“Kiss me and I might drop dead!”
My 12-year-old daughter has a beautiful singing voice that she absolutely did not get from her mother. It’s not uncommon for me to hear her from behind the bathroom door, belting out the lyrics of her latest obsession: Olivia Rodrigo.
It took me a while to figure out why this bothered me so much.
At first glance, Rodrigo’s lyrics aren’t particularly objectionable. There are some thinly veiled sexual references that go right over my daughter’s head, but for the most part, her songs revolve around crushes, friendship, anxiety, insecurity, and wanting to look pretty.
In other words, it’s exactly the kind of music I probably would have listened to at 12. That’s also what makes Olivia Rodrigo a particularly interesting problem for parents.
Her music is everywhere; it’s incredibly accessible to young girls, and, frankly, it’s not the worst music in the world. Rodrigo is talented, and her songs are catchy. She’s emotionally vulnerable in a way that makes teenage girls feel understood.
But the music comes with a heaping side of progressive worldview.
Unlike the pop stars parents have traditionally warned their daughters about — the ones gyrating around the stage half-naked, or belting out profanity-laced lyrics — Rodrigo’s politics are much easier to miss.
When I was growing up, we didn&#8217;t have social media. Therefore, we didn&#8217;t have a front-row seat to the political leanings and activism of every celebrity we admired. I could listen to my favorite artists without knowing what causes they were funding or what political messages they were promoting in their spare time.
In fact, I was amused to discover that two of my favorite artists from my own preteen years — Garbage and Alanis Morissette — were among the performers at Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields festival last month. Of course they were.
It makes perfect sense that those artists would show up for a festival that raised $20 million for “women’s causes.” It’s just something I never would have thought about when I was 12, happily listening to “Jagged Little Pill” on my Aiwa five-disc CD sound system.
Rodrigo, 23, announced Daisy Chain Fields in June, describing it as a female-driven festival celebrating womanhood and drawing comparisons to Lilith Fair from the 1990s. The show was, by all accounts, a very successful celebration of female artists. It sold out in 30 minutes and attracted crowds of about 45,000 despite the 94-degree heat that day.
It was also something else: a highly successful vehicle for promoting Rodrigo’s rabidly pro-abortion vision of female empowerment.
Rodrigo <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/melinda-french-gates-stuns-festival-crowd-pledges-match-olivia-rodrigo-fundraising-20m-haul">told the crowd</a> that she was “grateful” to the artists who performed for free and celebrated the festival’s $10 million fundraising effort.
Then she announced that Melinda French Gates — whom Rodrigo described as “one of the most inspiring” women she had ever met — would double the money raised, bringing the total donation amount to $20 million.
“I really believe that giving women the tools to decide their own futures and live healthy lives free of violence and discrimination is the most effective tool we have at changing the world for the better,” Rodrigo said.
That sounds innocuous enough — until you look at where the money went.
Daisy Chain Fields raised money for organizations including the Center for Reproductive Rights, National Institute for Reproductive Health, National Women’s Law Center, and Planned Parenthood. And abortion wasn’t the only progressive policy on the menu. Featured performer Doechii <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2026-08-30/12-best-moments-of-daisy-chain-fields-olivia-rodrigo-great-park-irvine">announced</a> from the stage, “We do this for the girls, we do this for the gays, and we do this for trans women.”
Bikini Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna, another artist from my youth, was a bit more explicit. “This government hates us and wants us dead,” she snarled from the stage. “You guys gotta talk to your friends [about misogyny],” Hanna added. “[Women] are not gonna stop this on our own!”
This is where the Olivia Rodrigo problem becomes more complicated.
<div id="attachment_1171067" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1171067" class="size-medium wp-image-1171067" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/GettyImages-2222861754-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/GettyImages-2222861754-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/GettyImages-2222861754-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/GettyImages-2222861754-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/09/GettyImages-2222861754.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Olivia Rodrigo</div>
Rodrigo is not the kind of pop star parents necessarily think they need to worry about. She isn&#8217;t selling herself as a sexual provocateur, and her music is surface-level innocent. She doesn’t have any singles touting the benefits of abortion, but this is exactly what makes her influence more powerful to anyone not paying attention. 
The “good 4 u” singer has increasingly used the enormous cultural influence she has earned with young women to promote a very particular vision of feminism and girlhood. In that vision, abortion is not a hot-button issue, but is instead presented as an obvious part of female empowerment.
And because Rodrigo’s fans don&#8217;t encounter her solely through her music anymore, they are increasingly being exposed to that worldview alongside the music. This is what makes the whole thing different for millennial parents comparing modern fandom to their own childhood.
A girl doesn&#8217;t simply listen to her favorite singer anymore. She follows her on social media, watches her interviews, and inevitably sees what causes she supports. Fans who didn’t score a ticket to the Daisy Chain Fields show likely sought YouTube clips or just encountered them in the algorithm. Some may have Googled “Melinda Gates” to see who their favorite star considers “inspiring.” 
Think about what they saw there. And then, think about what it means to be 12.
Preteen girls are entering one of the trickiest stages of childhood. They are becoming increasingly independent, are desperate to fit in, and are at an age when they begin to look at their mothers with a healthy dose of skepticism.
That doesn&#8217;t mean a 12-year-old who listens to “drivers license” is going to become a pro-abortion feminist. But it does mean that the person singing “drivers license” may have an unusual amount of influence on her. 
When girls encounter the ideology, especially in a way that seems like nothing more than a celebration of “girl power” reminiscent of these catchy songs, they’re going to listen. Unfortunately, radical left-wing gender theory and abortion activism are all part of this sparkly pop package. 
There is nothing wrong with teaching girls to be confident. Encouraging independence, ambition, friendship, self-respect, and confidence is important. Those are exactly the qualities I want my daughter to have.
The question is who gets to define those qualities — and what else they are selling alongside them. That doesn&#8217;t mean conservative parents need to ban Olivia Rodrigo; they just need to be more cautious. 
My daughter and I have talked about Rodrigo and the messages she promotes. I&#8217;ve told her that I don&#8217;t want her to hate Rodrigo, and I don&#8217;t want to take away music she enjoys simply because I disagree with the artist&#8217;s politics.
However, I do want her to understand something that I didn&#8217;t think much about when I was 12: The people we admire are not automatically the people who get to tell us what to believe.
My daughter can listen to Olivia Rodrigo. She can belt out the songs with her beautiful voice in the bathroom. But, God willing, the woman she becomes will have little in common with the person she’s currently idolizing.
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

Olivia Rodrigo

Olivia Rodrigo Looks Innocent. That’s The Problem.

abortion

lifestyle

melinda french gates

olivia rodrigo

opinion

planned parenthood

This summer, Senators on the Homeland Security Committee justifiably grilled Dr. Fauci about his support of the dangerous and illegal <a href="https://osp.od.nih.gov/white-house-releases-new-u-s-government-policy-for-stopping-high-risk-life-sciences-research/">gain-of-function research</a> that may have helped create the COVID-19 pandemic. What Americans also deserve to know is that gain-of-function research was not the only ethically-challenged experimentation funded by Dr. Fauci. Under his <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fauci-nih-funding-fetal-tissue-studies">leadership</a>, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) funded nearly 80% of human fetal experimentation at the National Institutes of Health, spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on experiments with aborted baby body parts that were often purchased from Planned Parenthood.
Dr. Fauci invoked the 5th Amendment in response to every question posed to him by the Senators. It was especially revealing when Sen. Joni Ernst <a href="https://x.com/TPostMillennial/status/2082478328397578557">asked</a> Dr. Fauci to account for the millions of taxpayer dollars his NIAID agency spent on gruesome experiments with late-term aborted baby body parts, like stitching babies’ fingers and scalps onto lab rats and mice.
“Dr. Fauci, yes or no, do you support the use of aborted baby body parts in coronavirus experiments?” she asked. “On the advice of counsel, I invoke my rights under the 5th Amendment and respectfully decline to answer the question,” replied a shaken-looking Fauci.
This is not just a question about runaway bureaucratic largesse. The abortion experiments that Dr. Fauci authorized as recently as a few years ago are like something out of Dr. Mengele’s heinous repertoire. At the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-71548-z">University of Pittsburgh</a> — a major <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/university-pittsburgh-wont-explain-its-planned-parenthood-ties-opinion-1594564">Planned Parenthood</a> training hub — Fauci’s NIAID-granted scientists harvested scalps from the heads and skin from the backs of babies aborted at five months’ gestation — as well as their livers, thymus glands, and spleens — and stitched them onto lab rats to create a new experimental platform for Big Pharma. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-71548-z#Fig1">Photos</a> published with the study show the aborted babies’ hair continuing to grow from the scalps stitched onto the rodents.
The study used “autologous” tissues, meaning that for each rodent, all transplanted parts were harvested from the same baby. The NIAID-granted scientists disclosed performing the experiment on at least 44 rodents. Which raises a disturbing question: how did NIAID manage to get nearly fifty five-month-aborted babies with heads intact enough to cut whole scalps off? The University of Pittsburgh is <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op-eds/2750560/nih-fetal-experimentation-funding-sponsors-infanticide/">notorious</a> for <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pittsburgh-live-fetus-organs">allegations</a> about born-alive infant organ harvesting, even boasting to the NIH in a 2015 <a href="https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/2021/08/aborted-infants-continued-blood-flow-advertised-in-racist-university-of-pittsburgh-grant-application-to-nih/">grant proposal</a> that “labor induction” abortion was a “procedure that will be used to obtain the tissue” from the babies.
In the weeks since Dr. Fauci’s 5th Amendment non-testimony before the Senate, Congressional investigators have begun to release further critical information from the good doctor’s government records — like his <a href="https://www.ronjohnson.senate.gov/2026/08/10/senators-johnson-paul-release-initial-texts-from-dr-faucis-government-iphone-2/">text messages</a> with fellow Biden-Harris era HHS-Deep State bureaucrats in late January 2021, warning them that “you need to be aware of” how common severe immune responses to the second dose of COVID vaccine “theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester.” Dr. Fauci apparently did not believe American women and families “need to be aware” of the same information, however, and in the days and weeks that followed, he repeatedly proclaimed to the public that there were “<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/health/fauci-said-no-red-flags-pregnant-women-days-after-raising-theoretical-vaccine-miscarriage-risk-text">no red flags</a>.&#8221;
We don’t yet know how many American women lost their babies due to Fauci’s lies five years ago. Experts point out that vast numbers of pregnant patients were lost to follow-up in the official Pfizer <a href="https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/5.3.6-postmarketing-experience.pdf">data</a>, with high first-trimester miscarriage rates reported among those who were not lost to follow-up. Current NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya <a href="https://x.com/MAHA_Action/status/2087557054667935993">told</a> Fox News this month that prior to his nomination, he was working on a study that showed an increased miscarriage rate following the mass adoption of Fauci’s COVID vaccines. A recent <a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.18.25329352v1.full">study</a> from Israel of nearly a quarter-million pregnancies observed a 40% higher-than-expected rate of fetal losses following COVID vaccination in the first trimester.
And it gets even more chilling. Some lines of evidence suggest that some of the very gain-of-function research leading to COVID in the first place may have been carried out using aborted baby body parts. The same lab team at the <a href="https://www.paul.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/2026.07.23_UPDATED-FINAL-FINAL_BARIC-TI_Redacted.pdf">University of North Carolina</a> that performed dangerous gain-of-function research on respiratory coronaviruses throughout the 2010s and shared lab mice with the (<a href="https://www.whitecoatwaste.org/blog/2023/06/15/covid-origin-wcw-investigation-proves-u-s-govt-funded-patient-zero/">also Fauci-funded</a>) Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, and also <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6776695/">developed</a> a “humanized mouse” platform with aborted baby liver, thymus, bone marrow, and lungs in 2018 “[t]o extend the breadth of human pathogens that can be studied using humanized mice” and “provide human lung tissue as an in vivo target for human pathogens.”
We were told by Big Abortion and their supporters that fetal body parts experiments were supposed to help people. In reality, they may have been used primarily for greed and harm. How can we be surprised at the lack of ethics of someone willing to lethally exploit a defenseless human baby? Fauci experimented on aborted babies and their mothers for decades at NIAID, and he experimented on the entire U.S. population during COVID.
The industrial-scale and taxpayer-funded abortion industry in our country relies on and entrenches the assumptions that some human lives — unborn children and their mothers—may either be ignored at best or eliminated at worst, with no lasting consequences for the community that lives this way. But for decades, we have licensed and funded medical doctors to do the eliminating. What kind of doctor can look at the scalping of whole, living, preemie-size infants and bury the facts — and his conscience — in stacks of bureaucratic permission slips? What kind of doctor can take forceps and place them with violence on the body of an infant “<a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/550/124/">child assuming the human form</a>&#8220;? If we want America to be great, we must never hire such doctors again.
***
David Daleiden is the investigative reporter responsible for the 2015 undercover video series documenting Planned Parenthood leaders trafficking aborted fetal body parts. He is the founder and president of The Center for Medical Progress.

Credit: Getty Images

The Heinous Fetal Experiments Dr. Fauci Refused To Answer For

anthony fauci

covid19 vaccine

fetal tissue research

national institutes of health

New Mexico&#8217;s children are hurting. Their state is beautiful — freckled with red rocks, cacti, and the occasional Allsup&#8217;s. As a seventh-generation Texan, I admire our shared endless deserts and rich histories.
Still, the Land of Enchantment is unknown to most Texans, let alone the rest of the country. Routinely ranking last in education, yet <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/per-pupil-spending-by-state">spending more</a> than <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education">top-ranking neighbor</a> Colorado, New Mexico is a genuine mystery — an American black hole.
When the New Mexico legislature passed <a href="https://www.nmlegis.gov/Legislation/Legislation?Chamber=H&amp;LegType=B&amp;LegNo=7&amp;year=23">HB 7</a> in 2023, proponents of gender medicine celebrated. Under HB 7, public regulation of &#8220;gender-affirming care&#8221; became, for all intents and purposes, illegal. Any attempts at regulation — or basic gatekeeping — must be measured against a &#8220;medical standard of care&#8221; that itself is in dispute.
It&#8217;s no coincidence that this bill lumps &#8220;gender-affirming care&#8221; together with the hot-button issue of abortion: Planned Parenthood, one of the state&#8217;s top providers, champions both.
In the first half of 2026, visits to New Mexico Planned Parenthood clinics jumped by 50%, half of them from out of state. Texans have moved there to circumvent our own protections for minors under <a href="https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/pdf/SB00014F.pdf">SB 14</a>. Some have said so publicly, and Planned Parenthood’s leaders <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/news/new-mexico-becomes-refuge-for-transgender-care/3033443">share</a> they’re proud to enable it.
New Mexico is surrounded by states with protections like Texas’s. A second law, <a href="https://www.nmlegis.gov/Legislation/Legislation?chamber=S&amp;legtype=B&amp;legno=13&amp;year=23">SB 13</a>, sealed its black hole status: it grants legal immunity to those involved in “transitioning” children and shields the practice from out-of-state investigations into the harm it causes.
In July, I drove from Roswell back home to Austin. It took eight hours; the hotel was thirty bucks. The pipeline is that easy to reach: cheap, legal, and largely off-grid. A black hole emits no light of its own, and what falls in rarely comes back out. The families arrive, the appointments are kept, the numbers climb — and the country goes on not looking.
This month, our nation’s children return to school, and it&#8217;s worth asking what New Mexico has <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/new-mexico-report/">prepared</a> for them. The answer isn’t a secret, though you wouldn’t know it from the state&#8217;s marketing. New Mexico <a href="https://assets.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/2026-KCDB-profile-NM.pdf">ranks</a> 47th in the nation for child well-being, and 50th in education.
Its own families had to sue to force the point. In Yazzie/Martinez v. State of New Mexico, a court found in 2018 that the state was failing its most vulnerable students: Native American, poor, disabled, and those still learning English. Seven years later, New Mexico remains under that order and out of compliance, its latest fix rejected by the very families it was meant to serve.
Set that pattern of failure and disregard for child well-being against the speed and pride with which the state hands out gender medicine. All kids are vulnerable, yet the population riddled with dysphoria — creative, autistic, weird — mirrors the very populations going unserved in New Mexico schools.
New Mexico can move a Texas 14-year-old onto hormones over a long weekend, but it cannot teach a New Mexico fourth-grader to read. It’s quick with what is immediate and irreversible, and slow with what is ordinary and lasting: the education that actually prepares a child for a life.
When I told my <a href="https://www.iwfeatures.com/documentary/how-one-detransitioner-found-peace-outside-of-medicalization/">own story</a> — a teenager chewed up and spat out by the gender-affirmation pipeline — it made a difference. People have stopped me at local coffee shops and written to say how learning about my healing gave them hope, or even influenced them to make different decisions in their own lives. In 2023, I sued the providers responsible for my care. After one tried to use my state&#8217;s tight statute of limitations to escape accountability, the Texas Supreme Court <a href="https://www.independentwomen.com/2026/06/26/texas-supreme-court-unanimously-revives-detransitioner-lawsuit-paving-the-way-for-accountability-in-pediatric-gender-medicine/">ruled</a> this year that my case could proceed on its merits, underscoring the unique nature of &#8220;gender-affirming&#8221; harm.
We need more <a href="https://www.iwfeatures.com/state/nm/">stories</a> from New Mexico — more families willing to say what we know is happening, more reporters willing to follow the road where Planned Parenthood leads. Right now, the state shovels tax dollars into a failing school system, <a href="https://www.governor.state.nm.us/2023/03/16/governor-signs-house-bill-7-reproductive-and-gender-affirming-health-care-act/">proclaims its devotion</a> to all New Mexicans, and enables their harm — while inviting the rest of the country to share in it.
A state that can&#8217;t teach its own children to read is in no position to dictate best practices. And a child never taught to read may never learn enough to question it. New Mexico owes its kids a classroom, not science fiction or an artificially complicated life.
***
Soren Aldaco is an Independent Women ambassador and subject-matter expert on issues of identity, health, and wellbeing. Her <a href="https://www.iwfeatures.com/documentary/how-one-detransitioner-found-peace-outside-of-medicalization/">story</a> of transition and detransition was first featured in IW Features’ “Identity Crisis” series.

One young man sitting on bench at school yard. Break time. Back view.

Inside New Mexico’s Off-Grid Gender Border Pipeline

detransition

gender affirming care

new mexico

politics

texas

The first big purchase I ever made for myself was a silver Catbird ring. I was working as a fellow at National Sawdust in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. On lunch breaks, I’d wander around the corner and down Bedford Avenue for a smoothie, stopping to peer in at the books or the cake-shaped soaps. During my first week, I stumbled upon Catbird Jewelry, then operating out of a cramped showroom, and became a loyal customer. At the end of that summer, I made my largest purchase for myself to date: a $90 Tomboy ring in sterling silver.
For nearly a decade, my friends and I invested in their permanent bracelets. I chose Christmas and birthday presents from its carefully curated collection of dainty things. 
Unbeknownst to me, when I made my first purchase, the company was already donating a portion of its sales to Planned Parenthood. Catbird would be the first (and most beloved) of the brands that would teach me the particular pain of being a conservative in a liberal city: the discovery that the things you love may not love you back. It would also prompt me to investigate the companies behind the products I bought and eventually to purge many of the brands I knew and loved in favor of healthier alternatives for my body, mind, and moral compass. Here are a few brands I no longer support, as well as some alternatives.
Catbird Jewelry 
Catbird founder Rony Vardi has said that the company’s “giving back ethos and environmental ethos” were “baked in from day one.” Catbird formally established its Giving Fund in 2014, eventually <a href="https://www.catbirdnyc.com/facts?srsltid=AfmBOopLlzOkuoZqg0a5naAYmv6pXE7sb5sE2g8PUOJnqkkoVtwslJkU">committing</a> at least 1% of all sales to nonprofits aligned with its beliefs in “equality and helping others,” which to Vardi meant organizations such as Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and Citizens’ Climate Education. 
By 2017, Catbird was publicly participating in the fashion industry&#8217;s campaign supporting Planned Parenthood, and that same year it <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/fashion-runway-catbird-transparent-jewelry-collaboration">partnered</a> with &#8220;Transparent&#8221; creator Jill Soloway on a transgender-themed jewelry collection that donated 50% of sales to the National Center for Transgender Equality. In a turn of the knife, the 2023 Phoebe Bridgers x Catbird <a href="https://www.catbirdnyc.com/designers/phoebe-bridgers.html?srsltid=AfmBOoqRzaJ9mA65W4E6i09vlZ6ffSG6Kkj90bQyBkHHpAFn3yFWXD1g&amp;page=1">collection</a> (which I would’ve waited hours for in the pouring rain) was paired with a $25,000 donation to the same organization. 
Swap Catbird for local gems, which are often more personal and better priced. We have a jeweler (hi, Ernesto!) who knows our names and has become part of our family’s story. He created gifts for our closest wedding guests from gold recycled from my old pieces. Most lovely of all, a close friend designed and fabricated my engagement ring. Now, when I look at it, I see not only my eternal commitment to my husband, but the community in which our love is planted.
Ben &amp; Jerry’s 
This one is a given. Ben &amp; Jerry’s has never claimed to be politically neutral. In 1988, co-founder Ben Cohen launched “1% for Peace,” which advocated that a portion of the defense budget be redirected toward peace initiatives. In 2005, the company delivered a 900-pound “Baked Alaska” to the White House to protest Arctic drilling. In 2009, it renamed Chubby Hubby “Hubby Hubby” to celebrate the legalization of same-sex marriage in Vermont; in 2011, it embraced Occupy Wall Street; and in 2018, it released “Pecan Resist,” an explicitly anti-Trump flavor supporting progressive organizations including the Women’s March and Color of Change. 
In 2020, the company called on Americans to “dismantle white supremacy” in the wake of George Floyd’s death, while also campaigning for racial justice and immigrant rights. Then, in 2021, Ben &amp; Jerry’s announced that it would stop selling its ice cream in what it called the “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” making its political commitments impossible to mistake for mere corporate branding. My husband now calls it “terrorist ice cream.” 
As the company itself has put it: “At Ben &amp; Jerry’s, we have always been political.”
Avoiding Ben &amp; Jerry’s is the obvious choice for conservatives, but I have an alternative, a recent discovery so good it has changed the way I think about ice cream and, more surprisingly, the way I think about health altogether. 
<a href="https://icecreamforbears.com/">Ice Cream for Bears</a> was founded in 2020 by Tim Berg, who started experimenting with ice cream while pursuing his master’s degree in entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis. The concept was simple: make ice cream using basic ingredients, like grandma used to. Its base is just dairy, raw honey, and eggs, with grass-fed milk sourced from regeneratively managed farms. Instead of refined cane sugar, corn syrup, or other processed sweeteners, Ice Cream for Bears uses raw honey, and instead of gums and stabilizers, it relies on egg yolks for texture. 
As my most health-conscious friend said when I read her the ingredients, “I’d eat that for breakfast.” 
Mrs. Meyer&#8217;s (or any scented cleaning supplies) 
Before my husband and I were married, I went deep into fertility-maxing — from diet to environmental toxins to simple product swaps I could make in our own home. Mrs. Meyer’s was a difficult brand to let go of (its &#8220;Rain Water&#8221; scent smells like my childhood), but after considerable research, I decided it was time.
Mrs. Meyer’s does not disclose every chemical in its proprietary fragrance mixtures, and some of its products contain preservatives like methylisothiazolinone and benzisothiazolinone, which are well-established skin sensitizers. More broadly, fragranced consumer products can be a source of exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Phthalates, for example, have been associated in human studies with altered reproductive hormones, reduced fecundability, and adverse pregnancy outcomes. 
That isn’t proof that Mrs. Meyer’s causes infertility, but given the potential for repeated exposure, particularly from laundry products that leave fragrance on our clothes and bedding, I decided there was little reason to take the risk. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists likewise recommends choosing fragrance-free products during pregnancy to reduce exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
There are great (and better-smelling) alternatives on the market: <a href="https://branchbasics.com/?srsltid=AfmBOop-6FsY_nmRit3M6vLlYiHbryqBTMU4XBD2Wv89-WgZNXvvDU4j">Branch Basics</a> and <a href="https://www.koalaeco.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoqASGngQ60YyYKBOcHgRrfQfRl5XruwmUcQTys4aF2GuSH6KkA2">Koala Eco</a> top my list. Their eucalyptus bathroom cleaner makes our New York City shoebox feel like a spa. 
Tampax 
In my fertility frenzy, one of the last products I researched was one that actually went inside my body: the Tampax tampons I’d used since I was 12. 
<a href="https://publichealth.berkeley.edu/articles/spotlight/research/first-study-to-measure-toxic-metals-in-tampons-shows-arsenic-and-lead">A 2024 UC Berkeley study</a> tested 30 tampons from 14 brands and found measurable amounts of all 16 metals it tested for, including lead and arsenic. The researchers noted that vaginal tissue is highly permeable compared with ordinary skin, and chemicals absorbed there can enter the bloodstream without first undergoing the “first-pass” metabolism that occurs when substances are swallowed. 
The study did not establish whether these metals leach from tampons during use or whether they cause health problems, and the researchers called for further investigation. But the discovery that a product I was putting against highly permeable tissue for hours at a time could contain lead and arsenic was enough to make me reconsider what I was willing to use every month.
Luckily, a parallel economy has <a href="https://www.health.com/mind-body/best-organic-tampons">emerged</a> for just this purpose: to provide women with organic cotton menstrual products that they can trust. My favorites are <a href="https://cora.com/products/applicator-tampons?srsltid=AfmBOoqTAsKGFuYe8IJDP2Qic76Us4kuDJZdxkoOpd4-0oe3jIZQ7-7H&amp;variant=33123870867561">Cora</a>, Lola, and Daye. 
Nespresso and Keurig
For years, I stumbled out of bed and, half asleep, clamped the Nespresso or Keurig down on a fresh coffee pod on the way to the bathroom. That was before my friend, who’d long suffered from unexplained symptoms like extreme exhaustion and brain fog, was diagnosed with heavy metal toxicity, which her doctor traced to years of coffee brewed from single-serve pods.
The Keurig is no better. It is, when you stop to think about it, a strange way to begin the day if your goal is to minimize unnecessary chemical exposure: heating water and forcing it under pressure through a tiny plastic or metal capsule, then drinking whatever leaches out along with your coffee. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956713514000401?utm_">Studies</a> have found plasticizers and other endocrine-active chemicals in coffee brewed from capsules, and researchers have found that compounds can migrate from the plastic materials into the hot water during brewing.
The alternatives are closer to home than you might think. As soon as my taste for coffee returns (a first-trimester casualty), I’ll be back to my old habits: picking up a weekly bag of beans from the coffee shop down the street and grinding them myself. I can’t wait to wake up again to a Breville latte made with Maple Hill or raw milk.
If you’re somehow miles from the closest local coffee shop, there are a few brands I love that are proven to be delicious, mold-free, and high in antioxidants, <a href="https://puritycoffee.com/?srsltid=AfmBOooAj072QyLC-mWvMGizfKrk-T0wGANI0jjPoKpEr144hIjI1MUu">Purity Coffee</a> and <a href="https://www.getkion.com/collections/coffee?srsltid=AfmBOoouzkbsQCAoWsn_UaSGuVXE4vk8qyVND3ATDoL5kC6GRfRw2lp4">Kion Coffee</a> chief among them. If you want your morning brew to support pregnancy centers, try <a href="https://sevenweekscoffee.com/">Seven Weeks Coffee</a>.
In making these swaps, I have in no way become the perfect ideological consumer. I have, however, become more interested in what goes into the products I put in and on my family’s bodies, more skeptical of convenience for convenience’s sake, and more eager to spend my money with people and businesses whose work strengthens the world I actually want to live in. 
In the process, I’ve discovered something better than ideological purity: local coffee shops, a jeweler who knows my name, ice cream made from ingredients I can pronounce, unscented laundry, and products designed with my well-being, rather than my politics, in mind. 
***
Grace Salvatore is a Nebraskan writer based in New York City.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

GettyImages-2267439408

Five Brands I No Longer Use As A Conservative

ben and jerrys

clean living

conservative consumerism

consumer boycott

There is nothing more important to a pregnant mother than making sure her growing baby is healthy. She tries to eat the right foods, avoids caffeine, and drinks plenty of water.
As a mother of four, I know the feeling well.
Newly released <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2026/08/11/republican-senators-release-fauci-texts-on-safety-of-covid-19-vaccine-for-pregnant-women/">text messages</a> from 2021 show our nation’s health officials, including Anthony Fauci, privately discussed theoretical risks around the widely mandated COVID-19 vaccine for pregnant mothers. These documents indicate that those in power knew that after the second dose, there was a heightened risk of mothers miscarrying in their first trimester.
During that same time period, I was pregnant with my daughter and felt tremendous pressure to take the vaccine for the “safety” of my baby. Looking back now, the gaslighting and shaming I received from doctors, news media, and society for declining the injection is surreal. Knowing what we know now, that it was likely to lose a healthy baby because of the shot, I’m grateful for refusing to make my child their experiment.
I feel for the women who took the vaccine, truly believing they were doing what was best for their baby, and lost a child because of what seems like apathy and negligence. Americans should all be outraged at this discovery and should ensure it never happens again.
Today, the Trump administration is slowly taking steps to remedy the health crisis we endured under President Joe Biden, such as decreasing vaccine requirements and removing chemicals from our food. We can see each of these victories touted by parents and influencers alike.
But it’s not enough.
The current Food and Drug Administration and Health and Human Services officials need to do what Fauci and his team never did: put women and children first. That means releasing the truth about the dangerous abortion pill, which now accounts for 65% of all abortions in the United States, killing thousands of preborn babies each day and harming women.
True accountability means reviewing the data, bringing back safety requirements, ending mail-order pills, and pulling mifepristone off the market for good.
For more than a year, the FDA and HHS teams have known about real-world data that shows the harmful effects of the abortion pill. Although they’ve promised to conduct their own study, we’ve yet to see movement on this pressing issue.
<a href="https://eppc.org/publication/insurance-data-reveals-one-in-ten-patients-experiences-a-serious-adverse-event/">Insurance claims</a> analyzed by the Ethics and Public Policy Center found that 1 in 10 women experience serious adverse events such as sepsis, infection, or hemorrhage within 45 days of a <a href="http://whatisabortion.com/">chemical abortion</a>. This is 22 times higher than the “less than 0.5%” figure long cited on the drug label. Why wait to review and highlight these statistics for the American people?
In addition to broadly publicizing these serious complications, the FDA should restore basic safeguards for the abortion pill by reinstating the in-person dispensing requirement, rather than today’s dangerous mail-order distribution, which has led to <a href="https://www.liveaction.org/news/husband-separation-poisoned-pregnant-abortion-drugs">rampant coercion</a>, abuse, and parental circumvention.
By not releasing its study as soon as possible and having no safety requirements in place for these lethal pills, the FDA is putting women and children at grave risk.
The reality is that chemical abortion has led to the deaths of <a href="https://www.liveaction.org/news/fda-report-casualties-abortion-pill-climb/">7.5 million preborn children</a> and <a href="https://www.fda.gov/media/185245/download?attachment">at least 36 women</a>. Ultimately, if our leaders were truly honest with the American people about the dangers of mifepristone, the first drug in the two-pill regimen, they would pull it from the market completely.
Planned Parenthood committed <a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/facts-figures/annual-report">430,000 abortions</a> last year and is fueled by over $800 million in taxpayer funds. It’s no surprise they’re facing <a href="https://apnews.com/article/florida-medication-abortion-lawsuit-planned-parenthood-6494355a10b48334269cd4bf759d25e0">lawsuits</a> for keeping these types of statistics under wraps. But we must hold our nation’s leaders accountable for the roles they undertook, rather than worry about whether we’re being told the whole truth.
The science is clear: life begins from the moment of conception. Each and every abortion is the intentional killing of another human being. Federal leaders must recognize the <a href="http://babyolivia.com/">humanity</a> of the preborn child in the womb and stop enabling workarounds that undermine protections for life. By prioritizing maternal health, adoption, and genuine life-affirming alternatives, we can truly care for the women and children in this country.
In 2021, mothers like me were pushed to take a shot without understanding the risks. Today, women are still being kept in the dark about the abortion pill, and preborn children are treated like an afterthought.
Let’s end the cycle of silence.
Only then, when we refuse to treat the next generation like an experiment, can we honestly say we’re serious about making America healthy.
***
Kimberly Bird is a communications specialist for Live Action, a wife, and the mother of four children.

In new motherhood, fetal health monitoring through regular ultrasounds and check-ups enables constant monitoring of the fetus’s growth and development.

Making America Healthy Means Ending The Abortion Pill

abortion pill

food and drug administration

mifepristone

Planned Parenthood said abortion is “gender-affirming care” Monday in a social media <a href="https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1520913796730044&amp;id=100064343153415&amp;mibextid=wwXIfr&amp;rdid=Ks4OHdKbNQDnRSRv">post</a> declaring that “reproductive freedom means every person gets to decide what’s right for their own body. No exceptions.”
The abortion giant made the claim less than one month after Planned Parenthood&#8217;s federal funding resumed and as the organization has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/planned-parenthood-cashes-in-thanks-to-gender-confusion?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Planned+Parenthood+Cashes+In+Thanks+To+Gender+Confusion">increasingly cashed</a> in on expanding transgender procedures for minors. 
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1149433" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-03-at-11.12.16-AM.png" alt="" width="1040" height="975" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-03-at-11.12.16-AM.png 1040w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-03-at-11.12.16-AM-300x281.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-03-at-11.12.16-AM-614x576.png 614w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/08/Screenshot-2026-08-03-at-11.12.16-AM-768x720.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1040px) 100vw, 1040px" /></div>
“Gender-affirming” services <a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/get-care/our-services/gender-affirming-care">offered</a> by Planned Parenthood include estrogen for males, testosterone for females, puberty blockers, and transgender surgery referrals. These services have spiked in recent years across the country. 
A <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/planned-parenthood-cashes-in-thanks-to-gender-confusion?author=Leif+Le+Mahieu&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Planned+Parenthood+Cashes+In+Thanks+To+Gender+Confusion">recent report</a> from Concerned Women for America Legislative Action found a 40% increase in so-called “gender-affirming care” services at 14 of Planned Parenthood’s biggest affiliates from 2024 to 2025. 
Annual reports showed that Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, and Kentucky reported 24,295 “gender-affirming care” services in <a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/uploads/filer_public/c8/70/c870cd3f-101d-4519-9879-55a846074a86/2025_impact_report_digital_1.pdf">2025</a>, up from 13,432 in <a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/uploads/filer_public/50/98/5098af46-fcfb-4c40-b682-ecdc002906c5/2024_impact_report_digital.pdf">2024</a>. Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio reported 8,644 transgender services in 2025, up from 6,206 in 2024. 
At Planned Parenthood’s Pasadena affiliate, the number of transgender-related visits increased from 1,544 in 2024 to 2,346 in 2025. In its annual report, the group <a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/uploads/filer_public/b4/79/b479a34c-032b-4944-a914-432b5d7a720f/2026_pppsgv_ar_option_digital.pdf">said</a> that it supported legislation in California “extending statewide protections for gender-affirming care to people of all ages.”
At the same time, Planned Parenthood recorded 434,450 abortions in fiscal year 2025, up 8% from the previous year and 34% since 2014. That comes as Planned Parenthood has pushed for more abortions via pill. 
The post came less than a month after Planned Parenthood regained the ability to bill Medicaid for non-abortion services following the expiration of provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill. The defunding contributed to the closure of roughly 50 Planned Parenthood facilities. Although funding resumed, several smaller affiliates have continued closing clinics. 
Planned Parenthood of Michigan recently said that it was closing down three facilities in the state because of federal government cuts. It reported a $4.2 million decline in procedure reimbursements in fiscal year 2025. 
“The return of Medicaid reimbursement is welcome news for [Planned Parenthood Michigan] patients, and the organization will resume billing Medicaid in the coming days,” the organization <a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/planned-parenthood-michigan/newsroom/planned-parenthood-of-michigan-reshapes-health-care-network-in-response-to-federal-funding-losses">said</a>. “However, the restoration of billing does not recover nearly a year of lost revenue or eliminate ongoing threats to safety-net health care funding.”
Pro-life activists have continued to pressure Congress to get another provision passed to defund Planned Parenthood into the next funding package.

US-NEWS-HEALTH-KY-ABORTION-3-LX

Planned Parenthood Now Calls Abortion ‘Gender Affirming Care’

medicaid

transgender

<div>
In an astonishing video, an unborn baby girl appeared to break into a massive smile the very moment she heard her father’s voice during an ultrasound.
</div>
<div>
The soul-stirring moment occurred when the father placed his face close to the mother’s stomach and said, “Good morning, Happy Saturday. You hungry?” The baby’s immediate, joyful reaction offered a profoundly moving glimpse into the reality of human life before birth.
</div>
<div>
The video also highlights the absurdity of ignoring such undeniable evidence of life in the womb and believing that a baby in utero should be aborted. Beyond the heartwarming smile of a pre-born baby, further remarkable scientific evidence underscores the vitality and humanity of the unborn long before they enter the world.
</div>
<div>
As far back as 2018, a <a href="https://x.com/LiveAction/status/953758653705740288/video/1">video</a> of a detailed MRI scan captured a 20-week-old baby in utero actively moving around, turning her head, kicking, and displaying a clearly beating heart. Such vivid imagery demonstrates the undeniable truth of pre-born life.
</div>
<div>
Yet, despite these vivid depictions of developing human life, pro-abortion advocates and organizations like Planned Parenthood have <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-best-pro-life-video-ever-astonishing-mri-20-hank-berrien">continuously fought</a> restrictions on late-term abortions. Planned Parenthood has aggressively condemned proposed 20-week abortion bans, labeling them &#8220;dangerous&#8221; and &#8220;out-of-touch,&#8221; while groups like Physicians for Reproductive Health accused pro-life policymakers of using &#8220;deceitful tactics.&#8221;
</div>
<div>
Furthermore, pro-abortion advocates consistently oppose efforts to allow pregnant women to view ultrasounds, claiming such procedures are &#8220;medically unnecessary&#8221; and &#8220;demeaning.&#8221; But the reality is clear: one look at her baby, and any mother is liable to recognize the living human being inside her.
</div>
<div>
The evidence that life and biological vitality begin at the very start of human existence goes all the way back to the moment of creation itself. In 2016, scientists at Northwestern University <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/flash-light-occurs-moment-conception-james-barrett">made the groundbreaking discovery</a> that a breathtaking flash of light occurs at the exact moment of conception. Researchers demonstrated that when a sperm first meets an egg, a bright light radiates outward in a remarkable burst.
Study co-author Professor Teresa Woodruff noted the significance of the discovery, stating, &#8220;All of biology starts at the time of fertilization, yet we know next to nothing about the events that occur in the human.&#8221;
</div>
<div>
From the breathtaking spark of light at the exact instant of fertilization to the visible heartbeat on an MRI and a pre-born child smiling at the sound of her father&#8217;s voice, the testimony of science and imagery overwhelmingly confirms the sacred reality of life in the womb.
</div>

Watch What Happens When Dad Starts Talking During The Ultrasound

pro life movement

ultrasound

I’ve been trying to <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op-eds/2750560/nih-fetal-experimentation-funding-sponsors-infanticide/">warn</a> Americans about the <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/planned-parenthood-tissue-procurer-abortion-clinic-testimony">human atrocities</a> of fetal organ harvesting in the <a href="https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/2015/07/planned-parenthoods-top-doctor-praised-by-ceo-uses-partial-birth-abortions-to-sell-baby-parts/">taxpayer-funded abortion industry</a> for years. Now, because the problem has sadly persisted, I’m trying to help grieving parents track down the infant daughter they lost to this heinous system.
<a href="https://dailycaller.com/2026/06/16/kearns-father-clementine-david-daleiden-abortion-baby-organ-harvesting-cherry-hill-womens-center/">Medical records</a> from a taxpayer-funded abortion clinic in New Jersey point to a baby being delivered alive at over five months’ gestation in March 2024 — and then handed off to a shadowy fetal organ harvesting company called <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13313504/#sec10">Cercle Allocation Services</a>. The baby’s father was on long-distance probation. The baby’s mother was having a panic attack, coerced by the clinic, and under the influence of mind-altering substances. The abortion clinic gave her a massive dose of labor-inducing drugs the morning of the procedure. But the clinic intentionally did not administer anything to cause “fetal demise” — to kill the baby — beforehand.
The clinic knew they were funneling her and her baby into their “research” program with Cercle. But they only made her aware of that when they shoved a “donation” form at her while she was having contractions and being wheeled into the operating room. The documents show time intervals and steps in the O.R. that, according to former abortion providers, leave barely one minute to get the baby out during what is <a href="https://www.ucsfhealth.org/care/treatments/surgical-abortion-second-trimester">normally</a> a <a href="https://www.uclahealth.org/medical-services/obgyn/family-planning/patient-resources/surgical-abortion-second-trimester">15 to 30 minute</a> extraction. They recorded no use of the normal forceps instruments. And then they handed the baby — named Clementine by her post-abortive parents — off to Cercle.
The <a href="https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/2026/05/new-documentary-what-happened-to-clementine-a-baby-trafficked-for-organ-harvesting/">new investigative documentary</a> “What Happened To Clementine?” tells the story in detail, with family interviews and medical expert insight on the evidence recovered so far. There is more work to be done, and multiple federal agencies with jurisdiction have been asked to intervene.
Readers likely remember the groundbreaking <a href="https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/cmp/investigative-footage/">undercover videos of Planned Parenthood</a> — the biggest taxpayer-funded abortion business in the country — callously negotiating the harvesting and sale of aborted baby body parts. Breaking that story opened the door to increased public scrutiny of the government’s pervasive support for Big Abortion. It helped secure <a href="https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/hhs-bars-research-using-human-fetal-tissue-from-elective-abortions.html">federal divestment from fetal experimentation</a>, and criminal <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/08/us/politics/planned-parenthood-fetal-tissue-transfers-federal-investigation.html">investigations</a> and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-fetal-tissue-20171209-story.html">prosecutions</a> of entities engaged in fetal organ harvesting and sale. It prompted the first-ever <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2020/11/23/texas-planned-parenthood-medicaid-abortion/">disqualification</a> of abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood from <a href="https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/court-rejects-planned-parenthoods-challenge-trump-backed-law-ending-medicaid-2025-12-13/">nearly $1 billion in federal subsidies</a>, and even helped the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250881390">successful Dobbs case</a> that allowed full protection of unborn children and their families. But it also sparked severe <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/15/us/planned-parenthood-lawsuit-secret-videos.html">retaliation</a> against me and my colleagues for daring to challenge this precious golden calf of child sacrifice, precisely because of the enormous stakes involved for the industry. The more we learn about fetal organ harvesting, the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op-eds/2750560/nih-fetal-experimentation-funding-sponsors-infanticide/">more</a> horrifying and devastating the facts become for the continued viability of the entire abortion enterprise.
The abortion clinic responsible in baby Clementine’s case is the anodynely-named Cherry Hill Women’s Center, which openly advertises elective abortions on healthy moms and healthy babies up to <a href="https://thewomenscenters.com/cherry-hill-womens-center/">28 weeks gestation</a> — through the 7th month of pregnancy — making it among the top 10 <a href="https://laterabortion.org/sites/default/files/articles/lai_referrals_sheet.pdf">latest 3rd-trimester abortion centers</a> in the country. Cherry Hill receives <a href="https://thewomenscenters.com/financial-assistance/">government funding</a> through both state and federal health programs. And Cherry Hill is a prominent member of the National Abortion Federation (NAF), historically always holding a <a href="https://nationalabortionfederation.org/mission-leadership/">seat</a> on the Planned Parenthood-dominated NAF Board of Directors. Cherry Hill and NAF were both entities that sought to have their networking conversations about fetal organ harvesting and sales covered up with a <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-blocks-release-of-secret-recordings-of-abortion-conference/">federal injunction</a> against the release of half of my undercover footage.
Cherry Hill has been a registered “study site” in Cercle’s fetal organ harvesting research protocol since at least 2014. Cercle was <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13313504/#sec10">previously</a> known as Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR), rebranding in 2023. Cercle faced <a href="https://us.pagefreezer.com/en-US/wa/browse/0a7f82bb-be6e-448a-ae11-373d22c37842?find-by-timestamp=2020-12-31T08:51:59Z&amp;url=https:%2F%2Fwww.hhs.gov%2Fabout%2Fnews%2F2019%2F06%2F05%2Fstatement-from-the-department-of-health-and-human-services.html&amp;timestamp=2020-12-31T03:43:02Z">increasing</a> <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/fetal-tissue-firm-has-federal-contracts-121066">scrutiny</a> as ABR since my undercover footage exposed them as stating whole babies sometimes “<a href="https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/2015/09/planned-parenthood-baby-parts-vendor-abr-pays-off-clinics-intact-fetuses-just-fell-out/">just fell out</a>” in the operating room for them to harvest. In a <a href="https://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/2020/06/sworn-video-testimony-describes-infanticide-in-fetal-organ-harvesting-and-planned-parenthood-clinics/">2019 sworn deposition</a>, ABR/Cercle’s procurement manager Perrin Larton testified that whole babies that “just fell out” occurred with some regularity. She testified the organization’s protocol for organ harvesting was no different in these cases: “<a href="https://x.com/LilaGraceRose/status/2077850349931778088">We do a dissection to get the tissues that the researchers have requested, yeah.</a>” This is especially disturbing because unborn infants scheduled for organ harvesting cannot have <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0328595">feticidal procedures</a> done to them beforehand, so babies that “just fell out” are mostly born alive. Indeed, Ms. Larton testified that sometimes she had seen fetal hearts “beating independently” after already being cut out.
ABR/Cercle has primarily worked with <a href="https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/grassley-refers-planned-parenthood-fetal-tissue-procurement-organizations-fbi">Planned Parenthood</a> since the 1990s. The labor induction protocol that Cherry Hill used on Clementine’s mother — 600mcg Misoprostol — was heavily promoted across the abortion industry after Planned Parenthood published a <a href="https://www.contraceptionjournal.org/article/S0010-7824(05)00421-X/abstract">study</a> encouraging it in 2006. That was just a few years after the passage of the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1531">federal</a> Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. The abortion industry stood to lose a lot of fetal organ harvesting business if the partial-birth abortions that yielded whole babies were outlawed. Mandating massive doses of labor-inducing drugs for “cervical preparation” ahead of what were alleged to be “dismemberment” abortions would allow the live delivery of babies who “just fell out” to look like an accident.
Misoprostol is part of the mail-order abortion drug regimen that the abortion industry has flooded the zone with since COVID. Indeed, <a href="https://lozierinstitute.org/drug-induced-abortion-after-the-first-trimester/">Misoprostol</a> is used for labor induction in standard first-trimester medication abortion protocols to force the baby out of the mother. And Big Abortion is no longer just quietly administering labor-inducing abortion drugs to patients who come into their clinics for surgical procedures. Now, they proudly <a href="https://www.contraceptionjournal.org/article/S0010-7824(24)00060-X/abstract">boast</a> that chemical abortion drugs are the key component to expanding third-trimester abortions as well.
The medical records that Cherry Hill produced to Clementine’s mother clearly establish that the clinic transferred Clementine to Cercle, but after that, the records stop. In order to find out exactly what happened to baby Clementine — where she was sent next, what organs were taken from her, what experiments she was subjected to, and even when or if she died — we have to turn to Cercle’s records. Cercle has procurement logs, customer emails, invoices, and other documents that will shed further light on the fate of baby Clementine after she was forced out of her mother in Cherry Hill. But Cercle has refused to provide any information to Clementine’s parents.
It’s unconscionable that young people carrying preemie-age human infants can be taken advantage of in their most vulnerable moments of crisis by powerful taxpayer-funded abortion businesses. We have to get government money out of the abortion business completely. We should make our communities safe places for people to have their babies even when they are unplanned, and we must listen to survivors of abortion trauma and exploitation. King David may have felled Goliath with a single stone, but it was an entire army of Israelites that chased the Philistine horde’s influence out of their land — they certainly did not publicly fund them. It is time to shut down Big Abortion once and for all.
***
David Daleiden is the investigative reporter responsible for the 2015 undercover video series documenting Planned Parenthood leaders trafficking aborted fetal body parts. He is the founder and president of The Center for Medical Progress.

Baby Stock

The Abortion Industry Wants To Harvest Your Live Babies

"What Happened To Clementine?"

Cercle Allocation Services

Cherry Hill Women’s Center

Dobbs v. Jackson

DW Opinion

Misoprostol

National Abortion Federation (NAF)

Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act

In California, Attorney General Rob Bonta is attempting to smother two pro-life nonprofits through his threat of a $20 million fine for giving desperate mothers a lifeline after the reality of the abortion pill sets in, filling them with grief, regret, and the realization that they have wreaked havoc on the delicate balancing act that is the human body’s hormones.
While the Food and Drug Administration conducts an investigation into the safety of mifepristone, nothing has been done on the side of the Trump administration to stop states such as California from canceling those organizations that are offering women another option, a second chance.
What the nonprofits already know is that these pills are not safe; they are not pro-woman, pro-feminism, pro-anything-good. They are simply pro-depression and pro-death. The Trump administration owes much of its satisfaction and success to the MAHA movement. The attorney general’s actions are very anti-MAHA, and here’s why.
Thousands of women are being sold on chemical abortions. In 2023, 63% of over a million U.S. abortions were chemically <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/2024/03/medication-abortion-accounted-63-all-us-abortions-2023-increase-53-2020">induced</a>.
For young women around the country with an undesired pregnancy and the aversion to facing the natural consequences of their actions, two quick pills might seem like a good option. Chemical abortion on the surface feels simple. One pill, wait a day or two, another pill, a “heavy period”, and voila, all done.
But that is a lie.
Chemical abortion is not a two pills, one heavy period situation. The human body, especially during pregnancy, is sustained through a series of carefully balanced hormones. It’s like an algebra equation, one mistake and the entire equation falls to pieces. Any imbalance can lead to disastrous consequences for both mother and child, and the abortion pill is designed to create an imbalance.
The first pill, mifepristone, blocks progesterone, a necessary hormone for the pregnancy to continue. At this point, the baby is cut off from the nutrients needed to live, and the uterine lining is softened.
For the abortion to be completed, a second pill, misoprostol, must be taken. Misoprostol causes the woman’s body to induce a period, ejecting the baby from the body. After taking misoprostol, a woman can expect to experience any combination of abdominal pain, weakness, nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting while her body is forced to end the pregnancy early.
If this sounds unnatural, it is. Equilibrium is lost. The equation is imbalanced.
For the mother, going through with a chemical abortion can lead to serious consequences, such as hemorrhaging and surgery later on to remove any tissue or baby parts that remain behind. These are not one in a million cases, as over 10% of chemical abortions lead to complications. One in ten women who take the abortion pills is going to suffer for it. Some will die.
Sad as this is, there is hope during the one to two-day window between pill one and pill number two by taking progesterone. This restores the body’s supply of this hormone, leading to the life of the baby being saved in almost 70% of cases and a restoration of equilibrium in the mother. No more life-altering side effects.
Nonprofit organizations have had a hands-on role in providing the necessary progesterone to a young woman who realizes she has instigated a hormonal nightmare in her body. Nonprofits such as Heartbeat International and Real Options are now being targeted by the state of California.
Without evidence as to what these organizations are doing wrong, Bonta has threatened to fine these nonprofit organizations a debilitating $20 million for their work in promoting access to a hormone that does nothing but restore lost equilibrium to the body.
The allegation? Heartbeat International and Real Options are violating Unfair Competition and False Advertising laws.
The attorney general presents no evidence. The only thing these organizations have done is tell women that there is another option: that they can restore their bodies to their former state of equilibrium.
Studies have shown that abortion is not a simple procedure, one with an easy recovery. Women across the country find themselves in a bathroom, staring at the tiny shape of a human being on the floor while their body continues to ache and bleed, in a chair, staring at the back of a monitor that, on the other side, shows an image of a baby that is moving and growing in the safety of its mother’s womb.
If anyone deserves to be accused of violating unfair competition and false advertising laws, it would be the same people who coerce and manipulate women into undergoing a medical procedure and hiding the side effects, the same people who advocate for the mutilation of children outside the womb.
Politicians, columnists, podcasters, and psychologists scratch their heads, asking why so much of the population is so depressed and anxious when a glaring statistic is being buried in plain sight: women who have undergone an abortion are <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3395931/#S0004">likely</a> to experience depression or anxiety, and fear that they will not be able to conceive again.
Red states throughout the country have banned the distribution of abortion drugs, but that does not stop the easy passage of drugs across state lines.
It is natural for sex to lead to the conception of a child; it is not natural to stunt that growth and flush the baby away like a parasite. Evidence shows that carrying a child has positive implications for a woman’s long-term health. Pregnancy is a healthy, natural thing. Not something that should be ended with a quick trip to the drug store.
While two major nonprofits are fighting in court over false advertising and unfair competition laws, the real false advertisers (Planned Parenthood and blue states passing out abortion pills like candy) are degrading the overall health and well-being of the country, one woman at a time. And taxpayer dollars are paying for it. Again.
***
Terry Schilling is president of the American Principles Project.

birth control pill RU-486

California AG Threatens Non-Profits With $20 Million Fine For Saving Babies And Women

Abortion Drug

Pregnancy

pregnancy centers

While Americans hang their flags and light their fireworks on July 4, our elected officials just handed Planned Parenthood a gift: our tax dollars. On the 250th birthday of the greatest nation on earth, Congress chose the abortion industry over the lives of future American citizens. On a day with so much to celebrate, we’re forced to mourn the millions left behind by this choice.
The very nation that was founded on the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has betrayed the first of those rights. Innocent children will continue to be killed while we, the taxpayers, are forced to prop up the nation’s largest perpetrator of abortion.
The irony is astonishing.
Planned Parenthood caused the deaths of <a href="https://tracking.us.nylas.com/l/c142ced763394a9887996526c1d7bba3/2/ee33f2cdb0b8e582a2efb9b8fc2cec5715fcc579686d46975b6d20a6b31b76d2?cache_buster=1782221895">434,450 children</a> in the 2024-2025 fiscal year. In just one fiscal year, nearly half a million children are gone because of one American business.
Planned Parenthood has been able to do this by convincing vulnerable women that taking the life of her child will solve her “problems.”
That’s not true.
Add to these horrific numbers the tens of millions lost since abortion on demand became the status quo with the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which paved the way for Planned Parenthood to become the largest abortion operation set on dismantling the family unit.
Planned Parenthood told my then-fiancée (now wife) and me the same “better life” lie 34 years ago.
Afraid and with no one telling us life was a viable choice, we chose to end the life of our first daughter, Sarah, at Planned Parenthood. To this day, we deeply regret the decision we made years ago.
That’s why my heart is heavy today.
It’s weighed down by the knowledge that many more parents will know the grief that racked my wife and me for three decades.
Why?
In large part because the leaders who have taken an oath to protect those they’re elected to serve have turned a blind eye to the destruction Planned Parenthood is causing in their own communities.
Our story is just one out of thousands that proves how misleading Planned Parenthood continues to be.
American society has been desensitized to the true meaning and impact of abortion. Women are sold this lie that abortion is healthcare when, in reality, an abortion creates additional distress for a woman and her child.
Behind each abortion decision is a mother desperately seeking solutions to instability in her life, whether it’s related to her housing, employment, or education.
She may feel pressure from her partner, family, or friends to get an abortion.
She feels that her environment is less than ideal for raising a child.
But when mothers are asked what they would do if their <a href="https://tracking.us.nylas.com/l/c142ced763394a9887996526c1d7bba3/3/147005978930e99d90f22734a30491621b4eabda6bb024f09b817eaabf488b7a?cache_buster=1782221895">circumstances</a> were different, a majority say they would prefer to parent.
A woman who walks into Planned Parenthood is told that an abortion will offer her a better life. One that frees her from financial burdens, provides safe, stable housing, and offers the emotional support she longs for. But Planned Parenthood isn’t making any of this a reality for women. They’re only offering to end the life of a child in the name of “healthcare.” On the other hand, when a woman is given real solutions to the crises, she’s more likely to reject an abortion.
Today, our nation’s most powerful lawmakers made a choice to continue funding the destructive work of Planned Parenthood rather than standing courageously in the gap for the mothers and children preyed upon by a business that’s operating with the bottom line in mind.
American mothers deserve the best. They deserve encouragement and the promise that it’s possible to be a mom and live a life that brings joy and fulfillment.
Now more than ever, we need to stay committed to American moms and families. No matter where these women find themselves, they deserve to know the truth about abortion and the deep wounds it leaves in its wake.
The pro-life movement needs Americans to stand with us. We need to support moms who feel lonely and vulnerable. We need people who are willing to hold the predatory abortion industry accountable. Planned Parenthood won this battle, but the war is far from over. While this renewed funding slows our progress towards ending abortion, we continue to demand the complete defunding of Planned Parenthood.
All life deserves protection, just as our Founding Fathers intended. Let’s honor their vision for America by making abortion unthinkable and unnecessary.
***
Jeff Bradford, president and CEO of <a href="https://tracking.us.nylas.com/l/c142ced763394a9887996526c1d7bba3/4/d3b63ae22d170026f4fa2a70ae0b469f64bf578ea19f631b3cc6602ea1742825?cache_buster=1782221895">Human Coalition</a>, is a former business leader who built and led multiple companies before dedicating his career in 2012 to advancing Human Coalition’s mission to save preborn children and grow it into one of the nation’s largest pro-life organizations.

Hands holding a digital tablet showing an ultrasound image of a fetus in surgery room

What Planned Parenthood Told My Wife 34 Years Ago

Roe v. Wade's Long And Brutal Legacy

On July 4, 2026, American taxpayers celebrate the 250th birthday of our nation, but they&#8217;ll also begin giving money again to the largest abortion organization, Planned Parenthood. That&#8217;s unless Congress acts.
Last summer, Congress included a one-year “defund” provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The law blocked Medicaid payments to certain abortion organizations for “the 1-year period beginning on the date of the enactment” of the law, July 4, 2025. Simply put,  Planned Parenthood and similar organizations were cut off from federal Medicaid reimbursement for one year. That year is coming to an end.
Some Republican lawmakers apparently think this is a difficult political question. It is not.
The whispered argument in Washington, D.C., is familiar: It is the summer of an election year. Do we really want ads saying, “Congressman X defunded Planned Parenthood”? Won’t Democrats accuse Republicans of taking away women’s health care? Won’t Planned Parenthood spend millions telling voters Republicans are extremists?
Of course they will. That is the point. The attack ads are coming either way.
Planned Parenthood Action Fund is publicly campaigning against House Republicans over defunding. Its own press room announced a new investment of nearly $2 million to keep House Republicans from “defunding” Planned Parenthood, after a prior $1.5 million campaign on the same issue. Its 2026 endorsements page says “the stakes could not be higher,” attacking President Donald Trump and Republicans, warning that anti-abortion lawmakers want to make the Medicaid defund permanent.
Republicans face a choice. They can be attacked for defunding Planned Parenthood after actually defunding Planned Parenthood. Or they can be attacked for defunding Planned Parenthood after quietly letting the money flow again.
The first option is a fight that can be won and is good public policy. The second is political malpractice.
The case against funding Planned Parenthood does not require hyperbole. It requires reading Planned Parenthood’s own documents. Planned Parenthood is not a local charity that stumbled into politics. It is the nation’s largest abortion organization. Its 2024-2025 <a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/uploads/filer_public/6a/19/6a191461-a0ad-4ea0-8118-aa9184c24a31/digital-2025-ppfa-annualreport-c3.pdf">annual report</a> lists 434,450 abortions committed, each of which is a precious child killed. The same year, they reported $832 million in government reimbursements and grants. It also lists tens of millions of dollars spent on explicit sexual education, public policy, and advocacy expenses.
The organization says its health centers provide hormone therapy and other “gender-affirming” services. Its website lists estrogen and anti-androgen hormone therapy, testosterone hormone therapy, puberty blockers, surgery referrals, and transition support. Planned Parenthood has been described as the second-largest provider of gender hormone therapies in the United States. And they offer nothing to minors who <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/planned-parenthood-offered-hormones-had-no-answers-when-detransitioner-sought-help-undercover-probe-finds">regret</a> transitioning.
Add it up. Planned Parenthood kills hundreds of thousands of preborn children through abortion, pushes ideological sex education, provides <a href="https://www.liveaction.org/assets/1781815371-planned-parenthood-transgender-agenda-official-copy.pdf">gender-transition services</a>, and then turns around to politically mobilize against the very lawmakers debating whether to subsidize it.
This is the organization some Republicans are considering returning to the taxpayer trough.
There is a saying in politics: You cannot beat something with nothing. True. But there is another lesson Republicans should&#8217;ve learned by now: You cannot appease a political machine into silence.
If Republicans extend the defunding, Planned Parenthood and its allies will say Republicans defunded Planned Parenthood. That would be accurate. Fine. Let the argument be had honestly.
If Republicans fail to extend the defunding, Planned Parenthood and its allies will still say Republicans defunded Planned Parenthood, threatened basic care, and tried to shut down clinics. The ads will not disappear. The mailers will not be recalled. The pro-abortion activists will not send thank-you notes. The only people who will notice the retreat are the voters Republicans count on to knock doors, write checks, make calls, and turn out in ugly political weather.
That is the forgotten political cost here: base demoralization.
For pro-life voters, defunding Planned Parenthood is not the ceiling. It is the floor. It is the least a Republican Congress can do. Many of these voters have accepted that change is hard and comes slowly. They have accepted imperfect bills, narrow margins, Senate rules, court fights, and half measures dressed up as strategy. But asking them to accept nearly a billion taxpayer dollars flowing back to the abortion industry, after Republicans had already stopped it for a year, is a different thing.
Republicans should not fund their opposition.
The ads are coming. The accusations are coming. The headlines are coming. Let’s at least reap the reward while bearing the cost.
Defund Planned Parenthood and defend that defunding without flinching. Better to be attacked for taking the hill than mocked by your own voters for abandoning it.
***
Noah Brandt is the Vice President of Communications &amp; Government Relations at Live Action

IMG_8404

Defunding Planned Parenthood Is Courageous, Appeasing It Is Not

Defund Planned Parenthood

Republicans

“Can you help me?” I asked over the phone.
Many conversations occurred, but the response was the same.
“No.”
At first glance, I may seem like an unlikely candidate to conduct an undercover investigation, but as the victim of cross-sex hormones and radical ideology, I feel it is my duty to help expose facilities such as Planned Parenthood.
In April 2026, <a href="https://www.liveaction.org/">Live Action</a> asked me to investigate the organization, known mostly for performing over 400,000 abortions per year. What many don’t know is that Planned Parenthood also specializes in providing dangerous cross-sex hormones, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfoZCtbvdhM">often to minors</a>, without any oversight.
This has become a lucrative business for them. On their website, they state that Planned Parenthood is “proud to provide gender-affirming care” such as hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and social and legal transition support.
But what if you want to de-transition? That’s what I wanted to find out.
Live Action’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMk6wPMp1Sc">latest undercover investigation</a> reveals the truth about Planned Parenthood’s ruthless one-way pipeline that aggressively pushes vulnerable people, including minors, into abortion and “gender-affirming care,” but abandons them when they experience regret, complications, or a desire to reverse course.
Up until last summer, this was paid for by the American people, and if Congress doesn’t extend the one-year defunding measure that was put in place, the destruction will continue on our dime. Taxpayers should not subsidize this evil. Congress and the Trump administration must extend the defunding of Planned Parenthood before the current restrictions expire on July 4, 2026.
Picture this: You’re scared, you’ve made a mistake, and you want to take it back. So you call the only place you think can help.
“Hi. Do you have services to reverse any of the side effects of cross-sex hormones?”
I called Planned Parenthood facilities all over the country. From New York to Alaska, from Idaho to Washington, D.C., the answers were similar. “We don’t provide those services,” and “I don’t have any information on that.”
The responses revealed a troubling pattern. While Planned Parenthood promotes pathways into gender transition, facilities were unable or unwilling to provide any support to detransition. When pressed about other side effects, such as infertility or surgical consequences, they provided nothing.
A few years ago, I went through a similar scenario, and these calls brought back the pain, fear, and helplessness I felt. What a horrific experience for young people to go through. First, they are told this will help them, but when it fails, there is no one to pick up the pieces.
This reaction isn’t surprising and parallels exactly how Planned Parenthood approaches abortion. Decades ago, when Live Action’s Lila Rose went <a href="https://www.liveaction.org/video-series-investigations">undercover</a> at Planned Parenthood facilities, the results were the same. They don&#8217;t provide healthcare. Instead, they prioritize profit over true care.
Planned Parenthood pushes abortion as the only option for women in crisis, often sending them home to commit the abortion alone. Take the life-altering experience of <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reels/DYA1F4kRllm/">Shanyce Thomas</a>, who, after taking the abortion pill at home, returned to the office with severe physical pain, only to be turned away. Days later, Shanyce contracted sepsis, almost dying in a nearby emergency room.
Planned Parenthood has established an evil pattern with its patients. Instead of “do no harm,” they harm and then do nothing. Yet before the defunding, this organization received over $800 million in taxpayer money.
That’s why we must act now. American taxpayers should not fund child abuse or the destruction of preborn children. I urge Congress and President Trump to extend the defunding of Planned Parenthood quickly and indefinitely. America must protect the vulnerable rather than fund those who profit from harming them.
<a href="https://www.liveaction.org/defund-planned-parenthood-2026">Defund Planned Parenthood</a> now.
***
<a href="https://www.instagram.com/chooocole/?hl=en">Chloe Cole</a> is a detransitioner, speaker, and influencer focused on exposing the abuses of childhood gender transition, debunking radical ideology and igniting optimism.

Menu