Free Republic

The Catholic University of America has dismissed one of its professors for bringing an abortion advocate to class to speak to students. A Tuesday email from the school’s president, Peter Kilpatrick, obtained by CNA said that the school began an investigation last week after learning of reports of an abortion advocate being invited to a class. The president said the school also learned that a student had an audio recording of the class in question. The Daily Signal, which obtained and released a copy of the recording last week, identified the psychology professor as Melissa Goldberg. “Now that we have...

Robyn Ross received the call on a Friday. With COVID-19 patients threatening to overwhelm the nation’s hospitals, her OB-GYN would be transferring to virtual appointments. “For how long?” Ross asked. For the foreseeable future.Due to deliver April 24 at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, where Virginia’s first COVID-19 case was quarantined in early March, Ross’ plan for birth care is now riddled with uncertainty.Hospitals around the nation have employed quick-response crisis policies, with visitor restrictions in most major metropolises. The decision in major hospital systems across the nation, including New York-Presbyterian, Central Illinois, Central Texas, and all San Francisco hospitals,...

A birth coach has been ‘ostracised’ by her professional organisation after transgender activists branded as offensive a Facebook post in which she said that only women can have babies. Lynsey McCarthy-Calvert, 45, was forced to stand down as spokesperson for Doula UK and has since resigned altogether from the national organisation for birth coaches. Her exit comes after transgender rights activists triggered an investigation in which Doula UK concluded her message breached its equality and diversity guidelines. They did not expel the mother- of-four, who has been a doula – who provide continuous support during pregnancy – for six years,...

A Sunday feature from the BBC highlighted a woman with a macabre career: abortion doula. The BBC interviewed Vicki Bloom, a doula who has reassured women through abortions—more than 2,000 of them. Typically, doulas aid women as they undergo the childbirth process, but in Bloom’s case, she helps women as they abort their children. “I will stand up by their head and be looking into that person’s eyes, ready for whatever they need, while the doctor is doing the procedure,” Bloom said. Some of the things that abortion doulas do involve talking with the women about their lives, holding their...

A young woman who volunteers as an assistant in the abortion industry says she was trained to be “supportive” of women who chose to have sex-selective abortions and 11-year-olds who opted to remain in a sexual relationship with their much older rapist. Alex Ronan also describes the conscious decision to lie to patients and the graphic, bloody details of her first year as an abortion doula in an article published Sunday in New York Magazine. An abortion “doula” – a Greek word that literally means “female slave” – is supposed to comfort women during the abortion procedure. The 23-year-old received...

Normally, a “doula” is a woman who assists other women with birth. But Roc Morin, writing for The Atlantic, found a “full-spectrum doula.” “On Being an Abortion Doula” was about Annie Robinson, and explored the “range of emotions involved in helping women terminate pregnancies.” Robinson told Morin that “the grief is celebratory” and that “some of the connections [with women aborting] are really joyful, and funny, and loving.” postab12To explain her attraction to her work, Robinson detailed how “I’m really interested in loss and grief.” She acknowledged that “Even if the grief is celebratory, it still is grief and it...

“She was chit-chatty at first,” began full-spectrum doula Annie Robinson, describing one of her first clients. “She didn’t seem anxious, didn’t seem like she particularly had much to say. And then, the [abortion] procedure began and I stood beside her, holding her hand, and she went into this other zone. She turned to me and just started going back in time to when she was six years old, eight years old, just telling me these horrific stories of sexual violence—abuse that her body had been subject to. It was astounding to witness—to feel palpably how the body holds memory—holds trauma....

Jenny Hatch: Aunt and Doula to my nephew Jonah a few hours after he was born. I had just given him a massage! This article in the New York Times really dissed the whole idea of hiring a doula, so I thought I would chime in with a Defense of the Doula. QUOTE: "Then “she urged my husband and me to take a shower to ease the pain,” Ms. Myers said. “I told her I didn’t want to, but she was adamant.” Dripping wet, freezing and in bone-shattering pain, Ms. Myers said she seethed in silence. When she ultimately chose...