On Tuesday, September 28, I was a guest on Cassie Jackson’s podcast, streamed on Facebook. John Schmitz [FN1] was kinda on there because he’s helped Cassie w/the tech. Somehow the conversation was about women’s reproductive rights & Indiana’s laws. 1/10

I interjected that women have been harmed in Indiana because they have not been able to receive medical care necessary because of Dobson (the case that overturned Roe), Indiana’s statute that (passed soon after Dobson was handed down) and physicians’ fears of prosecution. 2/10

I did not have any cites handy. The next day I saw John’s post w/header: “Micah strikes back!” a reference to the magaGOP nominee for IN LT Gov Micah Beckwith, who was not on that show and who has refused to debate me since s/he accosted on my twitter feed in 2020. 3/10

Research on how many women have been forced to go to term w/pregnancies that resulted from rape, in the 14 States (& that includes IN) that enacted strict bans post-Dobson was published as a research letter in JAMA Internal Medicine. Estimate: 64,565. [FN2] 4/10

The research letter did not state how many women died from forced pregnancy. USA is 46th in the World in maternal mortality. [FN3] In science, studies are conducted carefully. Methodology always is reviewed and generally the fewer the variables, the more accurate. 5/10

That’s where the magaGOP crowd, w/Project 2025 & other pressures, can cripple studies. If the far right can frighten into submission physicians, hospitals and pregnant women, there will be no studies & no studies = no deaths. Right? Gun violence as exemplar. [FN4] 6/10

Yes science is tough and expensive, not like Micah Beckwith who can fabricate [FN5] her/his latest “chat” w/”God” whenever s/he needs divine authority for the latest Beckwith crap. The lies run down the magaGOP ballot. The lies oft-repeated become magaGOP “truths.” 7/10

We cannot lend validity to falsehoods, esp frequently repeated ones. That can include walking out of a room or away from a podcast. A vote for any magaGOP on the ballot is a vote for Beckwith. #BrainsNotBraun And: follow Cassie Jackson on Facebook! 8/10

Footnotes:
FN1. John Schmitz is the host of “Mouthwash,” streamed Tuesday’s at 9 pm on Facebook and is the magaGOP nominee for INCD7 after winning the party’s nomination at a meeting of Marion County magaGOP precinct committee people & their vices. 9/10

Footnotes:
FN2. JAMA Intern Med. 2024;184(3):330-332. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2024.0014
FN3. https://www. wilsoncenter.org/ event/what-explains-the-united-states-dismal-maternal-
mortality-rates
FN4. NRA $ blocked peer reviewed studies of gun violence as a health risk from 1995. See Roubein R. Washington Post. May 26, 2022. Research was stalled, but guns still killed.
FN5. “fabricate” = lie 10/10