The phone lines at Donald Trump’s campaign headquarters are clogging up with women calling in to report their periods.
‘Why?’, you ask. Well, it’s all to do with who the presumptive Republican nominee has chosen as his running mate in the US presidential election: Indiana Governor Mike Pence.
Earlier this year, Pence passed a law that required miscarried or aborted fetuses to be buried or cremated, inspiring a protest campaign called Periods for Pence.
As the campaign’s anonymous founder wrote at the time:
“Fertilized eggs can be expelled during a woman’s period without a woman even knowing that she might have had the potential blastocyst in her. Therefore, any period could potentially be a miscarriage without knowledge… Just to cover our bases, perhaps we should make sure to contact Governor Pence’s office to report our periods. We wouldn’t want him thinking that THOUSANDS OF HOOSIER WOMEN A DAY are trying to hide anything, would we?”
Hundreds of Indiana women embraced the cause, phoning, emailing and tweeting Pence to inform him about their monthly flow.
And now, with Trump’s announcement, the push has gone national.
Followers of the Periods for Pence Facebook page have been dialling Trump HQ and reporting back on their progress.
One asked where to send her used tampons for examination. Another questioned whether she needed to obtain proof of her menopause.
The Periods for Pence founder is even collaborating on complementary movement called "Tampons For Trump", which is also fast gaining traction on social media.
Pence's appointment to the Trump ticket is hardly a surprise given the presumptive Republican nominee's attitude to women's health and reproductive matters.
Earlier this year, Trump famously called for women who seek abortions "face some form of punishment", a comment which he later retracted after immense public backlash.
And who could forget the time he said journalist Megyn Kelly must have had “blood coming out of her wherever” when she grilled him during a campaign debate.
Might be time to check your voicemail, Mr Trump.
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Top Comments
Good on them, funny as
Some women can be so callous and self-absorbed. It's a lovely gesture to bury unborn babies. I would have loved to have buried my miscarried baby and had the baby recognised and honoured that way. It broke my heart to loose that baby. These women who are talking about periods are making a mock of the grief felt by women and men when miscarriage occurs, and the feelings of those who grieve over having an abortion.
As an aside, the medical community only count a positive pregnancy test as a pregnancy, and it stays on record as a pregnancy even if it doesn't go full-term. They don't count every period as a pregnancy, nor would the government as is mockingly insinuated by the social media quotes in the article above. Pregnancy, miscarriage and abortion are not experiences to be mocked.
You can't force a burial on people though. Miscarriage is traumatic. A nice gesture to offer but they don't have the right to push it on people
Its about choice, you should have had the option if thats what you wanted
Many dont for whatever reason with miscarriage and even less with abortion and should not be forced into it
It had nothing to do with being considerate to poor women, it was to add an extra cost to abortion, with the end goal of it being even more unaffordable for some
Mocking? They are upholding the law. Medically you can be considered pregnant in lots of ways, not just the pee test. indeed, if you never have a pee test and deliver a baby, are you still considered to be pregnant? Periods can be fertilised eggs, that is what women are talking about. Women's fertility and control of it are her business, not a right wing Christian nutter. Forcing women to have burials or cremations is disgusting and just another way for anti abortionists to shove this in the face of women. It is like saying, see,,,,look at this,,,,this is what you did. It is cruel, ringing up about your period is not cruel.