Sinta Jimenez welcomes Haile McAnally to The Pro-Life American Podcast. Haile traveled from Nebraska to Washington, D.C. to share her experience with lawmakers and to speak about the risks women should understand when it comes to abortion drugs.

Haile describes growing up in a Christian household in Nebraska and dating someone she thought she would marry. At 19 she told him she was pregnant. He asked what she was going to do about it and hung up, and she has not talked to him since. She says she was not aware pregnancy centers existed, was not comfortable going to church, and remembers the pink Planned Parenthood signs that made it feel like sisterhood.

At Planned Parenthood she was ushered into a room with a doctor on a screen, not in person, and a nurse beside her with consent forms. No physical review was done. She was told she would take one abortion drug in the clinic and one at home, with some discomfort, cramping, and bleeding. She did not look at the ultrasound. At home, alone, she began heavily bleeding, grew weak, could not reach her phone, and thought that was how her story would end. A friend found her and called 911. She woke up in the hospital and needed a blood transfusion.

She talks about the depression that followed, wanting to stay silent, and later finding compassion, forgiveness, and a voice in church communities rather than the sisterhood the pink signs had promised. She ran for the Nebraska state legislature in 2021. In 2023 she testified for the first time, on a six-week bill brought by state senator Joni Albright, after being escorted through a hostile crowd at the Capitol.

Asked what she wishes she had known, Haile says there is hope, and that women can message her or someone at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America for resources. In Washington she calls on lawmakers to stop mail-order abortion drugs, saying a woman needs to go into a clinic and see a medical professional, and that the first step has to be the safety of women. Sinta notes that Senator Bernie Moreno released a letter asking for the end of mail-order abortion drugs.