has really changed, and the fight has just intensified and really sprawled out because I Every state is now handling it different. In some states, you can get a pregnancy almost full term. Like, in California, I think you can get a pregnancy almost full term a pregnancy an abortion Almost a full term.

Cristina Squiers:

And in other states, there are 6 week bans. Some of them even stricter than that and kind of everything in between.

Richelle Alessi:

Wow. You know, I love that we're having this conversation because I All this topic is heavy, and it's hard to listen to. Yeah. Mhmm. Even for a Christian or Somebody that's not a Christian. What really happens is really heavy. And going back to the beginning, I love that you mentioned we are not fighting anybody. We're not fighting doctors. We're not fighting people that believe abortion is okay, and we're not fighting anybody that's had an abortion. We're really fighting a ideology I That has grown in the last few years, and we haven't realized that. And people are fighting each other, and we're not realizing, hey. This is not Against each other, this is an ideology. And, I believe that if we love that you mentioned that because Doing that is just gonna help everybody have an open conversation Yeah. And be willing to actually listen to what really happens. Got it. And, I I just want you I wanna ask you about, birth control a little bit more because nowadays, we don't do research.  Mm-mm. And we have every outlet to do the research that we wanna make for for these subjects, but we don't I Because of the fear, the shaming, and because of how normal some of these things have come, that getting birth control is just like a normal thing. Yeah. It's not a, I Oh, only certain people need it now, and so there is young girls that are starting it really young. And any really, this is an All age thing. This is not just 1 group of women. It's an all age thing.

Yeah. And there's a lot of information about birth control I That woman that we don't know. I didn't know information of birth about birth control until I got married. Yeah. And you go to the doctor, I And, they ask you about when do you wanna get pregnant or all these things, and they lay out all the options for you. I And because you don't know, you just choose something because you kinda think that's what you want.

Lauren Alessi:

And you trust the doctor.

Richelle Alessi:

And you trust the doctor, but you haven't done your research. And, I just can you explain a little bit about the things of birth control that we don't know and even doctors don't tell you?

Cristina Squiers:

Yeah. I think one thing starting from the more theoretical is just it's important to reemphasize the connection to the abortion movement and this mentality that I We as our our fertility is a problem that we need to control and deny. And so a lot of these birth control methods, particularly the hormonal ones, I You you stop getting a cycle. I mean, it really is a denial of your body's natural processes, which I think is just interesting to think about on a theoretical level I How like, why we would do that and then from a health perspective, digging more deeply into that. But a lot of people don't realize that many of the forms of hormonal birth control I also connect as an abortifacient, meaning that they can have an abortive effect if you do conceive.

Now it's a backup mechanism for most of the birth controls. It's not the primary way they work. I They work, and I don't know the statistics of how often the backup method comes into play, but I think a lot of women don't even know that, that there's even a chance that they could be taking a drug that's abortive. Mhmm. When they think that they're just doing what their doctor told them or doing something from their health perspective. And I think, you know, I have a very high view of doctors. I wanna say that because I think it's easy to just, you know, be skeptical of them, which I understand. My husband's a doctor.

I have a very high view of doctors. But when I comes to this issue specifically of birth control and abortion, there are different rules at play in the medical world, and that's something that a lot of people don't realize either. You know, the way that I The leading organizations, ACOG, which is the American College of Obstetrician and Gynecologists, they are the leading organizations for OB g I OB GYNs, they're very pro abortion. They don't even pretend to be neutral on this issue. And so, like, you know, a good example of that is the way they Their their clinical guidelines for miscarriage, if you have a natural miscarriage, are totally different than their clinical guidelines if you have an abortion. Wow. So if you have a miscarriage, I The clinical guidelines say you need to see a doctor right after. You need to have testing done.

You need to have all of this health care to make sure that you're you're physically okay, to I see what happened with the baby. If you have an abortion, there's no follow-up visit required.

Lauren Alessi:

Wow. 

Cristina Squiers:

There's no and so just so that people are mindful of that when you're Receiving this information even from a doctor who, again, there's lots of great OB Gens out there and lots of great doctors, that the the agenda for this, there are different rules at play.

Stephanie Muiña:

And so just to be mindful of that, and it can be hard to find accurate information. And I know from experience, like, when you go into an OB's office and tell them you're not really interested in the birth control they're I they look at you like you're crazy. Yeah. Because the the narrative is so much, well, why wouldn't you just take this pill so you can control your fertility in this way?

Gaby Alessi:

Yeah. I Now can I just ask a very honest question?

Stephanie Muiña:

Yeah. 

Gaby Alessi:

Do they do it, is it for money? Is it to push the narrative? Is there something like, And my my whole thing is what's the goal in all of it? Yeah. Is is it money?

Cristina Squiers:

I don't think it's money. I think it's money for other things, like in the pharmaceutical industry. Like, the opioid crisis I would be a good example of that. There are definitely instances where safety is compromised for money. I think there really is a dark

Richelle Alessi:

yeah,

Cristina Squiers:

 Dark pervasive ideology behind this that is against God's design. Yeah. Because God's design is be fruitful and multiply. Yes. God's design is pro family, pro marriage, pro children, and abortion ideology... And, again, this is not about specific women that have gotten abortions, even doctors who perform them is against all of that. And I think that that darkness, These people are being used in that darkness. I don't think they're necessarily going after that, but the the deception is so pervasive and so real That I think a lot of these people truly believe they're helping women. That this is the only way that women can succeed and thrive is if they have I as wide of possible access to abortion.

Gaby Alessi:

Yeah. Can you share with them what you said about the OBs, the percentage of OBs in America that will actually perform an abortion?

Cristina Squiers:

Yeah. This is super interesting because the leading organization that all and ACOG that I mentioned before, they're the only medical organization I Every OB has to join. Mhmm. So if you're a heart surgeon, for example, which my husband is, or you're a internal medicine doctor, you don't have to join the societies that represent those those types of doctors. Right? You don't have to join the heart surgeon society or the internal medicine doctor society. But if you're an OB GYN, you I to join ACOG to practice.

Stephanie Muiña:

Wow. 

Cristina Squiers:

Which is so interesting. And they take a very pro abortion stance, so people just assume a line I hear all the time. I Well, the leading medical organizations are behind this. How can it be dangerous? How can it be, you know, compromised from a medical safety I And so they make all the doctors join this group, but only 7 to 14% of OBs in this country, OB Gens, will do elective abortions. I 7 to 4 14%, which means, what, 86 to 93% of OBs will not perform elective. Wow. I So just, like, averaging that out, just to think about, like, 9 out of every 10 OB Gens will not perform a portion, but you would never guess I Based on the way things are talked about, based on the way the medical organizations talk about it, and it does make you wonder if that many OB GYNs are I unwilling to do this even though their leading organization that they're all a part of is so pro abortion, Why?

Gaby Alessi:

We hope you enjoyed our one of this episode on the podcast. Now next Wednesday, we are going to release part 2 of this conversation. So stay tuned. Turn your notifications on because you don't wanna miss part 2 of the Alessi family business podcast.