If it Needs to be in the Fridge, it Ain't a Baby

Abortion is healthcare...and in this episode, Ariel walks us through the full history of abortion in the US, from pre-colonial practices to Roe v. Wade to where things stand today across all 50 states. She covers why the debate is really a philosophical and moral one rather than a biological one, the very real dangers of restricting access, the US's shameful maternal mortality rate, and why forcing people to carry unwanted pregnancies has consequences that go far beyond the pregnancy itself. 

Also on the episode: a federal judge hands RFK Jr. a well-deserved L on vaccines, Olivia breaks down the manosphere and the Netflix documentary Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere — what it is, who profits from it, and why it's really a men's mental health story in disguise. Plus, an unusually high number of product recalls involving undeclared Viagra. You'll understand when you get there.

Recalls (see FDA.gov for more details):

• 03/15/2026 - Costco Meatloaf with Mashed Yukon Potatoes and Glaze. Salmonella.
• 03/14/2026 - Boner Bears, Red Bull and Blue Bull, Honey Dietary Supplement. Undeclared Sildenafil and Tadalafil (TADA!).
• 03/13/2026 - Omni Pod, Alternative Controller Enabled Insulin Infusion Pump. May have a small tear & leak.
• 03/12/2026 - Favorina, Chocolate Ladybugs - German-Style Nougat Candy. Undeclared hazelnut allergen. 
• 03/11/2026 - Primal Herbs, Dietary Supplement. Contains Sildenafil. 
• 03/04/2026 - Miss Vickie's Spicy Dill Pickle Potato Chips. Undeclared Milk Allergen. 
• 02/27/2026 - RHINO CHOCO VIP 10X, Chocolate. Undeclared Tadalafil.

Minor correction: Ariel doesn’t do math in public, and when she does she thinks 1849 was 75 years ago, it was in fact 175 years ago. 

Transcript

Ariel (00:05)
Welcome to Public Health Group Chat, the podcast that believes you should be able to do what you want to your own body.

Olivia (00:14)
and with your own body.

Ariel (00:15)
Exactly. 

Olivia (00:17)
Maybe don't kill

somebody though.

Ariel (00:20)
Yes, there are limits to that freedom.

Olivia (00:23)
We do not condone murder on this podcast.

Ariel (00:28)
My name is Ariel.

Olivia (00:29)
And I'm Olivia and we're missing Maddie this week. So send your best to Maddie. She's fine. She's alive. We just miss her.

Ariel (00:39)
Yeah, she was just busy tonight. So the show must go on. So it's just the two of us. All views expressed on this episode are our own. If you want to get in touch, you can reach out to us on Instagram or TikTok at public health group chat. And you can email us at publichealthgroupchat at gmail.com. You can send us a text via the link in the show notes, and you can send us some money if you like our work and want to support the show.

Olivia (01:03)
Yes, which would be very helpful because we just got an offer accepted on our first house and we're about to be homeowners and I'm about to be so broke. So definitely send over some stuff for the show if you can. But you know, we're not desperate or anything.

Ariel (01:19)
I'm very excited for you and half expected you to say you were moving and couldn't join tonight.

Olivia (01:25)
No, we're not moving until early May because we're leasing it back to the former owners. They have children and they're finishing out school. So, gotta support education, you know?

Ariel (01:34)
gotcha. That makes sense. You got some time.

and have time to pack. Packing sucks.

Olivia (01:42)
yeah, we need like a month to pack. We have far too much stuff and I'm gonna have to get rid of stuff, so... Yep.

Ariel (01:47)
Yay moving.

All right, do you have some good news for us today? I could use some good news.

Olivia (01:53)
Yes, actually. OK, so normally, you know, I feel like we just haven't had a lot of good public health news and I want you to pull up a chair.

because your immune system just got some great news, actually. So here's the full tea. Since taking office, our brainworm HHS director, Bubonic Bobby Kennedy Jr., has made it harder for people to get access to the COVID-19 vaccine. He's dropped the longstanding recommendation that children should be routinely vaccinated against hepatitis B at birth and slashed the number of vaccines the federal government recommends children routinely receive.

All of that from the nation's top health official, which is totally normal. ⁓ and before doing all of that, I promise I'm going to get to the good news in a second. One of the things Kennedy has done was sack and then replace the entire membership of the CDC's advisory committee on immunization practices or ACIP. And that committee plays a key role in setting the federal vaccine policy, including who should get what shots, which shots insurance is...

required to cover, and he ended up handpicking those replacements who inevitably share his views on vaccines. And we probably all know what his views are.

Well on Monday, a Biden appointed federal judge named Judge Brian Murphy in Boston said hard pass. And I just want to give a shout out to Murphy because it's St. Patrick's Day right now. And it's just like the best.

Irish federal judge from Boston is like, no thank you, RFK Jr. So in a pretty scathing 45 page ruling, Judge Murphy voided all of the decisions that the committee has made so far, as well as what Kennedy did when he ripped up the childhood vaccine schedule without even going through the committee calling it arbitrary and capricious. In other words, R.F.K. Jr.'s decisions were made on an impulse without consideration for obviously scientific evidence, but also he did not consider the rule of law. So the judge said, not us, we're not going to do that. And so here's the bonus plot twist nobody expected. The White House has also been muzzling Kennedy on vaccines lately because, well, his vaccine policies could hurt Republicans in the terms. 

Actually, I probably kind of expected this. so even his own team is quietly hitting the brakes. But don't forget, he still has motives to end widespread access to many important vaccines and has been an advocate against vaccination for decades. So overall, the administration obviously has plans to appeal this decision. But for now, science has won, the law has won, and our kids are winning. So that's just solid good news right now. We love to see it. We love to see this all kind of come together on ⁓ St. Patrick's Day from an Irish judge in Boston. So shout out to my home.

Ariel (04:36)
That is great news. I actually had not even heard about that until you texted me and Maddie yesterday. And so that was really exciting. I read a piece in the New York Times earlier today that despite the delay and possibly reversal of Kennedy's vaccine policy changes, he's already done a lot of damage in terms of trust. So that is super disheartening. And now people are

Just overall not sure. So even if the policy stays the same, the damaged trust is still there. So I don't love that. But shout out to Brian Murphy, a man doing the right thing.

Olivia (05:13)
I want to give credit where credit belongs, but you're definitely right that the negative aspect of this is that the trust has already been broken and the impact has already occurred. so the damage has definitely been done and...

You know, the trust that is very important from new parents and future parents it's been broken and causing a lot of people to ask questions. And that kind of leads you down that pipeline to misinformation and becoming an anti-vaccine. So, I'm hoping that, you this changes some things for future parents and that we see some sort of reversal in decision-making, but.

I'll hold my breath for now.

Ariel (05:52)
Yeah, sorry Olivia to be such a Debbie Downer. That is really exciting news. And I was like, but there's still a downside.

My apologies for bringing us down during the Good News segment.

Olivia (06:02)
That's okay. There's always a downside to this. It's public health and public health policy. It's also a temporary stay, right? So we don't know this is going to get appealed. It'll probably go to the Supreme Court. yeah, it's not over. It's never over.

Ariel (06:15)
It's never over, but hopefully the political damage to Republicans will be enough for people to finally silence him on his stance on vaccines. He needs to be gone, but a good first step would be shut the fuck up about vaccines because you're hurting us and hurting people's health.

Olivia (06:29)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, maybe he'll be the next Kristi Noem. So that would be solid.

Ariel (06:36)
One can only hope.

Olivia (06:37)
And then they'll make the NIH CDC director also the HHS director. I guess that would make sense because it's, you know, oversees everything else. But yeah, or Marco Rubio.

Ariel (06:48)
God.

Olivia (06:50)
Okay, so ⁓ you have a pretty interesting topic today for us. What are we talking about?

Ariel (06:55)
I do have an interesting topic. So today we're going to talk about abortion, which is a hot topic. And so if this is hard to listen to, we won't judge you if you want to sit this episode out or just skip right on ahead to pop culture and recall section. Before we dive in, I do want to note we'll be talking specifically about abortion in the US. So we can't really speak to societal attitudes and other cultures and what people's experiences are in other countries. For international listeners,

I don't know how much of this is going to resonate with you or is similar to your own cultures and experiences. Also, I want to be very clear that abortion is healthcare. A pregnant person's reason for ending a pregnancy is none of your goddamn business. And we'll talk more about public discourse around abortion later, but you can get the fuck out if you want to tell us about how a clump of cells has more rights than a living, breathing human being. I don't know why this always gets me out of breath.

Olivia (07:52)
Now

you're probably going to get your emails now, Ariel. Asking for people to email this is probably going to bring them out of the woodwork.

Ariel (07:55)
can hope so.

Yes.

Okay. So diving a little bit into the history of abortion, this is not a new medical procedure and people have been ending unwanted or unplanned pregnancies for a very long time. Demand for abortion has always been there. What has not always been there is the ability to access it. Laws change and medical technology and science improve. Before the U.S. was colonized, native tribes practiced abortion.

And until the mid 1800s, it was legal, though socially frowned upon. At this time, abortion cases were heard by the state's courts and the general consensus was that abortion before quickening was not a crime. I have to ask you, Olivia, do you know what quickening means?

Olivia (08:40)
I feel like I should, but no, I don't.

Ariel (08:44)
This is an old

it's an old timey term. I had to look it up cause I wasn't sure when I first read that and I wanted to make sure I knew what it was. It just refers to when a pregnant person feels the fetus moving. So generally about four to five months.

Olivia (08:57)
yeah, because back then they didn't have, you know, ultrasounds. So they knew they were probably pregnant when something was moving around inside them. Yes. Okay.

Ariel (09:08)
Exactly,

hopefully sooner, but you could at least feel it moving around four to five months.

Olivia (09:13)
Can you imagine just like waking up one day and being like, ⁓ like there's something, this is awfully terrifying. Like what is happening in my stomach? Yeah, no, I can't either.

Ariel (09:21)
No, I can't. Also, have you seen,

have you seen the show? I didn't know I was pregnant. I think that's what it's called. It was on like TLC or MTV or something stupid.

Olivia (09:31)
Yeah, they like give birth in toilets and stuff. Yeah, yeah.

Ariel (09:35)
Yeah, and they like have a baby

and like, didn't know I was pregnant. How do you not know? I can't imagine.

Olivia (09:41)
I know when I've eaten too much, like just let alone like if I had a baby in me, if I had like two pieces of pizza, like my body tells me I'm bloated. So wild.

Ariel (09:49)
Right?

I know. Anyway, back to the topic.

Before the American Medical Association, or the AMA, was established in 1847, abortions and pregnancy care were performed by midwives, but AMA physicians didn't like that. And so by 1857, just one decade later, they were advocating against abortions. Research at the time showed that the procedure had similar death rates between midwives and doctors, but physicians blamed midwives for poor outcomes, which led to further restrictions on who could perform the procedure.

I want to say here, misogyny alert, can you guess the gender of the midwives and the gender of the doctors?

Olivia (10:30)
Yeah, and I'm going to leave it up to our listeners, but I think we can guess for sure.

Ariel (10:35)
Great.

Read between the lines. ⁓ I will say The first American woman doctor was Elizabeth Blackwell who got her medical degree in 1849. Yay, Dr. Blackwell, breaking glass ceilings for women physicians for about 75 years.

By 1880 most states made abortion illegal at any point during pregnancy. Remember men were making the laws and they really mostly still are. The 1873 Comstock Act made it illegal to sell and disseminate contraceptives aka birth control.

And if you can recall, this piece of legislation came back into public discourse in the US somewhat recently after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. And that was just four years ago. And by 1910, all states but Kentucky made abortion illegal except to save the mother's life.

So what these laws did was make abortion dangerous. It did not stop it from happening. In the 1930s, about one fifth of maternal deaths were due to unsafe abortions. This decreased by just a tiny bit to 17 % by 1965, which is still absurd. And today, the death rate from safe abortions is negligible at less than one in 100,000. What makes abortion unsafe is barriers to accessing this care, not the procedure itself.

So, I'm take us back to the mid 1900s. Physicians who performed abortions faced criminal charges and the loss of their medical license. We still see this in anti-abortion laws today. These tactics have not changed.

Olivia (12:05)
feel like they've gotten worse. I don't know. Maybe not. Just making that up.

Ariel (12:09)
It just

feels like history repeating itself because I wasn't alive in the mid 1900s. I can't say for sure, but my guess it's like the same thing over and over. It's cyclical.

Olivia (12:19)
Hmm. Good point.

Ariel (12:20)
Yeah, people tend to forget history and history is kind of boring, at least the way we learn about it in school. But I do think history is important so you can learn from it, which we are very bad at doing as a society.

Olivia (12:34)
Very true.

Ariel (12:36)
Okay so back to 1965

17 % of maternal deaths were due to unsafe abortions. The Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade made abortion legal. It started in Texas where a judge ruled that the Texas state law was unconstitutional because it violated a woman's right to privacy. And then it went all the way to the Supreme Court, which upheld the decision and made it legal in the US.

kind of crazy that it was about privacy and not, you know, a person's right to decide if they wanted to reproduce, but okay, whatever it takes. Also a side note about Roe, they use the trimesters to kind of establish a framework of thinking about regulation and abortion. So basically very little to no restriction on abortion the first trimester. And then as the trimesters pass, making it more difficult for women.

to seek abortions if they wanted them. In 1992, there was another Supreme Court case called Planned Parenthood versus Casey. And the big change that it made to Roe v Wade was that it got rid of the trimester framework and looked at abortion as pre-viability or post-viability, viability being the time when a fetus can survive outside the womb. And we'll talk more about that a little bit later.

So it did uphold the right for people to seek an abortion. It just made the regulation around it a little bit different based on that viability timeframe.

Olivia (14:06)
so it made it easier for Roe versus Wade to be challenged in the future as a state's rights issue from what I'm understanding through Casey versus Planned Parenthood.

Ariel (14:17)
I'm not sure that I understand enough about law to say that it did or not. I actually think it made it simpler in terms of thinking about trimesters versus viability.

So viability is around 20 to 25 weeks. I don't know that there is like a set date, but that's kind of the accepted timeframe. ⁓ But the earlier baby is born, the less likely it is to survive.

Olivia (14:39)
Interesting. Okay.

Ariel (14:41)
but anyway we can fast forward to June 2022 which is just four years ago. The US Supreme Court reversed the Roe v. Wade decision in Doves versus Jackson Health Organization which basically kicked the right to ban or to not ban abortions back to individual states. At the time of this recording on March 17th, 2026, 13 states ban abortion completely, six states have a gestational limit of between six and 12 weeks,

Four states have a gestational limit of 18 to 22 weeks, 18 states limited at or near viability, and only nine states have no limits. This includes Colorado.

Okay, so if you are a human being in the year 2026, you know that abortion is a big deal. Arguments against abortion center around morality and the rights of unborn babies, which for quite a bit of pregnancy are actually just a bunch of cells. According to the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, or ACOG, a fetus isn't considered viable or able to survive outside the womb until about 20 to 25 weeks, like we just discussed.

But babies born that early have a very low rate of survival with earlier birth associated with a higher risk of death. Babies born before 23 weeks have just a 5 % 6 % survival rate versus 67 to 76 % born at 25 weeks. So those two weeks make a huge difference in a baby's ability to survive outside the womb if it is born that prematurely.

The primary argument in favor of abortion or pro-life, as many people know it, is that life begins at conception. And so I actually looked this up because I did not know what the scientific consensus was about when life begins. And it turns out that the biological definition of life is at conception. About 96 % of scientists worldwide agree with this. Eggs are alive, sperm is alive, and a zygote, or fertilized egg, is alive.

So the real debate is really around the definition of life as a moral and philosophical issue rather than a biological one. A zygote does not experience life the same way that you or I do. Shocking, I know.

And this is a Christian's favorite pro-life argument. I read a 2022 editorial in Fertility and Sterility Reports by Richard Paulson which was really interesting. He points out that traditional religious teachings say nothing about this as books such as the Bible were written long before anyone knew about eggs, sperm, and fertilization. Good point, I never even thought about that.

And in the mid 20th century, that is less than 100 years ago, scientific advancements allowed people to understand cellular and biological process of fertilization. So people knew for a long time that pregnancy resulted from both male and female contributions, but the precise cellular activity not observed until pretty recently, which honestly, I think it'd be cool to look at an egg being fertilized under a microscope.

Olivia (17:37)
Absolutely, I would love to see that, just not mine.

Ariel (17:40)
Yeah, I wish I had taken more science classes.

Olivia (17:44)
I'm good with

never taking another science class, I think. Yeah.

Ariel (17:47)
I mean, they're hard, but they're cool.

Olivia (17:50)
took so many. No thanks.

Ariel (17:51)
lol

So it wasn't until a recent time that religious groups grasped onto the idea of life beginning at conception. So as I said, eggs, sperm, and zygotes are alive. These are not human beings. These are single cells, right? A bacteria is a single cell. It is alive. It is not a human being. So scientists view life as a spectrum rather than a dichotomy, which is just a alive or dead, yes or no. And so while a zygote and 10-week fetus are technically alive,

Biologically, they absolutely do not have the same experience of life as an adult person with jobs, friends, families, pets, etc.

Olivia (18:33)
feel like if you can put it in a fridge, and it needs to be in a fridge to stay alive, then it's probably not a baby.

Ariel (18:33)
religion.

I think that's a good rule of thumb, because I don't think it's good to put a baby in the fridge.

Olivia (18:47)
I mean, I've never been a parent, so I can't say yes or can't agree or deny, you know, I'm gonna need to see the research about that, Ariel.

Ariel (18:48)
Ha ha!

I'm also not a parent, but I have friends with babies and I've never observed them putting their babies in the fridge. I can ask and do a little research among my friend group, but I think I know what the answer is going to be.

Olivia (19:07)
feel like if I did have kids, somebody would call, like, child services on me for just saying that. But no, I'm not putting children in fridges just to make a statement.

Ariel (19:15)
Yes, listeners, no children are going into fridges. Don't worry. It's fine.

Olivia (19:19)
On these high goats.

Ariel (19:21)
He's like,

So religious people use this argument to state that because life begins at conception, the life of a fetus deserves protection from harm, including abortion. And I can understand this. And I understand why people may personally not choose abortion for themselves. But no offense, living women's lives should not be ruined or ended in the name of protecting unborn babies or clumps of cells. That's my hot take.

Olivia (19:48)
I don't think it's hot. I think it's accurate.

Ariel (19:51)
hot for some people. Listeners, is it a hot take? Please let us know.

Olivia (19:55)
Someone for the love of god send Ariel an email.

Ariel (19:58)
Hahaha!

Olivia (20:00)
Please.

Ariel (20:03)
The U.S. was supposedly founded on the premise of separation of church and state. Yay, religious freedom. So if you're religious and you find yourself pregnant and your belief system does not allow for abortion, great. No one is out there trying to make you get one. No one is going to drag you to Planned Parenthood and hold you down and make you end a pregnancy. Like that is not how it works. What is a problem is when you push your religious beliefs onto other people through things like laws and policies,

The last time I checked, which was today, the US has no official religion. I knew that and I Googled it anyway, just to be sure. I like, can't mess this one up on air. But what they...

Olivia (20:44)
I'm surprised

it hasn't been edited, though. I'm surprised there's not somebody just in the Trump admin that is just constantly re-editing the Wikipedia page to make it our religion is Christianity or some shit.

Ariel (20:54)
Don't put that out

there. Don't manifest that.

Olivia (20:58)
Just like, what are we selling? Moringa powder or something? Or Maha is gonna start pushing day palm syrup. That's right.

Ariel (21:02)
No, raw date palm syrup, raw date sap. Your date palm syrup,

yeah.

Olivia (21:08)
We're just here to give ideas to Maha.

Ariel (21:10)
Exactly. They're not listening to us. It's So while the U S does not have an official religion, what they do have are structural barriers and Christianity based laws that force pregnant people to carry unwanted or unhealthy pregnancies to term at the expense of their own happiness, health and life. And that sounds pretty fucking un-American to me. I know what you think, Olivia.

Olivia (21:32)
I think it's pretty fucking un-American, but the last few years has shown me that the shadows behind closed doors that have built America and made these, you know, racist institutionalized anti-women policies have done it pretty damn fucking well. And it's really annoying. And they think that that's the American way. So, yeah, I wish it wasn't.

Ariel (21:55)
Yeah, it is fucking annoying.

Olivia (22:00)
I must sound like a conspiracy theorist sometimes on here. I'm like the shadow figures behind the closed doors. But it's kind of fucking true, so.

Ariel (22:06)
It's okay. Except the sad thing is, it's true. Yeah.

Olivia (22:12)
They're not really behind closed doors anymore. That's the worst part.

Ariel (22:15)
Is it better that they're in the open though so you know who it is? I don't know, I don't know what's better.

Olivia (22:19)
I liked when they were afraid enough to be behind closed doors.

Ariel (22:23)
That's a good point. the door in the room that I'm in is closed, but it's just so don't annoy my husband. It's not because I'm a shadow figure.

Olivia (22:29)
No, mine just keeps making tacos from Costco, so I'm the air fryer.

Ariel (22:31)
I wish she could send me one over Zoom.

Olivia (22:36)
I wish I could too. You'll have to go to Costco. Okay, what's next?

Ariel (22:37)
I know.

Ugh, so I've never been pregnant before, none of us on the podcast have, but I do know that pregnancy is uncomfortable and it carries risks. The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate of any wealthy nation at 18.6 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. This is almost two times greater than comparable nations at around 10 deaths per 100,000 births. And what's worth is that 80 % of these deaths in the U.S. are preventable.

They are due to factors like not having access to maternity care, no health insurance, mistreatment by providers, and it's higher for people of color, implicit bias of providers, and eliminating public health programs. What a shock. Black and Indigenous women in the US are more likely to have poor outcomes than women of other races. This is a direct result of racism. Racism is very much alive and well, regardless of what you might hear politicians say or what you think. It is baked into the very fabric of our institutions.

Olivia (23:41)
Ariel, do you know the rate difference between white women and black women's likelihood of maternal mortality of pregnancy?

Olivia (23:51)
it's 2.6 to three times higher than white women in black women. And the rate in 2021 was 69.9 deaths per 100,000 live births for black women. So that's fucking insane. we're seeing a massive disparity in differences based on race in this country for women Pretty fucking wild.

Ariel (23:51)
And a reminder for the listeners, race is a social construct. It is not a biological difference. Just so you're aware.

So people who are pro-life love to paint women who get abortions as bad people. Bringing a human into the world is a huge responsibility. People end pregnancies for so many different reasons. These reasons include careers, education, lack of financial ability to support a child, not wanting to have more children. Many of these women are already mothers and they just don't want any more, and lack of partner support.

Not to mention people terminate pregnancies for medical reasons for both maternal health and fetal health. I personally can't imagine the heartbreak of wanting a baby, struggling to get pregnant, and then only to find out when you finally are pregnant that your fetus has a serious developmental or chromosomal abnormality that guarantees they won't live long if they live at all. What kind of cruel punishment is it to force someone to carry a pregnancy that will end in stillbirth or their own death? What a fucking joke.

Olivia (25:13)
the party of life. So pro-life of them.

Ariel (25:15)
So pro life.

And I also think about children who are the result of unwanted pregnancies. I did find a few studies about this. So 2019 study in the journal Pediatrics found that children from unwanted pregnancies were more likely to live in poverty and less likely to behaviors. A 2024 study found that children of unwanted pregnancies experienced more psychosocial problems at age five to six, but that these resolved at around age 11.

However, this relationship was influenced by maternal mental health as well as mother and child bonding. And I can't imagine like growing up knowing you are not wanted. Like how would that affect your mental health? I lurk on a Facebook page called I regret having children. I honestly have no clue how this started showing up in my feed because I'm not a member. Like I've never hit follow. It just started showing up in there. But I always get drawn in by these stories.

In some of the stories people share are just so heartbreaking and I realize that this is anecdotal and not science, but stories are important and they are how we make sense of complex numbers and statistics. So like these situations people share, don't know how representative they are, but these are still real people who are, you know, burdened by having children that they didn't want or shouldn't have.

So I will end by saying that access to abortion is healthcare. Abortion being anti-Christian does not hold water as an argument. If individual people are pro-choice, great, like no one's gonna force you to get an abortion if you don't want one. But last I checked, your religious beliefs should have no power over my religious or personal beliefs, right? There's more than one way to see the world. And there's more than one valid belief system. Like I'm an atheist through and through.

but I don't use that to tell other people how to live their lives. But I am always surprised when I meet adults who willingly go to church. I was raised going to church. In the second I no longer had to go, I was so happy.

Olivia (27:08)
I was left behind by my very Catholic grandparents at like six years old by myself in the house because I would throw an absolute fit about going to church. And you know what? I'm so glad I did that. Like, Olivia, six year old Olivia knew what's up. And then you get like free rein of the house as a six year old. So totally, you know, bad grandparent style. But you know what? It's better to leave me there than to bring me to God's, I guess, house because I was a mess. ⁓

Ariel (27:21)
Legend. you're a legend. i also tried kicking and screaming and that did not work. i still had to go.

Olivia (27:40)
my God. One last story for you, about religion and Olivia kicking and screaming. First of all, love that. I was like, I don't know, 19 and I had like a great uncle that I never met pass away. And so we went to awake and we went up to get the little wafer that they give you. I'm like an awful Catholic and I, like, you know, Christ's body or something. And I dropped it and all my family's like in the first and second row and I go, ⁓ shit. And I pick it up.

And then I eat it. So not only did I say, shit, in front of the priest who was like, could not help me at that point. Like no confession could save me. But also I ate it. So I ate Christ's body, which was like dirty on the ground and was like sacrilegious. And the guy just kind of like looked at me and I was like, all right, cool. And then I just like walked back to my seat. And to be honest, like really glad it happened because one, I'm definitely going to hell regardless of that. And two, my family was cracking up. So, you know, bring some joy to your churches, man.

Sometimes it's okay to break the rules.

Ariel (28:40)
I wish I had- I wish I had been a fly on the wall for that. That sounds amazing.

Olivia (28:47)
Yeah, it's ⁓ just another day in my life. But state and religion should very much be separated. But right now, it's not exactly very clear that that's a thing anymore. So this has been very informative. Thank you for giving us the history of abortion and the background. I I think it would be really interesting in the future, Ariel, if we talk about criminalization of abortion. But we might have to have Daniel, my husband, who's a lawyer, talk about that because...

It's so convoluted.

Ariel (29:15)
yeah, that would be a good episode. That would require a lot of research, but we can do

Olivia (29:31)
Anyways, that was really informative, Ariel. Thank you so much for going through this. I think it's such a big topic and we could do like a million different episodes on it. ⁓ But just really getting down to like the brass tacks about these laws

And at the end of the day, the fact that we are ever holding a bunch of cells over a woman's wellbeing and right to her own body is so insane to me and doesn't make any sense, truthfully.

Ariel (29:58)
Yeah, I'll never understand that. And it's always men making these rules, by the way. The ones who can't get pregnant.

Olivia (30:03)
for sure. Because if they could, abortion would be legal for everyone.

Ariel (30:08)
It would be legal, it would be free, and paid parental leave would be a thing.

Olivia (30:13)
State subsidized abortion. Yes, exactly.

Ariel (30:17)
I'm not better about that at all.

Olivia (30:18)
Fuck men. Anyways, talking about how much we hate men, it's funny because my pop culture and public health topic actually has to do with men. So Maddie might get mad at me when she gets back about this, but yes. So are we ready for pop culture and public health?

Ariel (30:27)
I can't wait. my gosh, I cannot wait. Yes.

Olivia (30:37)
Okay, so you may have seen in the last few days, and by the way, we are recording this on March 17th, but over the weekend, there's a documentary that dropped on Netflix called Louis Thoreau Inside the Manosphere.

And if you haven't watched it on Netflix, you definitely should at this point. We are gonna talk about the Manosphere and why it's having its documentary moment and why exactly we do need to talk about it. So what is the Manosphere? and also who's Louis Thoreau? Louis Thoreau is

Documentarian, I don't know much about him, but he was very funny to watch in this and I appreciated the looks that he gave some very misogynistic men for the full hour and a half that I watched it. So shout out to Lewis for that. He probably has like a bunch of accolades and you can Google him and give him kudos for those when you're done with the episode. So anyways, what is the Manosphere? So the Manosphere is this loose network of podcasts and we do not count as one of those podcasts, thank God, because we have morals and also

were women. And they're also on YouTube channels, their social media communities, and these discussions that they have, really I'm going to be nice, I'm probably being too nice about it, they're fucking vile discussions, okay? This is where discussions range from dating tips, and I don't mean just like, ⁓ you should wear this

and take your date here or maybe get coffee if you don't know him or her. No, it's more like how to find yourself a woman who will take care of you kind of thing and make sure that she's a grade A. The way that she looks is stereotypically what you want from a woman. And then fitness to money management and rigid ideas about masculinity, like throwback, but loud.

rigid ideas with like a trolling side to it, which makes it even more obnoxious because That trolling aspect of the Manosphere is what really gets those young listeners, especially boys to listen to this and really kind of idolize the Manosphere. And so...

Over the past decade, this movement has gained massive traction. And according to a recent study, more than a third of Gen Z men now say that wives should obey their husbands. That's not a typo. Like a third of Gen Z men. I don't even remember how old are Gen Z at this point. I feel so old. Early twenties, late twenties?

Ariel (32:47)
oh shit um, so the older gen z i want to say are like around 30 but then i don't know what the younger cut off is

Olivia (32:57)
I'm on the lower end of millennial and I'm 32. So my husband is 30. He's on the last cutoff as a millennial.

Ariel (33:01)
⁓ okay. I'll look-

So born between 1997 and 2012. as of 2026, roughly 14 to 29 years old.

Olivia (33:12)
Okay, so 14 to 29 year olds, a third of them think that wives should obey their husbands with obey being a pretty strict terminology on like, you know, the misogynistic mindset. So in this documentary, interviews figures with nicknames like AHS Tiki-Taki. I don't know how you could take that man seriously with that. Sneako, his name Sneako, another guy, and then Myron Gaines, which is like.

the dumbest name and that's not his real name. I like removed his real name because he doesn't deserve it. And these men are pushing like a cartoonish performative version of masculinity focused on like the big muscles, the lambos that they crash, lots of money and harems of women. Harem is the word that we're using here today because it's literally just like a bunch of women in bikinis. But at the same time, they're pushing like this like old school traditional values of having like...

a wife who is super devoted to you and is in the kitchen, right? But we also have these women that are in bikinis around us and blah, blah. And in the eighties, these guys would have been the late night infomercials, which is so on point. So now they have TikTok and millions of teenage followers. And it's really fucking scary, actually, because...

This isn't just entertainment, it's like a mental health story. And I'm gonna say number one, like I love to call myself a man hater and I don't mean it as like I literally hate men, but I'm very much realistic about how the patriarchy affects women's lives and how masculinity and misogyny impacts our lives and our health and our ability to get access to healthcare and the right to our own body, like you said. it's...

And also, women who hate men have the best partners. I'm married to a man, okay? So I must not really hate them. I like the good ones.

Throat puts it pretty plainly that I think that he says, think that there are a lot of lonely men out there and there's now a whole industry dedicated to them. And this industry is deliberately targeting this unmet need, which is many followers are drawn into the Manosphere, including those young ages. Like we said, I think 14 to 15 to 29. And even in this documentary, they're taking selfies, like they're on the street in New York following these Manosphere guys around. And there's like nine year olds, eight year olds, seven year olds coming up to them wanting to take selfies that are listening to these guys. ⁓

developing their brains listening to these guys. And they share this developmental wounds, the guys in the manosphere, and they're really profiting off of it, which is like the chaotic or absent father or the emotionally unavailable partners, parents, and then this deep uncertainty of what healthy masculinity actually looks like. They just haven't had that in their lives. I'm not assuming that

if you have one parent or two parents or who you have as parents decides if you're going to be healthy or have healthy masculinity or be a misogynist down the road. But it's like this idea that society has also built this terminology of masculinity for them. It shows them every day in the media what they're supposed to be like.

In the absence of these credible role models, so these kids turn to men who appear confident, decisive, and successful. So money lambos lots of hot women, right? Because that's what society says when men are successful. And men are told from childhood that weakness is shameful.

And that asking for help is embarrassing. And so as much as I hate to feel bad for men, it really impacts us all because they tend to be the decision makers in our society. So like we kind of have to help them out on the mental health thing if we don't want them to fall down this toxic positivity pipeline, right? Which then in turn impacts our likelihood to have like...

the right to her own body and healthy relationships and women, just not being able to speak for themselves because they're caught up in these abusive relationships with these hyper masculine, non-healthy men.

Like I said, they're told from childhood that weakness is shameful, vulnerability is for everyone but them. And so when they're lost, lonely or hurting, a charismatic guy on the internet says, it's not your fault, here's who to blame, that's massively appealing. And it turns out that who's here to blame is feminist, by the way. men on Reddit describe personal crises such as breakups, loneliness and rejection as the moment that they became vulnerable for these ideas. And one of them wrote, ⁓

I did and painted it as some sort of virtue. So that's not a masculinity success story. That's a mental health pipeline wrapped in a gym membership basically. I love that. I'm really glad I wrote that.

I'm so proud of myself. So this worldview that they call like the red pill, which is related to matrix, it just, it's all hostile and stacked against men. And it reframes masculinity as this like competitive hierarchy that must be continuously navigated and optimized. Like you are not going to get these hot women and lots of money in a Lambo unless you are doing X, Y, and Z. And that means fitting in our regimen and our pyramid schemes and buying our stocks or like our like stock investment port, like recommendations, basically not our stocks. So.

Ariel (38:09)
Can you imagine what would the ticker symbol be for Manosphere? Like M-N-S-P-R?

Olivia (38:14)
Yeah, maybe. And the logo would just be like an enlarged penis, which none of them have. So the Manusphere has become lucrative online. ⁓ Influencers monetize their content through large followings, clicks, subscriptions, merchandise, and exclusive forum access. Viral videos and controversial posts just aren't attention grabbing. They're profit engineers. They also will have influencers, other women influencers on their reels or their TikTok. And then they'll be like, you should get on OnlyFans and see this X-rated

content, this is to children by the way, like you know there's children watching this and it'll be like if you want to see more you should go and pay for the OnlyFans and those guys get a cut right? So it's not just like empowering women here at all, it's all fucking negative and they're selling insecurity back to men that they claim to be helping so it's just really a hustle.

And then finally, I just want to really wrap it up with the idea of women here is that most one of the most revealing parts of this film, the Manosphere, is that what happens when the camera turns to the women in these men's lives and what they reveal without even trying. so Myron Gaines is visibly one of the guys is visibly uncomfortable when his girlfriend Angie joins him on camera, especially when the documentary raises this idea that Myron has a one way monogamy arrangement where he can have multiple partners. Oh, this is a thing. 100 % across all the men.

then. He can have multiple partners, but his girlfriend or wife has to be celibate for him. Like, that's it. That's it. It's the dumbest shit. Yes, I know. And when asked about the prospect of multiple wives, Angie says, I'll see what happens. I don't know how that would work. And then he actually encourages her to go clean up the back room on camera. And then they break up shortly after. So I guess that tells you how it all worked out for him. He also kind of like...

Ariel (39:41)
That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard. I hope she dumped his ass.

Is that how it went? She's just like, I've had fucking enough and she left. Okay.

Olivia (40:04)
Yes, I'm assuming so.

And also on top of that, you can see his facade falling in front of the camera, which is really interesting. He's like, shit, I'm going to get yelled at later. Or shit, this is not like, she has that response, which makes me very sad I've seen it, abusive friends, friends that are in abusive relationships, where it's like, you don't really know him behind closed doors. He's not really like that. You know what I mean? But you can see this facade falling where it's like, there's actually not the power dynamic that you're selling to everyone else here.

It's a lot more equal than you want people to know, you know? So it's just interesting, because what they're selling isn't exactly what they're living in a lot of the cases. And that's also what this documentary shows. ⁓ Justin Waller's partner, Kristen, I'm also almost done here, handles the household and their children while he focuses on earning. He's not legally married to her despite having two kids and a third on the way. And Kristen tells the documentary, and it does seem more risky to me, but I don't feel like I'm at risk, which is like...

Okay. She also mentions how her life is better now that she doesn't have to put scrubs on every day and go to the hospital as a former career. Her former career was a medical tech and that he just provides for her and by in replacement, she cleans, takes care of the kids, very traditional values ⁓ and doesn't ask when he goes out and does his escapades because that's part of the deal.

Finally, there was a relationship expert quoted in the response to the film and he said, it's not just male fans that are at risk when these relationships are glamorized, it's women. The normalization of these dynamics doesn't stay on screen, like it trickles into how young women see themselves or are perceiving their own worth in relationships. And the Manosphere is not a fringe in...

internet oddity, it's organized, profit-driven response to a very real unmet need, which is men's mental health. until we get serious about helping men process pain and build like emotional illiteracy and find that genuine community, these grifters are gonna keep filling that void.

Yeah, so Louis Thoreau, Inside the Manosphere, it's on Netflix. We were not paid to overview this. I just thought it was incredibly interesting to watch. It also made me want to kind of puke a few times, so just, you know, heads up on that. ⁓ But he does a really great, great job at just kind of standing there while these guys dig their own graves, and I love watching that, so highly recommend.

Ariel (42:24)
Thank you for sharing that. I am going to watch it. ⁓ I feel like you and Maddie talk about stuff on HBO. Everyone talks about stuff on HBO. We don't have HBO right now. So I'm like, I'm not going to pay to watch more shows, but Netflix, no, this one is on Netflix, but other stuff on HBO. So like now, now there is something I can watch without another subscription. So very excited. Like I, I still want to watch Heated Rivalry, but I don't have HBO. So don't know when it's going to happen.

Olivia (42:36)
it's on Netflix. Yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah. Well, I'm glad you can watch it and get back to us.

You gotta watch The Pitt too, but I think that might stress you out.

Ariel (42:54)
and that. Well I would like it. I like those ⁓ those parody videos you've been sending from SNL. My hospital. So many people have sent me those videos. Not just you.

Olivia (43:02)
hospital. Get the crystals, get the crystals. It's time for a sound bath. Don't worry about his leg, it's fine.

Ariel (43:10)
So good. Gold.

Olivia (43:15)
I'll have to send you my HBO login so you can watch it. OK, Do we have time for recalls or did I talk too long?

Ariel (43:19)
Yes. Yes, please. Okay. Now we do have a lot of recalls. I had fun reading these. ⁓ which one?

Olivia (43:26)
I added one for you. Costco Meat Loaf.

Ariel (43:32)
that must have just came out because I looked at these earlier today.

Olivia (43:36)
Yeah, it was also not on the federal recall list. It was like, I just Googled recalls and Costco was like everywhere.

Ariel (43:39)
So that's.

That's why I didn't see it, because I only went to the FDA.

And now it's time for public health. What's on your shelf? We have quite a list of recalls for you for this episode. So starting with March 15th, Costco meatloaf with mashed Yukon potatoes and glaze is contaminated with salmonella. Sold between March 2nd and 13th in 26 states, as well as Washington, DC and Puerto Rico and Olivia. know you're a pro, but I cannot read all those states in one breath. So listeners, you have to just click on the link.

Olivia (44:14)
Do you want me to do it?

Do you want me to do it? Yeah, let's do it.

Ariel (44:16)
Do you want to do it? Olivia, you are a pro.

So let's have you read out all the states in one breath.

Olivia (44:22)
I don't know, that was a lot of pressure, but it was Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Ariel (44:36)
Good job, you just turned so red and I really enjoyed that.

Olivia (44:40)
Yeah, because I did not breathe.

Ariel (44:42)
Exactly. Too bad this is not a visual medium.

Olivia (44:46)
It's also funny because people probably think we're just speeding up when I'm doing it, but I am truthfully trying to be an auctioneer at this point.

Ariel (44:55)
an aspirational goal. Definitely a change of fields, much needed I feel like at this point in our lives. So on March 14th we've got Boner Bear Honey, Red Bull Extreme, and Blue Bull Extreme. Well don't know why Boner Bears keep showing up in my life. I never heard of them until a couple weeks ago and they showed up on recalls. But anyway this is a voluntary recall because these products contain sildenafil and tadalafil.

which are the ingredients in Viagra and Cialis, aka ⁓ medicines for erectile dysfunction.

Olivia (45:26)
Shut up and it's called Boner Bear?

Ariel (45:28)
They're called bonobairs. think they're a supplement.

probably to increase libido, but it turns out they have these ingredients in them that are not declared and are actually prescription medications. Yeah. Yeah. Well, apparently I've never tried them. Couldn't say.

Olivia (45:41)
Hmm, so it actually works.

Thank you.

Ariel (45:52)
All right, next we've got March 13th Omnipod, which is alternate controller enabled insulin infusion pump. So this is a medical device correction on specific lots of Omnipod 5 pods. So to get the specifics, click on the link in the show notes. But these may have a small tear in the internal tubing that delivers insulin. And so if this happens, insulin can leak inside the pod instead of being fully infused into the body as intended. And that's not good.

March 12th we've got Favrina chocolate ladybugs, German style no-get candy for an undeclared hazelnut allergen. So if you have any of these and you're allergic to hazelnuts you might want to throw them out or you definitely want to throw them out or give them away. They are distributed between January 28th and March 11th of this year, 2026.

Olivia (46:42)
As someone with a nut allergy, this is very rude for them to have undeclared hazelnut. Wow.

Ariel (46:47)
That's scary. I don't have food allergies, but like I can't imagine the fear of navigating the world with a food allergy.

Olivia (46:54)
Well, as someone who's trips over their own feet, I just hit myself with an EpiPen and move on. You know, like for children, for children that might not be able to explain what's happening, yeah, it's fucking terrifying.

Ariel (46:58)
On March 11th, we've got Primal Herbs dietary supplement. This is a voluntary recall. All orders of Primal Herbs volume placed between July 2nd and September 19th, 2025, because an FDA laboratory analysis confirmed that this product contains sildenafil. Once again, that medication used in Viagra, and that was not listed on the product label, and these are distributed online.

Olivia (47:30)
I kind of want to know why all of a sudden these have been caught. So like the FDA tested like a bunch of these supplements maybe, and that's why they're calling it voluntary like recall, but it's actually like the FDA threatening to sue them maybe.

Ariel (47:42)
Honestly, I don't know what's going on behind the scenes and why all this is coming out. But yeah, there is like a weird number of things being recalled because they have sildenafil and toadalafil in them.

Olivia (47:52)
Yeah, it sounds like some sort of FDA mass testing. And I doubt that these dietary supplements that are making people get boners, like they say they're going to, are going to be like, by the way, we accidentally added Viagra and we didn't tell you. So interesting. Oops. But did it work though? You know?

Ariel (48:06)
Oops, whoopsie. The important thing. So on March 4th, we have Miss Vicky's Spicy Dill Pickle potato chips. This is another allergen contamination. There's an undeclared milk allergen. Undeclared milk allergen. So some of these Spicy Dill Pickle chips may include jalapeno flavored chips, which have milk on them. So again, if you're allergic to dairy, be careful, and then on February 27th Savannah Savannah B company barbecue sauce has undeclared wheat and soy another potential allergen i think that we covered this on the last episode because this sounds familiar so i won't say much more about that one also on February 27th we have rhino choco vip 10x chocolate for again undeclared to dollafil why

Are all of these things having boner medications? Yeah, wild.

Olivia (49:01)
Everyone's just getting a boner. The names kind of joke, like the names are wild to me. It's Rhino Choco VIP 10X. Like the other one was what? Primal Herbs. Like it makes you primal. And then Omnipod is just a, no, that's wait, that's insulin. No, just kidding. Boner Bear.

Ariel (49:08)
Apparently, maybe...That's a medical device. Yeah.

Boner Bear is such a good name. Rhino Chocolate VIP 10X does not roll off the tongue the way that Boner Bear does.

Olivia (49:34)
No, but I imagine their marketing is badass.

Ariel (49:38)
Maybe I've never seen their marketing. This is not a product that has been marketed toward me for a good reason.

Olivia (49:43)
Yeah, let us know if you want to sponsor our podcast.

Ariel (49:47)
I'm sure after you talk about them being recalled that's what they'll want to do. And then the last one on the list from February 26th quest cat food chicken recipe frozen and this was recalled because it's got low levels of thiamine or vitamin b1. So watch out if you have a cat and you feed that to your cat. And that is it for public health what's on your shelf.

Olivia (50:09)
Anyways, this was a hell of an episode, Ariel.

Ariel (50:13)
Yeah, definitely an interesting topic.

Olivia (50:17)
Okay, well this was public health group chat.

Ariel (50:20)
Don't forget to reach out to us.

Olivia (50:22)
Yeah, please email Ariel.

Ariel (50:24)
Don't get botulism.

Olivia (50:25)
and we'll send you to the gallows if you're part of the manosphere.

Ariel (50:28)
Yeah, no Manosphere participation here. Also, throw away your boner bears, please.

Olivia (50:35)
Unless...you actually want a boner. That was not medical advice. I'm not licensed to give medical advice, so... man,