Jacob Barr discusses with Jennifer Mayer her transformative journey from pro-choice to pro-life, emphasizing the complexity of abortion and the need for understanding and support.
Summary
This is Jacob Barr, and I want to share with you an insightful conversation I had with Jennifer Mayer on the Pro-life Team Podcast. Jennifer, originally from upstate New York, served in the Air Force as a nurse and now lives in Texas with her family. Her journey from pro-choice to pro-life is both moving and educational. Growing up in a church that rarely discussed abortion, Jennifer initially leaned towards pro-choice, especially in cases of rape or incest. However, her perspective began to shift through personal experiences and deeper understanding of the issue.
Jennifer shared powerful stories about her friends who underwent abortions, highlighting the physical and emotional toll it took on them. These experiences, combined with her medical background, led her to question the portrayal of abortion as a simple healthcare choice. She emphasized the importance of acknowledging the humanity of the unborn and the often-overlooked consequences for the women involved.
Through prayer and research, including the work of Lila Rose and Abby Johnson, Jennifer’s stance on abortion transformed. She now works as a nurse stenographer at a pregnancy center, helping women understand the reality of their pregnancies and offering support. Her faith plays a significant role in her work and personal growth.
Jennifer’s story is a testament to the complex nature of the abortion debate and the power of personal experience in shaping our views. It’s a reminder of the need for compassionate dialogue and support for women facing unplanned pregnancies.
**Hashtags:**
#ProLifeJourney, #FromProChoiceToProLife, #FaithAndChoice, #AbortionDebate, #PregnancyCenterSupport, #WomenHealth, #PersonalGrowth, #LifeChangingStories, #CompassionateCare, #UnderstandingAbortion
Transcript
The transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.
Jennifer Mayer :
Ok, hello, my name is Jennifer welcome to the Pro-life Podcast with my interview with Jacob as we talk about my journey from being pro-choice to pro-life and my work here in San Antonio, texas as a nurse stenographer.
Jacob Barr :
So Jennifer, welcome to the pro-life Team Podcast. I’m excited to have you on here. Would you introduce yourself to, yeah, to those who are listening, which might be like pro-life Leaders or preclinic directors?
Jennifer Mayer :
Yes, no problem my name is Jennifer. Just a little bit about me i’m from upstate New York originally. And the short end of that is I joined the military that’s why I live down here in Texas now, OK and so my background basically, as far as the pro-life movement is concerned, I did start out, you know, in a kind of a Christian home environment, I was going to church and everything, but we attended a church that didn’t really talk about abortion. I’m sure that’s not a news story to a lot of people, but unfortunately for me, not talking about abortion very much or not really knowing much about it, I kind of lean towards the pro-choice side of matters. If I heard about somebody having an unplanned pregnancy, especially in cases like rape or incest, I immediately felt that, well, maybe they should terminate the pregnancy that might be a better option for them. So that’s kind of where I started. And then there was a long transformation, if you will, that had happened over the course of my lifetime. So from upstate New York, originally moved down here to Texas active duty Air Force nurse. My medical background has a little bit to do with that story. And yeah, I live down here now with my husband, Jeff he’s a San Antonio firefighter and I have a daughter named Savannah and she’s three years old.
Jacob Barr :
Awesome yeah. So yeah so tell us your story of going, you know, tell us about that transition of going from pro-choice or OK with abortion to being pro-life or against abortion.
Jennifer Mayer :
Yes, I really like how you worded that just now, because back then, if you had asked me are you pro-life or pro-choice i would say, well, I’m pro-life you know, But really I was OK with abortion. That’s the truth of the matter. I made exceptions in my mind and I didn’t even realize I was doing it at the time. And, you know, I guess you don’t really know what you stand for, what you believe until it is the situation’s in front of you, so to speak so I would say I didn’t really start looking at the issue until I was a young teenager, I’d say about 15 years old. And you know we’re in high school and of course I grew up in upstate New York if for those of you who don’t know, it’s a very, it leans a little bit more liberal left-leaning as far as, you know, our policies, our laws, how we look at things. Abortion was seen as like the, you know, human right or women’s right. It was described as healthcare, things like that. So it was very easy to mesh into that culture even if you were going to church. The sad part of that is the church never really talked about it, at least the church I was going to. I know that they, it was a smaller church they might not have seen as many scenarios that had to do with abortion. And so that being said, I had a friend, let’s call her Kelly i’m going to change people’s names here, just for the sake of privacy, of course. Very good friend of mine we’re only 15 want to say fourteen fifteen years. Old and, unfortunately you know, she did become pregnant. And I was the one of the first people she told. And when she told me that, I was shocked. I just, i remember freezing when she told me that and I didn’t even believe that it was true i thought she was joking or something. And she said no, I really AM and she showed me the test and all I can think of was, Oh my goodness, we’re 15 years old like, I can’t imagine if that were me, what would I do? And that thought really kind of disturbed me, actually, because my first gut instinct was if that were me, I would get rid of it, right i’m scared to death my parents are going to kill me. I’m never going to be able to go to college. All of that kind of stuff, you know, goes through your head. And she actually told me those exact words she’s like, I can’t do this i can’t be a mom right now. You know, my boyfriend and I, we’re not even really together. I don’t think he wants to be a dad i’m not ready. My parents are going to kill me, that kind of thing. And so she went forward and went to an appointment at Planned Parenthood. And that’s when I realized, oh, this is really real she is pregnant. She did go to Planned Parenthood. She took her boyfriend with her. She said that the experience was really strange she said that she had to get an ultrasound at Planned Parenthood to verify that there was actually a pregnancy that needed to be terminated. And she said when she laid on the sonogram table on the exam table, the nurse or stenographer, I’m not sure. But they had the screen turned away from her and she couldn’t see anything. And as they’re doing the scan, she asked them, like, hey, can I see what’s going on there? And the stenographer turned to her and said, actually, I’m not allowed to show this to you, which I found very interesting you know, Fast forward to now the fact that I know that now I’m like, oh, that’s actually not pretty sure that’s not legal. But she told her, I’m not allowed to show this to you but what I can do is print you a picture and I’ll tear it off underneath the table here and I’ll hand it to you underneath the table so nobody knows because she’s I, she said my manager will, I can basically get in trouble for showing you this photo. So she took that photo home and of course she shows it to me. And I didn’t know much about Embryology back then. You know, thinking back to the photo, it’s just like a black square and I saw like a little circle on there and I’m like, I don’t know what you’re even showing me, you know? And she told me she goes, no, Jenny, this is my baby. So even then, both of us leaning pro-choice at the time, in that mindset, we both knew we were looking at a human life here, even though it looked like a tiny little circle and whatnot. We didn’t even really understand what we were looking at, but we acknowledge both of us, this is the human life. And so she did go on to go to an appointment she did a chemical abortion basically where you take 2 pills, Mithapristone, and then take a second pill, mister prostyle, to expel the pregnancy. When she went through that process, it was horrendous she would not stop throwing up. She could not stop bleeding. The only people who knew were myself, her boyfriend, maybe another person her parents did not know, and it got to a point where she was throwing up so badly and bleeding so badly, I thought something’s wrong here i think we need to get you to a hospital. And I was getting ready to call her mom and tell her please, like, I’m sorry we lied to you but you know, my friend Kelly’s having an abortion and I think she’s going to bleed to death, that kind of thing. Luckily, that did not happen. Her bleeding did subside but I can tell you to this day, she has never been the same ever again. And that was, that was probably the biggest interaction I had with abortion at that time. And in my gut, I knew it was wrong. I knew it was wrong but I still rationalize that I’m like, no, she’s too young her boyfriend doesn’t want anything to do with it. The baby will have a bad life. I just made all these excuses, you know? And you know, that was probably one of the first things that I encountered. I had another friend, we’ll call her Ashley. She was a rape victim. This poor girl, only 14 years old. She was raped by some of her siblings, older siblings a friend of theirs did rape her and she became pregnant. And again, it was another situation where I felt like she was too young. You know, the rapist, this person who raped her was a drug addict. I just, I rationalized it in my mind and I thought, well, maybe this is the best thing for her. She ended up having to have a surgical abortion. And I believe she was well into her second trimester already. And after her procedure, I was not there, but two of my other friends were there. And they said that they literally had to carry her out of the facility because she was so weak, couldn’t even walk. And even back then now I’m not in nursing school yet, right? I’m getting ready to go to nursing school. But even back then, I thought to myself, gosh, you know, i thought Planned Parenthood was a medical facility i thought that they would take care of a patient if somebody’s too weak to walk, wouldn’t they do something for her? That was another red flag to me so that was, you know, both abortion encounters I had at a young age ended up in serious red flags for me i started really looking at this and I thought, is this really healthcare? We know this is a human and they’re not even treating the women properly after they’re having these procedures. And it just seems downright dangerous to me. So that was the other experience with it. And so, you know, I go to nursing school, I went to nursing school straight out of high school and I started to just kind of pay attention a little more in my biology classes and all of that. And we did have to do some OB rotations, and we did have to care for some patients who did indeed get an abortion but they needed hospitalization because their outcome did not turn out so well either it was too much bleeding or an infection, something like that. And of course, growing up, being told abortion is safe, I keep seeing all these scenarios where I’m like, no, I keep seeing all these terrible things happening something’s not adding up here i feel like I’m being lied to and so call it divine intervention i started praying about it, actually. I was like, Lord, I feel like there’s more going on here and I need to know the truth. And right around that time, another person, a cousin of mine, became pregnant. We’ll call her Sandy. And this time around, I changed my mind on it and I said, Are you sure you want to do this again she was young, 16 went and got her adoption information i found a crisis pregnancy center right there in Ithaca, new york. That crisis pregnancy center was actually located not very far from the Planned Parenthood, so I was able to find it very easily. Planned Parenthood in Ithaca is located right near low income housing. It’s not far from the colleges you have ithaca College, Cornell University is strategically located in a place where people who are in panic mode, especially young students and young people, can go quickly to get their problem taken care of. And this was just, it was just everywhere. So anyway, I tried and tried with her to have her reconsider this idea of having an abortion. She did not listen to me she went forward with her abortion. And again, it’s another scenario where she has never, she’s never been the same ever again. There was another cousin who had another. I know it’s a lot of stories, it’s kind of a lot but they all did play a certain role. She had an abortion as well in that situation, finances were really strapped, the father of the child one and nothing to do with it. And so instead of pleading with her that time, I was kind of a bystander. And what I mean by that is I kind of stood back and I didn’t really say much of anything because this particular, in this particular scenario, my cousin knew what I tried to convince my other cousin to do, and she didn’t want to hear it. And I just, you know, looking back on it, I wish I was still brave and just said what I said to my other cousin to try to convince her. But I didn’t. And to this day, I definitely regret that even if she were to get mad at me, I wish I would have tried to convince her to keep the pregnancy. So anyway, all those things happen i start praying and lo and behold, I am at my grandmother’s house one day i’m sitting on the living room floor. I look up and I somebody’s being interviewed on the news and I realize now it’s Lila Rose. And Lila Rose, I believe, was going to school for some kind of investigative journaling or something at the time. And she posed herself as a young, I believe, 14 young girl seeking an abortion at a Planned Parenthood facility. She told them that her boyfriend was much older than her, certainly a statutory rape situation. Not only was the statutory rape not addressed, it was covered up. They told her to lie on her paperwork. And that scenario right there rang. It just brought back memories of my friend that was raped. And I thought to myself, Oh my goodness, this isn’t just A1 case scenario this is happening all over the country, not just in New York it’s happening in California. There’s something wrong with this for a facility, especially a facility like Planned Parenthood, to be coaching women to lie on their paperwork. And so I started looking into Lila Rose’s work, and that led me to Abby Johnson. I’m sure you’ve heard of her before. And she talked about her experience being a Planned Parenthood director and all the things that she experienced. That was all very profound to me, but was the big one. The big thing that changed my mind was when I came across a video by doctor bernard Nathanson was one of the founders of NARAL, as you probably already know, and he narrated A ultrasound guided abortion and he talked about what a surgical abortion actually is. And he went through it step by step. I watched that video. Now I am well into nursing school i already have my RN at this point i’m going for my bachelor’s degree i’m getting ready to Commission in the Air Force. And I saw that video and I thought to myself, OK, that’s it, Abortion is wrong in every single case. It was just so disturbing, those images that I saw and it’s so common i believe that baby in that video, The Silent Scream is what it’s called. I believe it was somewhere between 14 and 16 weeks gestation. And I just thought to myself, this is completely inhumane. It changed my mind completely so I went from being pro-choice to becoming more pro-life but silent about it, to being full on pro-life and speaking about it to anyone that will listen. So those were probably the biggest things that happened in my life that made the change.
Jacob Barr :
Wow, so looking back at your story, what are, what are your thoughts on when it comes to God’s fingerprints in that story or where do you see God? How God has brought you know, where, where? Where do you see God’s fingerprints in your story or what where do you, where did you highlight in regards to that question?
Jennifer Mayer :
I would say that it wasn’t until I started praying to have that God started to real reveal to me the truth. And, you know, it wasn’t like I said, it wasn’t until I encountered people who were actually going through abortion that I even started even thinking about it wasn’t like these things were happening to me directly. So I never paid much attention. And then once it started, I started seeing people around me and all the destruction that it was causing, I was like, wait a minute, I feel like I’m being lied to here. So I started praying to God about this. And very quickly, he revealed the truth to me. I saw that interview on television with Lila Rose and the testimony of Abby Johnson, all of them, and not only did their testimonies ring true to me, I’m like, yes, this makes sense this is why this seems so evil to me, But also everyone else’s faith, everyone else who came to faith through this as well. I know that Abby Johnson and Doctor Bernard Nathanson, all of them, had to reckon with God about this at some point, and I felt the same way after I watched that video of the silent scream by Doctor Bernard Nathanson i was on my knees, just bawling my eyes out, asking God to forgive me for being a bystander, for not speaking up for life When I when I read in his word that he knit us together, he knew us before we were even born. He has a plan for every single life out there even if the circumstances around the conception are not ideal, God still has a plan and I can see stories of that over and over, even in the Bible. I mean, Moses, he had no chance i mean you would think, you know, thrown in a basket and just down the river like that it’s like, no, he had a plan for him he had a plan for Joseph being thrown down in a pit by his brothers and sold into slavery by a caravan, not knowing where he’s going to go. This idea that we think that, well, certain human beings can live in other human beings can live because we decide their quality of life beforehand is us trying to play God and we have not relinquished that control to our almighty God. He has got it. And so that’s why I’m just, I’m so proud now because I’ve got the opportunity now to serve in a pregnancy center. That’s what I do now. I’m a nurse stenographer, and that whole story is just crazy on its own, too. How I ended up with that job. But you just, you just never know where somebody’s going to end up. So yeah, I would say that was the biggest way God’s fingerprints showed up in that whole story there.
Jacob Barr :
So yeah, it seems like the I’d like to talk, I’d like to you to speak a little more about the lies so, like when it comes to Planned Parenthood, promoting someone to lie, can you speak? Yeah, with as much clarity and focus on like can you speak to one of those lies and then maybe the next?
Jennifer Mayer :
Yes so one of the biggest lies that I’m hearing and these are clients coming in and talking with me in the pregnancy center even I could probably go on and on but the one of the biggest lies I’m hearing is that the abortion pill, the chemical abortion pill is just as safe as Tylenol. I’m going to tell you right now that is a full phase lie. I even explained to a patient if the abortion pill, let’s say that the abortion pill clinically and you know, medically is perfectly safe, let’s say you take it, There’s no risk for bleeding, there’s no risk for infection. All of this let’s talk about the psychological trauma. Do you have post abortive trauma by taking Tylenol? Do you have to grapple with the idea that you that life is ended because we’re blocking progesterone, A vital hormone to keep a human being alive So and then ultimately in an abortion, someone dies every single time that is the end goal of the abortion. And so to say that an abortion is safe is already a bold based lie because somebody will lose their life if the baby loses their life. And as well as the mother, the mother could lose their life as well. So this idea that Tylenol is, you know, Tylenol and abortion pill can be somehow equivalent. It’s just lies. That’s one of the biggest ones. I’m also hearing lies from mostly social media. What I’m seeing in some patients are coming in afraid and they will ask me is it illegal for a woman to get care if her life is in danger in those situations i’m talking about if you’re having a miscarriage or you have an ectopic pregnancy or something going on. An ectopic pregnancy for any of your listeners that don’t know what that is, there’s basically a pregnancy that does not end up implanting in a woman’s uterus. It ends up somewhere in the fallopian tubes or possibly the ovary or somewhere it’s not supposed to be. If that pregnancy allow is allowed to grow, yes, it could burst and there could be internal bleeding it could be very dangerous in those situations there is absolutely no pro-life laws in all 50 states that will prevent a medical provider from providing life saving care to that mother. But unfortunately, we still have people spreading wise that suddenly since Roby way has been overturned that women who have dangerous complications like ectopic pregnancies and so on can’t get care because it’s considered a abortion. So that’s another Those will probably be the biggest lies that I’m encountering right now.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah and I’ve heard both of those in, you know, in different scenarios where i can attest that I’ve heard those as well from the opposition. And I would also like to say so with the opposition to, you know, essentially the opposition to life or those who were, yeah, essentially trying to support abortion, it just seems to me like, so here’s a little back story and then a then a question so the attorney General of Washington is currently, yeah, they have there’s an open case they’re looking for misleading ads from Prancy clinics and essentially why. Yeah why is the attorney general of a state not looking at the lies and not to say that there yeah and then for like and for many good marketing companies we don’t use misleading ads we don’t but they’re. But all that to say is yeah these attorney General’s of a given state why? Why is there, in your opinion, why are why is Planned Parenthood and these groups who are spreading lies like saying if you have atopic pregnancy, you’re not going to get care if abortion becomes outlawed or abortion, The abortion pill is as safe as Tylenol when there’s literally a life that is being ended as a result of it reaching its goal. So yeah, why are states not filing lawsuits against Planned Parenthood or you know what? What what’s the medical case here?
Jennifer Mayer :
Wow, that’s a really good question. You know, i can’t say. I know all the answers to that the first thing that comes to mind, especially with a big corporation like Planned Parenthood, there could be a lot of intimidation there. I know that they have a lot of legal muscle. They’ve probably got funds upon funds to twist up the courts and hire someone that could eloquently continue that lie and protect them at the same time. I do personally think there still needs to be action though we can’t cower to that. The fact that Roe V Wade was overturned as evidence of this, that was David and Goliath for sure. We still need to speak up and tell the truth. It is. It is incredible though there seems to be a skewed attack towards pregnancy centers and pro-life organizations saying that we’re the liars, we’re the ones trying to trick people. I can tell you first hand that I talk with real clients that experience these things. And yes, we do talk with patients who do go ahead and have their abortion. They come back to our facilities because a lot of them need counseling and a lot of them will tell us. You guys were the only ones who told me the truth. That’s what that’s what they’re saying. We had an attorney from I want to say it is, I hope I’m not misquoting the name of the foundation i want to say it is Centers Against Forced Abortion Foundation, something like that. He was an attorney who came to our pregnancy center and he gave us some really good information there and what he does.
Jacob Barr :
Was it collects Alan Parker? Yes. Alan Parker, Yes oK, Oh, I’m so.
Jennifer Mayer :
Glad you know who that was as soon as you said the name, I’m like, Yep, that’s who it is. I don’t have the best memory sometimes. You know, he compiles stories for women who have been hurt by abortion and their testimonies are powerful. You can’t really lie about that, right if you’ve experienced something, just like myself wasn’t me that experienced the abortion but I watched my close friends and family go through this, and what they have told me they have no reason to lie about any of this. We do know, though, that places that do provide abortions, like Planned Parenthood, have a reason to lie. And that reason, in my opinion, is money. I don’t get any money for telling my side of the story and I’m sure my friends and family who’ve experienced the traumas of abortion don’t get me, don’t get paid to expose what’s really going on. So they have to lie. They have to lie there’s no way you can tell a patient, you know what, I can’t guarantee that this abortion is going to be safe and I can’t really guarantee that you’re not going to have post abortive trauma either. If they were to approach it from that perspective when educating patients and giving them informed consent, which is what a medical facility and medical providers are supposed to do, if they approached it in that way, I think there would be far less abortions i really do. A patient needs to have informed consent and know all of the risks. I can’t tell you how many people have told me that when I went to get my abortion, the doctor didn’t even talk to me. They didn’t even talk with the patient and go over the risks. As a nurse, I can tell you I’ve worked trauma, I’ve been a military nurse, I’ve worked in surgical boards and everything. An anesthesiologist or surgeon will not touch you unless they get informed consent and go through all of the risks. And then you have to sign on the piece of paper along with that position yes, I agree to this and you know, knowing the risk that I’m willing to go ahead with it, there is no way that this is not being done or that this that is being done at these abortion facilities. I imagine what might be done to skirt this in a legal way so that they’re not being sued. They’re likely listing it on a long piece of paper, probably a stack of paperwork, and telling the patient to quickly read it and sign it and get it over with. Again in my opinion, I think that is dishonest and it’s not serving the patient well that I don’t think that these women are being fully informed about what they’re doing.
Jacob Barr :
So one of the lies that I’ve heard and i think it’s incredibly dangerous is when they when someone when someone takes the first abortion pill and then they’re sent home to take the second abortion pill and they and they’re told that they have any complications to go to the and to and to not tell them that they took the abortion pill but to say something else. And So what have you heard that and what have your yeah what would you reflect on that story or what you’ve heard in that scenario and seen from what the opposition is using as this very dangerous lie to essentially not to not even communicate the truth of what’s happening medically and what someone actually did, you know with recent medic decisions?
Jennifer Mayer :
Yes, I’m so glad you brought that up. I’m so glad because this is something I recently saw. I actually saw an ad about that. It was by Doctors Without Borders, in fact, and it was coaching people to go ahead with their chemical abortion if they do have bleeding complications, to report to an emergency room. And there was literally an image like this on the ad that said you do not have to tell them this was caused by an abortion you can simply say that you think you’re having a miscarriage and nobody will know the difference that’s the verbiage they use. The medical staff will not know the difference and they will give you care. Here’s the thing about that. We just touched on the fact that they’re trying to push this narrative that the abortion pill is just as safe as Tylenol. Well, how can they really know this when their data is skewed? When you’re telling patients to go into an emergency room and lie and tell them, oh, I think I’m just having a miscarriage, well, how are they going to be able to put that into their data? How are they going to be able to research that when they don’t have the proper data about the amount of patients that require emergency services after taking the abortion pill? So that right there goes to show that they are in the in the business of lying. To tell somebody to lie about that is also making that patient participate in your lies. That’s another thing they like to do. They don’t they’re not satisfied to lie themselves. They want you to lie with them so then you can be together, I think, Doctor, what was it hayward Johnson he wrote the book The Scalpel and the Soul. He calls it the abortion distortion. He said that’s exactly what happened in medical school. As soon as they went through their OB rounds and they had some of the students had to witness an abortion process it’s like an initiation process they want you to come into the room and just watch it happen and now you’re a part. Now you’re initiated in the club, so to speak. It’s a desensitization. They want you to get used to lying. They want you to see it as normal and to be able to move on to the next step. And you know, now all those medical professionals that are providing that patient care, and I can tell you first hand, as a medical professional who has taken care of patients who’ve had complications from abortions, it is not my job to judge them. And it is not any physician or nurse in any other facility or hospital for that matter to judge a patient. It is also not a situation where that woman is going to be charged. You know, it’s not like we’re going to put you in handcuffs afterwards you know, most prudent nurses and providers want their patients to tell them the truth. This is going to give us a little more insight as to what’s going on and how do we treat that person. So yeah, I hope that answers that question, but yes, I’m glad you touched on that.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah, if you could send me a, do you have a copy of that advertisement or could you send me a link or a photo of it because.
Jennifer Mayer :
Yes, yeah.
Jacob Barr :
While you were talking, I was trying to look for it on Google and i couldn’t find it easily at least and I would really like to share that yes, I would really appreciate that.
Jennifer Mayer :
Definitely yes. I think I can find it doctors Without Borders i believe I saw it on YouTube, so I’ll go ahead and search for that and definitely when I find out.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah, because I think in the end like that needs to be shared with an attorney general who wants to because essentially what that is that’s literally that’s deception in advertising or asking someone to deceive their medical doctor in advertising. But that needs to be like that’s to me that seems like a pretty open and closed case when it comes to a response like, there’s not much, maybe not much more research needed to take action on something that’s so blatantly evil.
Jennifer Mayer :
Right.
Jacob Barr :
Boldface evil absolutely.
Jennifer Mayer :
Yes, I agree.
Jacob Barr :
So as so from with your current, you know with your current posture working at a preacy clinic, where have you seen where, how you know when it comes to working in your in your environment, where have you seen God more recently like in recent weeks or you know on a weekly basis like where how do you experience God in the work that you’re doing.
Jennifer Mayer :
Oh my goodness. Such a good question. You know, it’s going to come back to prayer again. Here’s that prayer word. It’s That’s what changed me back in the day you know, i was a Christian going to church, but I was pro-choice right? But it wasn’t until I really engaged in that personal relationship with Jesus Christ, my Creator Almighty God, in prayer, that change started to happen. And one of the things I appreciate so much about our pregnancy center is that we do not start the day and we do not see a patient until we all pray together. We pray over the day we pray over the words that we are going to speak. We pray over the patients that we’re going to see, The ones that are scheduled and maybe some that might just walk in, we never know. And we also meet every month or so to have prayer meetings so if people sit on our Board of directors or our volunteers or anybody that wants to participate, we actually go into our building and go into every room where a patient is serviced or where one of our workers will be working and just pray over that area. That God would give us the words give our patients clarity that their eyes would be opened. That the scales would fall off and they would see like, not only is this a human life, this is my baby created in the image of God. These people are here to help me. That prayer setsets the tone because as soon as those patients enter the pregnancy center, they’re not seeing us they’re not seeing Gen rN stenographer they’re seeing the love of Jesus Christ. That is what changes things. You know, the interesting thing about our pregnancy center too is we are under TPCN Texas Pregnancy Care Network. And as a medical person, I am not allowed to share spiritual content with a client unless they consent to it. And if they do consent to something like that, they do go with another person that has been trained in that aspect. But what I you know, at first I thought to myself, gosh, you know, I’m not even I can’t even share about Jesus, you know, with my patients but then I thought, you know what i don’t even need to say a word. I can still pray for this patient and I can show them Christ’s love by my actions. They’ll share their stories with me and say please don’t judge me, But, you know, I had an abortion at 17 weeks please don’t judge me but I got pregnant when I was, you know, this. And I’m like, whoa, That is not my job to judge you. I’m here to give you proper medical care. We’re gonna take your baby’s first picture today. Let’s see what we can see. You know, being able to show God’s creation through an ultrasound image is incredible. That right there is showing a patient the truth. And you know, in my Bible study recently, we just finished the book of John. And as you probably already know, in John God talks about my word is true. I am truth constantly, constantly, right. So sharing a truth, showing the truth with a patient, whether it’s you know anything about medical content or what’s going on with their body, Embryology, all of that stuff, you’re still sharing the truth. And by showing the patient true, you’re sharing Christ with them. You start to establish a relationship with that patient and that patient knows you told them the truth so now they can trust you. Now they might come back for our parenting classes or they’ll come back for counseling. Maybe they might be opening open to praying with somebody and having that person share the gospel with them. That right there is how we see God’s fingerprints is establishing trust in a Christ like relationship and being able to share the gospel with them.
Jacob Barr :
Wow, that is so good. So to tell me when you’re providing an ultrasound, what, how is your posture when it comes to the screen and when it comes to the patient being able to see the screen and what’s the conversation like for describing what is on the screen?
Jennifer Mayer :
Yes, that’s a really good question. I will say it’s the opposite from what my friend experienced. We make sure that a patient can see everything that I can see. And the way we do that, I really like the way we have it set up in our room. I have the ultrasound machine that I can see in front of me as I’m doing the scan, but that ultrasound machine is hooked up to another television on the wall opposite of the patient so while they lay there on the exam table, they can see everything I’m seeing. And you know, as I’m doing the scan and everything, I get the important images that the radiologist will need to read. And then I just tell the patient, I say, look, I’m an open book if you have a question, if you’re curious about what you’re seeing at all, please let me know. So usually the patients, I don’t really have to tell them much because they can see what’s in front of them and they’re like, oh, I know what that is. You know that’s a baby. And I could be like, yes, you’re right. If they see flickering back and forth on that screen, you know, right around here, they know that’s a heartbeat. They know exactly what they’re seeing. So if that the heartbeat is usually the coolest part, it’s just the best part ever. So not only can the patient see exactly what I’m seeing, they can look at the baby moving around in there. They can see the heartbeat. It’s just incredible we keep it really is patient centered. If the patient wants to ask questions, they can. If they just want to sit in silence in awe, they can. We leave it up to them. We do provide them just general education during that time you know what to do about pregnancy, nausea, don’t change the Kitty litter box, those kinds of things to kind of just help them understand like, OK, your body is now accommodating another human being here’s some things to help you, especially during this delicate process right. And then, you know, if the patient wants to talk about heavier things like, wow, you know, I was thinking about having an abortion how far along am I what kind of abortion would that look like? You know, if and that. And it could be different, you know, if somebody’s in their first trimester versus their second or third, those abortion procedures are different. That does give me an opportunity to explain to that patient, hey, you know, here’s the chemical abortion here is a suction abortion, here is a dismemberment abortion called AD and E and all that kind of stuff so we can go through those as well. So if you really, I really like to, I don’t like to put a check box on it. I like the patient to actually lead in that room because I can kind of tap into the Holy Spirit and say, you know what, Lord, is this person ready to hear this yet? I don’t want them to feel pushed into anything like I’m trying to manipulate them. I just show them the truth, what’s up on there on that screen and then let them start asking the questions. And it’s usually spot on the things that they’re asking me, rarely do I have a patient sometimes they’ll tell me I don’t want to see it at all. You know, I don’t. In those cases, I’m like, you know what, I’m going to shut this screen off. And that’s perfectly fine too. I always give them the opportunity if they change their mind, I can turn it back on and I always print out pictures for them. If they want to take pictures home, that tends to be a really big one as well people love to have photos. So yeah, the ultrasound room is it’s great there’s a there’s an energy in there that I can’t really explain, but it’s pretty amazing.
Jacob Barr :
So that, yeah, that sounds, that does sound amazing. I’ve got a question about the consent. So you’re mentioning a bit ago that the Texas Princeton Clinic Network required essentially has like a the rule like I guess of asking for consent before talking about Jesus or religious topics of that nature. Is that something that you say, would you like the consent or how does it how is consent offered I guess?
Jennifer Mayer :
Yeah so we, you know in our situation and again not every pregnancy center is like that ours in particular is because we do receive funding from the state of Texas and that’s the I guess the rules that they set up for us that OK, if you’re going to receive funding from us, you know you have to follow these rules it’s a separation of church and state sort of mentality, I guess, but in that, in that kind of scenario, but after I’m done in my in my position, I’m just doing the sonograms right after I’m done doing the scan, we asked the patient, you know, how do you feel about your scan, all of that how do you just feel in general? They’ll tell us, you know, i’m scared about finances, all right, You know this or that they might share with us they might not. And we do offer them. We just tell them, hey, we are, we are a whole health holistic clinic. We care about your mind, body and soul. We do offer spiritual services. We do have people here that are available to pray with you, to talk with you after this appointment is this something you might be interested in? And a lot of them say yes, a lot of them yes somebody will talk to me and pray with me. Yes, i’d love that. Some of them might even have their partner with them, might be a boyfriend or a fiance or whoever. They might even agree to it as well. And it’s just incredible to, you know, some people do have a religious background, some of them don’t. Our spiritual team just meets people where they’re at, and of course, we’re sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ to them. But even if they’re not necessarily Christians, they seem open to that and want to learn more. And so again, it’s another situation where it’s a, it’s very natural process. We keep it to where the patient is comfortable, and if they want to participate, they can if they don’t, that’s OK too they could still do our parenting classes and tap into all of our material resources and everything. So there’s not a whole lot of pressure on them to do anything. We just keep it. We just make sure they feel like the door is open if they want to walk through it and man, when they do it’s pretty amazing we’re all, we’re usually rejoicing, you know, in the background when somebody accepts Christ as their savior or something like that it’s really amazing.
Jacob Barr :
Oh, it’s so beautiful it’s that’s awesome. So as a stenographer, how many scans might you do in a given week?
Jennifer Mayer :
Oh, in a given week so in my situation, I’m only there twice a week. So take that into account, right? On a busy day, I’m probably because we only have one machine and I’m and I’m the only one who does the scans but we’re a, we’re a smaller facility. On a given week or a given day, it could be anywhere from like 4 to 6 scans. So in the week it could be 12, about 12 week on the high end. What’s really interesting to me is they’ll be dating, they’ll come in and I’m thinking it’s going to be really busy and it’s not. And then the next day I come in and you know you’ve got two people in the schedule, but then you’ve got three people who walk in it’s just it’s really interesting how that happens. You know, our medical director reminded me, you know what god, God’s going to bring in here who he wants to come in here. So I’m like, OK, well, that makes sense you know, I can’t really predict it very well. But whoever does come in, we just focus in on that person and, you know, make the most of it. So and you know, I was reminded not too long ago, don’t despise small beginnings, right we’re just a tiny little pregnancy center with one ultrasound machine and one stenographer. But you never know that could very well expand and I would love to see that happen. The facility that I trained at actually had, I want to say they had two or three machines and three stenographers, you know, and that was they were really busy. So depends on your location and everything but yeah, I would say at the most about 12 scans a week that we’re doing.
Jacob Barr :
So when it comes to getting like feedback on what’s in the scan, what, how do you currently you know if you if you have a question about what you’re seeing in the scan, how you know? Who do you currently reach out to ask for their opinion or for feedback on something that maybe you’re thinking I I’d like to get a second pair of eyes on this.
Jennifer Mayer :
Yes. Oh, it’s such a good question. So we have an amazing radiologist. He volunteers his time to read all of our scans and we’re not the only clinic he reads actually he reads a few of them. He is so ready and available anytime I have a question about anything and I probably call him too much, but I’d rather err on the side of caution than you know. So if I ever have a question about something maybe I’m not sure if I’m seeing a sub chorionic hemorrhage or something you know a bleeding complication or hey, does this you know this person might be a higher risk for ectopic pregnancy can you look at this or anything at all? I can page him directly and he calls me right back. The other nice thing is when I when I do a scan, he reads it the same day, he reads the images the same day, and I have an ultrasound report the next day, which is incredible. So I’m able to call patients pretty much right away afterwards. It’s also a very nice way to touch point with that patient again because some patients just come in, all they want is an ultrasound you know, they weren’t planning on coming to see us again or do parenting classes. They just haven’t really thought about it and think about it, think it through. So what? It’s a nice opportunity for me because I can read our radiologist report and I can call that patient back and say, hey, you know, it’s Jen from, you know, this pregnancy center. I’ve got your report here and then I can just ask him, how are you doing can we help you with anything have you thought about doing our parenting classes, that kind of stuff. So that process I feel really good about. Our doctor has got years of experience he’s taught at Care Net i don’t know, I’m pretty sure you were at Care Net conference this past time around. He taught a few of the classes there and I was there as well and just an amazing wealth of knowledge. He’ll even come and visit our clinic sometimes and he will sit down with myself and our nurse manager and just go over images and kind of teach us more about what is the normal placenta what does the bleeding complication look like what does an ectopic pregnancy look like? How are we going to address if we think a patient has an ectopic what do we do from there? So any emergency situations, we really stay well trained up on that. And I’m just, I don’t know the whole training process and the people supporting me, it’s incredible. We also have our medical director, of course, just for any in General Medical questions we might have and the team that trained me at another pregnancy center about, I’d say it’s about 30 minutes away from us more in the city of San Antonio towards that area. That nurse manager and their two stenographers are always a phone Callaway as well so I can always call them and say, hey, my machine’s doing this, Can you help me with this? You know, any kind of questions I have and they’re so quick to just answer any questions and very supportive so it’s just it’s really nice and really refreshing to work with people like that.
Jacob Barr :
That’s so good. Well, so I guess before I ask you to sort of pray at the end of this podcast, I’d like to what do you have any final thoughts that you’d like to share that you would really just encourage other people to know or you want you want them to know or it might be an encouragement what yeah. What final thoughts do you have?
Jennifer Mayer :
Yeah so I would one of my two things come to mind the first thing is this overturning of Roe V Wade has been huge, and I think it’s been bigger than people anticipated. I think that they felt that abortion being as legal as long as it has been, people just kind of accepted it. And I was born into it, right i didn’t know a world without it until this, you know, was it June of 2022 right. And So what I would say is really kind of examine yourself on this topic because back in the day when I was a young teenager, I have to admit I was pro-choice And I know there’s a lot of radical stories about their people have these, like big stories like I used to be a, you know, I used to protest on the streets and I was pro-choice and then I radically had this conversion not everybody’s story is like that. But even if your story is not like that, it’s still very important to think about these issues of the way you approach these issues in life are going to have big implications on our culture. And you don’t have to go on and be this big star or even become a stenographer or something like that. Praying to our Lord about this in raising up our families and teaching our children about the value of life is going to have a profound impact on this issue. You know, Roe V Wade wasn’t stated because we had a major cultural problem here we had a spiritual that was a spiritual disaster for our country. The only way we are going to avoid this from coming back into fight against it, even now, because we have a lot of work to do, is to train up our children to value life, to love God, to protect the innocent. That would be my probably my biggest advice right there. And my other thing is don’t if you are. If you feel like you’re being called into the pro-life ministry in any way, shape or form, whether you’re a nurse that wants to do sonograms or you’re a stenographer at a hospital and you’re thinking about helping out a local pregnancy center, you want to start a single moms group in your churches. You want to engage the men in your community to get involved. Whatever that looks like. Don’t be afraid take that first step forward and do it. You won’t regret it. Pray about it, of course 1st. And be sure that this is something that God is calling you to do, but this is the time is now for such a time as this, if this is what you think you’re being called to do, absolutely. I just want to encourage you to go ahead and do that.
Jacob Barr :
Oh, that’s good. So I’ve got, actually, I’ve got two more questions before we end. So one question is with the Hippocratic Oath, I think i think the Hippocratic Oath went away with Roe because how can doctors vow to not end the life of a patient right when abortion was, well, yeah, legal across the country with Roe versus Wade maybe. And So what are your thoughts on a post row Hippocratic Oath coming back?
Jennifer Mayer :
Yes, Amen. So that’s a very good one and Hippocratic Oath and you know, I’m speaking to physicians more specifically with that i also want to speak to nurses as well. We fall under, in my opinion, what we call the Florence Nightingale pledge. And at the very end of that pledge it says I will not knowingly give a harmful drug, right. Well, we know that mifepristone is a harmful drug it ends a life. And so I want to my message to nurses out there, please adhere to that Florence Nightingale pledge that most of us had to say when we got pinned during our ceremony to become nurses. If you want to hold up that value, that life affirming value and the spirit that Florence Nightingale started during that time, that’s something we really need to look at and uphold to not give a harmful drug. The same for a Hippocratic oh, if you are not to do a patient harm, this includes the little patient in the womb during when Roe V Wade was legal. I personally believe that as a physician, if you were performing these abortions, you basically had to push that oath to the side and violate that oath. And again, there’s that abortion distortion, right? Participate in the lie. If you can participate in the little lie or pushing an oath to the side, now you can jump to something even more serious and more dangerous right before you know it now you’re doing a bunch of abortions, you know, all week long. So it’s, you know, this kind of stuff starts small and then it grows and grows and grows until it becomes mainstream and everybody’s looking around at each other saying, well, abortion’s normal it’s healthcare. I can assure you it didn’t all start that way. It wasn’t considered normal or healthcare before all of this got started with Roe V Witt. And so I would definitely say now that we are in a post row environment, my challenge to doctors and nurses is to uphold the original intention for that Hippocratic Oath and that Florence Nightingale pledge. These are good things that we need to be paying attention to. As practitioners, if you want to provide good care both to the woman and the child, you have to uphold these things and be an advocate for that if you see that those oaths are being violated. But as the doctor and nurse speak up, speak up to your leadership, talk to your Co workers about this, make them think about it as well. Some people don’t even realize what they’re doing until you put it in front of them. So that’s probably the way we’re going to have to continue this fight as medical professionals. We need more medical professionals to stand up i really like the pro-life doctor i don’t know if you met him at Care Net as well. All the things he had to say, It was, it was wonderful it was just, it was refreshing to see that because I’m like, here is another physician who understands this oath, who is standing up for life and is not afraid to speak to other medical professionals and others about this. That’s what we need people strong in their convictions to speak up. So yeah, that’s probably my answer to that one.
Jacob Barr :
Sure no, that’s good. So my last question is, so in Texas with abortion, surgical abortion being not legal anymore for many months now, what does the fight look like in Texas is it, you know what and also, when it comes to the abortion pill being shipped and mailed to an address in Texas and turning someone’s bathroom into an abortion clinic, what is it you know what world do we currently have going on inside the state of Texas?
Jennifer Mayer :
So, and then, you know, I’m glad you asked that because I’ve had people tell me, well, Texas is good now you guys don’t have to worry about that issue anymore and I thought to myself, our work has just begun because now that Roe V Wade is overturned, essentially it’s placed a trigger law here in Texas where abortion is essentially outlawed in every circumstance. And so that being the case, we are still seeing patients come to our clinics. They either don’t know the law, they’re not understanding the law or they’re planning to go to neighboring states to complete their abortions. So it is our job Now what I’m seeing mostly in the pregnancy care center world here in Texas is to educate these patients on accurate medical information what is an abortion? Have you been warned about all the risks? Here are some risks of traveling to have an abortion. Some of these people are traveling to neighboring states some of them are being are traveling alone and they’re taking these pills and either going back to their homes or going to a hotel room and. You know, our biggest warning to them is if you’re having a bleeding complication and you are by yourself, there is no guarantee that you could pass out and then you’d have no help or something like that. This is still not safe. Whether you’re doing it here in Texas illegally or somewhere else legally, the biology doesn’t change. It’s all the same as it was before. Abortions are not safe. They’re just not. We give them as much information as we possibly can. We’re hearing just more and more stories about their. I guess there’s some agencies that are paying for people to fly to other states to have these abortions. They are having cruise ships come to the shore and pick up patients and going out of our waters here and performing the abortions out in international water and then coming back. None of these scenarios are safe. They think they’re working around it they think you know these facilities providing this care. You know, they’re telling patients, well, we care about you, your state doesn’t do this anymore, but we do, right and we care about you but my message to that is if you really cared about a patient, you would never have them fly by themselves to take a pill to block progesterone and go in a bathroom by themselves and have to bleed and possibly have serious complications. That to me is not care, that’s not loving and they’re certainly not following up with these patients to see if they’re OK. And so a lot of that too on our side of it is if a patient does go through an abortion and they need somebody to talk to, maybe they’re struggling, they’re having post abortive symptoms, we’re there to speak to them. We are there to talk with them through it. We have post abortion recovery programs. We have another thing, it’s called Hope Mommies. These are more for like miscarriage situations but loss in general if you’ve lost the child they can have the there’s tons of programs here to help people with that. So it’s a lot of education and also educating the patients on when they need to get emergency care because not a lot of them understand that, you know, telling a patient that, oh, an abortion is going to be like a heavy period or a cycle, that’s not really giving them a good idea of what to look for there you know, bleeding is 1 complication there’s a lot of other complications there’s sepsis, meaning infection. If you’re having like a surgical abortion, there could be a puncture of your organs, internal organs, various things like that so we just try to make sure that our patients are informed and fight the legal battles here in Texas, because although it has been outlawed here, there are a lot of efforts to reinstate abortion here in the state of Texas so there is a lot of work to be done to make sure that does not happen here.
Jacob Barr :
Wow thank you so much for your i only have a longing for everyone on our pro-life team to have a similar level of passion and energy when it comes to like you know, fighting every day and to not grow weary and to keep running. So would you close out this podcast with a prayer with the expectation that those who listen will share in this prayer and call out to God? But yeah, would you just, yeah, close this in a in a prayer with that expectation.
Jennifer Mayer :
Absolutely dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this opportunity to have this interview with Jacob and I wrapped your team. Lord, my prayer is that anyone who is within the sound of my voice, that they would open their hearts in their minds to your message, and your message is truth and life lord, I pray that you would change hearts from stone to flesh, that they would recognize that innocent lives are worth protecting, whether they’re in or outside of the womb lord, I pray for any woman who’s experienced the violence of abortion, that they would be able to find comfort in your arms lord that they would be able to find people around them, whether it’s family or a pregnancy center or just information from a podcast like this, that they would receive hope, Lord, that they would have people come around them and help them with the healing process and know that there is forgiveness and hope in the name of Jesus and Lord i just pray that you would bless Jacob and his team, that you would bless anyone who listened to this podcast to stay the course, to understand their mission, to serve you Lord, and to protect innocent life. And I just pray Lord that yeah, that you would just change hearts and minds and encourage anyone who’s listened to this podcast in Jesus name. Amen