Contemporary Authors

• The Doulas! Radical Care for Pregnant People Feminist Press (New York, NY), 2016

1. The Doulas! : radical care for pregnant people LCCN 2016015027 Type of material Book Personal name Mahoney, Mary, author. Main title The Doulas! : radical care for pregnant people / by Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell. Published/Produced New York : The Feminist Press, 2016. Projected pub date 1111 Description pages cm ISBN 9781558619418 (paperback) CALL NUMBER RG950 .M33 2016 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms

• From Publisher -

  Lauren Mitchell, M.S., has been working to change the culture of medicine for the better part of a decade. In addition to being a full-spectrum doula and founder of The Doula Project, she is a certified Gynecological Teaching Associate, teaching medical and nurse practitioner students to be able to perform gentle, patient-centered physical examinations, and a teacher of literature and the humanities in medical school settings.

  As a co-coordinator of the Reproductive Choices Service of New York City's largest public hospital, she has been able to infuse an extremely medicalized system with compassionate patient care. She is a graduate of the Narrative Medicine program at Columbia University, and is currently pursuing a PhD in medical humanities at Vanderbilt.

  Lauren is a well-known and established speaker and trainer in the fields of reproductive justice and medical humanities, and has presented for a wide variety of organizations including NAF, NAPW, the Abortion Access Network, NOW (National and Regional Summits), FemSex, Hampshire College, Columbia University, the Barnard Center for Research on Women, among many others.

• Feministing - http://feministing.com/2016/12/07/the-feministing-five-mary-mahoney-lauren-mitchell-of-the-doula-project/

  QUOTED: (Lauren) "Our concept of the book went through several iterations before we landed on the “creative non-fiction”/oral history genre. We were approached by longtime friend, supporter, and mentor, Jennifer Baumgardener to consider writing a book when she became the director of The Feminist Press at CUNY. Initially, we were interested, but concerned: how would we do justice to The Doula Project, as a whole? Yes, we’re founders, but the organization grew because of a communal effort and a lot of compassionate energy from a number of people, not just us."

  By Senti Sojwal • @senti_narwhal • 5 months ago
  The Feministing Five: Mary Mahoney & Lauren Mitchell of The Doula Project

  In 2007, New York City-based reproductive justice activists Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell founded The Doula Project, the first full spectrum doula organization that supports people across the spectrum of pregnancy outcomes. Based upon the idea that everyone deserves nonjudgmental, compassionate physical and emotional support for abortions and beyond, The Doula Project is a volunteer-run, collectively-led organization of over fifty doulas whose backgrounds range from activism, to social work, to health professionals.

  Almost ten years later, The Doula Project has changed the way we think about doula work and the links between activism and direct service, as well as inspired doulas across the country to start their own collectives. The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People, a new book co-written by Mary and Lauren recently out from the Feminist Press, details the complexities and joys of doula work and the life and evolution of the organization. It is a vivid and gorgeously written ode to reproductive justice, intersectional feminism, and compassionate advocacy.

  For this week’s Feministing Five, I caught up with Mary and Lauren about the process of writing the book, how they’ve grown as caregivers, the meaning of their work post-election, and what makes a great doula. You can order the book here and learn more about The Doula Project on their website.

  Senti Sojwal: I absolutely love that The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People is part memoir, part storytelling, and part how-to guide on being an effective full spectrum doula. It makes for compelling, beautiful, and moving writing. How did the idea for this book come about, and what has been the greatest surprise of the process of writing this book?

  Lauren Mitchell: First, thanks so much for your kind words. We always, always appreciate them… It never gets old. Our concept of the book went through several iterations before we landed on the “creative non-fiction”/oral history genre. We were approached by longtime friend, supporter, and mentor, Jennifer Baumgardener to consider writing a book when she became the director of The Feminist Press at CUNY. Initially, we were interested, but concerned: how would we do justice to The Doula Project, as a whole? Yes, we’re founders, but the organization grew because of a communal effort and a lot of compassionate energy from a number of people, not just us. Beyond that, I was also about to change gears completely, getting ready to leave New York City–which meant leaving behind many important parts of my life–to enter academia. We had initially planned to do an anthology, but a number of people pointed out to us that… Well. There are a lot of anthologies out there, and what our publisher was looking for was something that would read as a cohesive whole. We had a really important conversation with Ann Fessler, author of The Girls Who Went Away (an incredible book for those who may not have heard of it), who talked to us about her interview process — which was in the model of “oral history.”

  Taking an oral history means making your interview open-ended. We offered our interviewees a few prompts to help them frame their story, including the question, “tell me about your life before you became a doula,” and a “sensory exercise” to help set the scene. And then we followed their lead. We created stories from the interviews. What I love about the ethics of oral history is that the story is a collaborative process — we read the stories back to the people we interviewed, which gave them the opportunity to ask for changes or edits. We followed their lead, scrapped what they were uncomfortable with, changed names, physical descriptions, story details, whatever, until they felt good about it. It’s something that was, and is, very important to us: if people are willing to be generous with their stories– and, in effect, their open, beating hearts, then yes, we have to do justice to that. And, having been thrown under the bus by a number of journalists who didn’t treat our stories respectfully — everything from quotes being taken out of context, to irresponsible dramatizing of abortions — we didn’t want to do that to anyone else.

  On a personal note, I will also say that the book was surprisingly hard for me to write. Mary and I divided and conquered, and then we both added and edited to one another’s work. Blessedly, we have a remarkably similar writing voice — even now, we can’t always remember who wrote or added what, exactly. But I dragged my feet. After leaving full-time full-spectrum doula work more abruptly than I had expected, I also inadvertently stepped away from The Doula Project’s community, and the topic of “abortion” is an acquired taste. I slowly realized I was carrying around a lot of provider trauma– something that comes out as very common in the book — that I no longer was able to process with anyone, least of all the academic community I entered. Academia also means you don’t get a lot of positive reinforcement, and after being told that my [academic] writing sucks for a year it was hard to get back on the horse. Mary and Jennifer were very loving and very patient about it. Eventually it happened, and became a coping mechanism.

  Mary Mahoney: I pushed back on the idea of this book for a while. “It’s too soon!” I kept saying. “We’re too close!” I was Board Chair at the time, bringing on a brand new Board, feeling kinda burnt out and uninspired and away from the lovely part of the work, which is the client care. I was afraid it would be difficult to be objective enough to write this book, being so mired in the day-to-day. Then I think we realized what we owed people, and what people wanted to read, was a book from our hearts. Not the story of a group of “perfect doulas,” the story of doulas who struggle with the work and are sad and frustrated sometimes. Writing this book and being kind of scared of it meant we would write with the utmost respect and love and honesty — it’s precious to us.

  I had barely written anything creative in years, and the Feminist Press wanted to see a chapter before they gave us the book deal. I remember sitting down to work on some boring spreadsheet at my job and the beginning of the chapter, Look Away, just came out of me in a rush. And I went to the bathroom and cried and was like, shit, I think this book is gonna be really fucking good. The greatest surprise of the writing process was the beautiful communion it created between us and our doulas and clients and everything and everyone we encountered that summer of writing. It really unlocked something in me that had been shut down for a long time, and I just started to notice and appreciate the beauty in everything — my senses were so heightened and we were all vulnerable in a way we don’t normally allow ourselves to be. An unbreakable bond was created between us and the people in the book. It was a really special time.

  Senti Sojwal: You speak in the book about how the mainstream pro-choice agenda seeks to paint the experience of abortion as a singular one as part of the effort to fight for reproductive freedom. Oftentimes the narrative we see about abortion from a mainstream reproductive rights group will speak of the experience as only empowering or right for someone. In reality, the experience of abortion can be so complex, and while it can be the right choice for someone, it can still be painful or shameful. What do you wish was different about how we see abortion portrayed, and how do we illustrate the nuances of the experience of abortion as we continue to advocate for people’s rights to have them?

  Lauren Mitchell: It’s a hell of a time for our book to come out, after this recent election. There are a number of ways in which conversations about abortion have been lending themselves to “gray area” spaces — in other words, nuanced spaces, where people can hold both any anguish or grief or anxiety about the decision they may have in addition to confidence it was the right thing to do, relief that the pregnancy is over, and maybe even some happiness mixed in there, too. We already know that the anti-choice movement, with Trump and Pence currently at its crest, will cling to any small hint of sadness as proof that people “regret their abortions.” But we’ve come too far to go back to humoring that bullshit with equally black-and-white thinking. We have been very influenced by Exhale’s Pro-Voice movement, which centers narratives about abortion on the people who have experienced them. I don’t know if I have any significant strategic answers, except that we have to keep having candid conversations about what abortion is, how people feel about their reproductive experiences, and we have to hold each other close and offer one another the context of some small, unconditional love when they are willing to be vulnerable — in hopes that, at some point, sharing an abortion story won’t feel quite so vulnerable to so many people. And for those who feel empowered in their abortion stories? That’s great, and we need to keep making room for that.

  Mary Mahoney: We have to always, always start with respecting and trusting women themselves. Being anti-abortion is being anti-woman. I understand the urge to share the story of the woman who got a medically necessary second trimester abortion. I’m from Indiana, I’m here right now on the book tour. We passed the fetal burial law a while back and no one even blinked. There’s a new bill being written to eliminate abortion completely. Mike Pence created an extremely dangerous culture for women of reproductive age, but in many ways, it was at the will of the people. People HATE abortion in Indiana. And so I’m being VERY strategic in how I speak to pro-life audiences about this work. As Loretta Ross says, let’s try calling people in instead of calling people out. I know that I had Trump supporters at my hometown reading. My hometown is super Catholic, and the 3,000 people who voted for Hillary are potentially pro-life, and so I started with talking about my love and care of women themselves. I focused on connecting all pregnancy experiences to each other and placing abortion within that, the basics of what I learned from the RJ movement. But we on the left are terrible at isolating abortion from other pregnancy and healthcare experiences so we keep playing into the right’s hands. There is no quick fix, which is why these big, clever messaging campaigns don’t always reach new and isolated communities. You have to know your audience, and I think there has to be some trust there, or a shared experience. So I think it does need to be about reaching one or two people at a time, and really committing yourself to being that constant, exhaustive messenger in your community. And as some of the more radical initiatives, like the Abortion Diary Podcast or the 1 in 3 Campaign, are proving there is no more powerful way to reach people than through story.

  Senti Sojwal: I appreciated that in the book you talk about the fact that being a great activist does not make you a great doula. It’s so important to elucidate the difference between passionate organizing and advocacy versus direct service. Can you think of a moment in your doula work where you felt this important difference really came to light for you, and affected how you supported your patients as doulas?

  Lauren Mitchell: Oh god, I was a terrible doula for the first couple of years. Terrible! Part of that is because doula care demands that you literally and figuratively push into spaces in a way that you might not ever consider doing in any other part of your life. When someone is in discomfort — whether due to a birth, or an abortion, or literally anything else — there is an implicit command that you provide physical support. Touching people is intuitive to me now, but it took a long time. One of our amazing trainers and former doulas is a massage therapist and an acupuncturist, and she introduced us to the idea of “creepy touch”– that’s when you want to offer physical support but you feel awkward about it so you get all weird and fingertippy and at the risk of sounding like a big hippie, your energy is “off.” You also have to find a way of framing your physical support in a way that is explicitly client-centered and makes it easy for them to take you up on your offer. You have to be a little more physically and emotionally forward in your care, and that can feel weird and foreign to many activists who have been — rightfully!! — trained to be conscious of any and all potential boundaries at all times, who are hyper-aware of how trauma and pain can be caused by the act of touching someone inappropriately. What you also learn is that in the context of doula work not finding a way to offer touch can be equally inappropriate.

  Mary Mahoney: I think we ALL had to confront creepy touch in the beginning! We became very humble very quickly as we got to really know our clients – the people we served that first year really shaped the organization. We grew up in the advocacy world, and I don’t think we appreciated what a different mindset it would be. With direct care, so much comes from witnessing, just listening and observing. It’s about the simple (yet profoundly difficult!) act of being present with someone. It’s about letting go of the doing doing doing mentality and forgetting a lot of what you think you know. That for me was hard, the being still and clearing my head of the clutter. But it’s a process, a series of hundreds of moments. The learning curve can be sharp because it is so different than how we operate in the real word. I find myself often going back to advocacy and organizing, because I love it and it’s my home, but also because individual client care deserves the highest level of consideration and love, and I can’t always give that. Many of our doulas take breaks from the work, and we honor that as part of the lifelong process of being a caregiver and caring for yourself at the same time.

  Senti Sojwal: You both are longtime activists and caregivers. What does reproductive justice mean to you? How has the Doula Project most impacted your understanding of reproductive justice?

  Lauren Mitchell: To me, reproductive justice means that people are inherently deserving of the resource they need in order to make the decisions that they feel are best for their lives, and that it is not anyone else’s place to judge. I believe in an ethical demand, for all of us, to work to our most compassionate and loving capacities, to offer other people a safe and warm place as best as we are able, and to stop poorly defining empathy as an “understanding of another person,” which is usually a false sense of understanding that is actually a projection of ourselves onto another person. Fuck that. You don’t need to feel you “understand” someone in order to support them. You need to believe in her and in her judgement. She owes you no explanation, and she deserves your compassion anyway. Full spectrum doulas do our work because people deserve to feel the heat of human kindness, period. Within the movement, we have to be respectful of the mosaic of work we create — not everyone needs to do advocacy or policy, and not everyone needs to do direct care, but we do have to be clear about our commitment to one another. In regard to your second question — how The Doula Project has most impacted my understanding of RJ — I think that speaks to a point of contention between advocacy/policy spheres and direct service spheres. In direct care, you learn not to put good against perfect. People are messy and complicated, and no amount of polished rhetoric is going to change that. Sometimes, you are a part of scenarios that you don’t like, and it hurts. While advocacy and policy do the work of macro-level planning and organizing to keep our movement going, direct service tends to the minutiae, the thousands of face-to-face encounters that always imperfectly fit into the broader political narratives about reproductive rights.

  Mary Mahoney: Ten years into the Doula Project, I have found myself thinking A LOT about diapers (maybe because I’m 7 months pregnant?!). The cost of diapers, who has access to clean diapers, who we can engage in communities to sponsor diaper drives. I’ve recently connected with an amazing group in Indiana, All-Options, who is doing some groundbreaking work on both diapering and abortion, work that I think can and should be replicated in other parts of the country. And I bring this up because I think the genius of the RJ framework is how inclusive it is of all reproductive health experiences, including its extension to the right to become a parent and give meaningful care to your children. Being part of the Doula Project means the learning never ends, and hopefully, my ability to contribute something more to pregnant and formerly pregnant people never ends either.

  Senti Sojwal: What are your hopes for the future of the Doula Project and how it can continue to grow?

  Lauren Mitchell: Please fund us.

  Jk, jk… kind of. Okay, not joking.

  We’re at a precarious time. The Doula Project doesn’t need much funding compared to larger organizations, but what we do need is important. We want to be able to pay people for their work. What doulas primarily offer is the heavy lifting of emotional labor, which, collectively, we don’t always look at as “enough”… And yet, it’s crucial between doulas and their clients, as well as within our movement.

  Mary Mahoney: Haha — yes, everyone — listen to Lauren! I’ll just add that creating more access to doulas is always central to our mission, both locally and nationally. Right now we have 95 active volunteers and half a dozen local partnerships and sites where we see clients. Ten years in, our numbers are impressive (more than 35,000 served) but like any grassroots group, it’s pretty much a constant daily struggle. What we’d love to see in the coming year is our birth work grow and more money for our doula stipends. Lauren and I also have a unique opportunity with our book to travel around the country and raise awareness about the value of doulas. With the new political climate, we believe doula services will be more crucial than ever before, and we look forward to being part of the efforts to bring full spectrum doulas to new communities.

• Got a Girl Crush - http://www.gotagirlcrush.com/archive/2017/4/24/interview-radical-doulas-mary-mahoney-and-lauren-mitchell

  QUOTED: (Mary) "We wanted the book to be readable, accessible, and relatable. We wanted to give people a different window into these life experiences, maybe one they hadn’t seen or heard before, at least not intimately. We wanted to really give insight into the procedure room, into the lessons we’ve learned as caregivers, and into the deep loving relationships we form with our clients."

  May 08, 2017

  Interview: Radical Doulas Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell

  by Michele Zipp

  Radical thought and action is so very necessary, and not only in times like now, when the administration is so backwards and inept that it feels as if we are living in the matrix, but always. Living with radical thought and action are Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell, full-spectrum doulas and authors of The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People. A full-spectrum doula is a person who cares for someone through all pregnancy experiences -- birth, abortion, adoption, surrogacy, stillbirth, and miscarriage. And that support is vital.

  Mary and Lauren are reproductive justice advocates who empower women, help so many deal with some of the most difficult times in life, and they do so with empathy, which is what they say will create change -- real change. We agree.

  "Our ideals will take us so far," Mary and Lauren share. "We can have love for women and working for and with them will bring you strength, but we also must band together, as communities––far and wide––to make real change within feminism and the world."

  That change is within us all. And the inspiring work that Mary and Lauren do furthers the narrative on women’s rights, human rights, and how our power becomes stronger as we are there for and with each other. Love. Kindness. Compassion. It’s as simple and as difficult as that.
  Mary Mahoney & Lauren Mitchell: Radical Doulas.

  Mary Mahoney & Lauren Mitchell: Radical Doulas.

  The book, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People is a guide and also features personal narratives -- can you share more about what inspired you to write the book in this way and what part was perhaps most difficult to write or share?

  Mary: We wanted the book to be readable, accessible, and relatable. We wanted to give people a different window into these life experiences, maybe one they hadn’t seen or heard before, at least not intimately. We wanted to really give insight into the procedure room, into the lessons we’ve learned as caregivers, and into the deep loving relationships we form with our clients. We know that personal narratives touch people and ingrain themselves in people’s memories. We also felt that using a storytelling approach would nicely parallel and honor the philosophical approach of doula work, which is to recognize that every person comes to you with their own individual, unique story, and that every pregnancy is different for every person.

  The most difficult part of the book wasn’t being candid about the more politically or emotionally fraught outcomes of pregnancy, like second trimester abortion and stillbirth induction, it was working within the grey area of sharing other people’s stories. We were extremely careful and tried to include our storytellers as much as possible throughout the process. I would say the book pretty much wrote itself once we had collected the stories. Our storytellers gave us such unbelievably vivid details of their experiences and offered such raw, unbridled emotion. From there, it was just up to us to present it in the most accurate and respectful way.

  Where does your strength come from, how do you summon it, when you have to be there for a woman during a most difficult time?

  Mary: Ten years into direct care, I think I retain strength from different sources than when I first started. In the beginning, it was a lot of willpower and adrenaline and conviction that what we were doing was important and necessary. But direct care puts you face to face with the reality of people’s lives which are messy and complicated, especially when colliding with the healthcare and political systems. So my ideals and my will could only take me so far after a while. I think for me, and most full spectrum doulas you talk to, beyond love for women and the work bringing you strength, it’s the community you surround yourself with: other doulas and coworkers, the people you go home to. And on good days, it’s your clients and the medical providers who can give you strength. I definitely operate from a “knowledge is power” frame so as I became more confident in my role and learned how to establish personal and professional boundaries, it naturally became easier for me to be a source of strength for others.

  Doula work is so soulful, so intrinsic, so powerfully meaningful -- you are there for a woman when she needs you most, essentially being her "village", her "tribe" -- how has this impacted you as a person?

  Mary: In short, I am definitely a better person since I became a doula! Being a doula let me show a part of myself I had never let myself show before: someone who leads with kindness, someone who heals through touch, someone who accepts people as they are in whatever moment they happen to be in. The role, both as doula and cofounder, has taught me abundant patience. It has also taught me about my limits and about when I need to give a little bit less. Being a doula, and a caregiver in general, teaches you that the path to enlightenment is not perfection, it’s simply showing up every day and doing the best you can for another person and for yourself.

  Right now, we need empowered thinkers more than ever to make real change, change for better. Within your work, have you seen injustices by women to women? How do you think we can change that, to further our bond, own power, and to also further intersectional feminism?

  Mary: What draws people to doula work is this incredibly unique opportunity to be kind to another person. Our entire purpose for being with a pregnant person is to offer compassion and love. That is a rare space to hold in this world. Of course injustices happen to women by women, every day. It’s part of living in the patriarchy. We are set up to compete, whether in career or love or home. I fall into that trap sometimes, like everyone. Privilege and power obviously play a huge part in creating spaces of injustice in whatever field we are in; feminist organizations aren’t safe from those dynamics.

  I think we are making real inroads right now in strengthening feminism. Leadership that represents those most impacted is essential. I heard this quote the other day that I loved: “you don’t need to be a voice for the voiceless, just pass the mic.” The reproductive justice movement has been doing it for years – it is a movement led by people of color, young people, queer people, immigrants -- and the rest of the feminist world is, hopefully, starting to catch up. We need to stop cannibalizing each other in order to create a stronger movement. Loretta Ross, a founder of reproductive justice and major feminist thought leader, says that we should try calling people in instead of calling people out. I love this approach. It’s not about letting anyone off the hook, but it doesn’t lead with an attack. In order to nurture and retain all the new activists we are seeing right now, I think this approach is crucial. As much as everyone thinks they know, we can really only know our own life experiences, and for everything else we need to be okay with listening and learning.

  “What draws people to doula work is this incredibly unique opportunity to be kind to another person. Our entire purpose for being with a pregnant person is to offer compassion and love. That is a rare space to hold in this world. Of course injustices happen to women by women, every day. It’s part of living in the patriarchy. We are set up to compete, whether in career or love or home.”

  — Mary Mahoney

  Do you think there is a war on women? How would you address that, if so?

  Mary: There is always a war on women! But I think it’s difficult to fight a war on women when many women don’t see the war against them happening. The election was proof that plenty of women, particularly married white women, are quite comfortable with the status quo. Or if not comfortable, very misinformed about how policies work against them.

  Because there is a war against so many people in our country, I think we can create change by coming together; all the individuals and communities that are being marginalized and discriminated against hold power in their sheer numbers and the passion they have to survive and find justice. We have a lot of people out fighting right now and it’s so inspiring to see and be part of.

  Anti-abortion activists take on the term "pro-life" but to me, as a woman who is pro-choice, I want to reclaim "pro-life" because I feel those who are pro-choice are truly pro-life in it's core meaning -- we care about life, about our rights as living, breathing people. Being anti-abortion is anti-woman. What are you thoughts on that and how do you think we can help those who are "anti-abortion" see our side?

  Mary: Full spectrum doulas have such an amazing perspective on this matter because we see both birth and abortion every day and live through the experience with our clients. We contemplate the life and death of the fetus -- some of us feel it is a life, some of us feel it’s not, some of us embrace whatever our client’s belief about her pregnancy is. I realized pretty early in my career that I see the fetus, at a certain gestational age, as a life. And my pro-choice stance never faltered because of it. In fact, I think I became a more spiritual and convicted person and interact with the work more deeply because of it. As you can imagine, pro-lifers have a bit of trouble grasping this view. But when we take the nuance out of the experience and make it black and white, we lose so so many people who’ve actually had to make the decision to terminate or parent.

  As someone who is about to give birth and who has attended hundreds of second trimester procedures, I have a renewed energy to examine these stances and the hard lines we draw. Many pro-choice activists have said this in the past, but having a planned pregnancy and becoming a parent by choice has made me more pro-choice than ever. Being pregnant is wonderful and terrifying and precious, under the best circumstances. I had difficult moments during my pregnancy where I had to fight against my insurance company, my providers, the crazy changes taking place in my own body. And every time I would think, what if I didn’t want this? What if this was being forced upon me?

  I grew up in a pro-life community in Southern Indiana and work with many people in the city who are religious and, I suspect, pro-life. I’ve been speaking to pro-life crowds my whole career. I try to be sensitive and meet everyone where they are, particularly if I’m talking to another woman (men, honestly, I don’t have much patience for in this conversation). I’ve gotten serious pushback for making statements like, “if you are anti-abortion, you are anti-woman.” Because what we on the pro-choice side forget is that a lot of pro-life women really feel they have women’s best interests at heart – when they are referring them to adoption centers or cautioning them about the dangers of abortion – they really feel they are guiding them in the best direction. It’s very deeply ingrained in them, just like our pro-choice values are very deeply ingrained in us.

  The Women’s March brought up what the “true definition” of feminism is and whether the pro-life stance can be part of that. Many brilliant feminist thinkers say you cannot call yourself a feminist while denying others autonomy over their bodies – which by voting against abortion access is essentially what you are doing. I was recently giving a talk at a liberal arts college in the northeast and a young woman approached me – she identified as pro-choice but was very concerned about pro-lifers being left out of the March and ostracized on her campus. She wanted to know “can’t we do better?” Common ground efforts have taken place in the past to limited success, during way less tumultuous times that what we face now. I told her that I don’t know if now is the time to bridge the two sides; everyone is desperate to protect their own at this moment. But if it feels safe to do so, I think speaking to pro-lifers can be effective and is necessary and there are ways to reach them, especially starting at the micro level, one-on-one. That is what we are trying to do with this book and our tour and why we are focusing a lot of our future travel on the middle and southern parts of the country. We think The Doula Project mission – which approaches both birth and abortion with kindness and unconditional support -- can create a bridge.

  With The Doula Project, you are furthering the narrative, opening people's eyes that we need to supporting people through the spectrum of pregnancy. Can you talk more about your mission? And how The Doula Project came about?

  Lauren: The Doula Project started in 2007, which was a period in the reproductive justice movement when a number of organizations were actively trying to get birth workers like midwives, doulas and obstetricians in the same space as people who have been fighting for abortion access. This was not particularly original: SisterSong and a number of other groups had always incorporated pregnancy care and support -- regardless of the outcome of the pregnancy -- into their mission. But in 2006 and 2007 a number of conferences were put together with the specific intention to bridge the gaps between birth work and abortion advocacy.

  Mary, Miriam Perez, and I were all very involved in the reproductive justice scene, and had recently been trained as doulas. We found ourselves in the same room a lot, with a similar vision. We would hear conversations constantly about how birthing people deserved support and love, and how people who needed abortions deserved access, “on demand and without apology.” There was a disconnect between the two poles: where was the unconditionally loving support for people who were choosing to have abortions?

  We started with a wing and a prayer and what we thought was a lot of good connections as “The Abortion Doula Project.” It would take us about a year before we were allowed access to an abortion clinic, which would radically change our identity. After doula-ing for a number of clients who were having abortion procedures to manage miscarriages or perinatal loss and anomaly, and a number of others who weren’t empowered by the word “abortion,” we got the sense that our organizational identity needed to shift. What sealed the deal was when we started offering support to birth parents who chose adoption plans, and from there, when low-income people started reaching out to us for low-cost or free birth support. So, “The Doula Project” we became.

  What inspires you to do this work?

  Lauren: The short answer: the clients and the community of doulas and caregivers. After doing a lot of policy and advocacy work, which often speaks to macro-level systemic injustices rather than one-on-one encounters, we wanted to do something on-the-ground, to get out of the office and into the places where people needed support. Events like the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program’s annual conference, which kicks off with an Abortion Speak-Out where people talk about their experiences with abortion to break the silence, were instrumental in the creation of The Doula Project.

  We say this often: in life, people rarely get an opportunity to lavish one another with love and kindness, and especially when faced with the vulnerability of being at a doctor’s office -- let alone the vulnerability that can come with having an abortion or otherwise managing a pregnancy -- people are often hungry for it, whether it is being offered or received. For me, as for many of us, I also do this work because I like stories. I want to hear as much as my clients want to tell me. We want to offer that listening space, and to see our clients in their context: these reproductive experiences are part of their lives, but not the whole of it.

  Have you worked with women who felt ashamed of their decision and how have you helped them work through that?

  Lauren: The word I would use to describe how many of my clients have felt about their abortions is “fraught.” When I first started out as a doula, I often tried to adopt the language of policy and advocacy activists: words like “empowerment” felt important to me. This language remains important to me, but it’s implicit. When people are looking for reproductive healthcare, especially when seeking an abortion, it’s not necessarily “empowering;” it’s putting one foot in front of the other to do what you need to do.

  I think of it as a bell-curve. Some people feel empowered by their abortions (and that’s awesome!); some are devastated by them (not awesome). Most are in between: people feel relieved and exhausted. They are glad they could get the procedure but not happy to have needed it in the first place. All of these statements are generalizations, of course.

  Because of the wide scope of our work, feelings of shame can come up in a variety of different outcomes: choosing to become a parent under imperfect circumstances, choosing to make an adoption plan, choosing an abortion, or having to deal with a miscarriage. The doula’s job in this case is to be consistent, clear, and loving. You are offering a calm and normalizing presence in the face of what could feel like a crisis. It’s that “normalizing” component of our work that I feel is so crucial, and yet it is something we take for granted as professionals in the field. We’re used to it: this is what our day looks like, for some of us all day, every day. But for that reason, our clients are appreciative of our presence: we’ve seen it before, and we can remind them that they aren’t alone.

  We can’t promise to take anyone’s pain away -- what we talk about in the book as being one of the most bitter pills of doula work -- whether it is emotional or physical pain. But we can serve as a lighthouse as people work their way through whatever shame or anguish they might feel, reminding them along the way that they deserve to feel beloved, and that they are worthy of it.

  Why do you think reproductive health is so hard for some to understand when it involves the whole spectrum of the kind of care we need? I'm speaking specifically to the after-care for a woman who has experienced the loss of a pregnancy.

  Lauren: Well, first and foremost, your question speaks to a logistical issue: the procedures and techniques that people need to manage miscarriages, or later-term pregnancy losses or lethal anomalies, are in fact the exact same procedures people get when they have abortions. No one talks about that -- and in fact, we didn’t even realize how many of our “abortion” clients would be in the clinic for miscarriage management until we started. The narratives surrounding abortion, birth, and miscarriage -- and, adoption, perhaps more than the rest -- are violently siloed from one another, as if they were all mutually exclusive. Most of our clients seeking abortions or having miscarriages were mothers already.

  In our work, the overlap of these reproductive experiences was intuitive, and our clinic site made it easily accessible for us to jump in wherever necessary. It also locked in the fact that our role is to go where we are needed, especially if someone is having a stillbirth, which is a terribly isolating experience for most people. One of the most powerful statements I had ever heard was from a nurse who was taking care of one of my clients immediately after her stillbirth induction, a situation where she chose to induce labor early because the baby had a lethal genetic problem. The nurse held my client’s hand and said, “You will have to be ready to forgive a lot of foolishness from a lot of people for a while.”

  “The procedures and techniques that people need to manage miscarriages, or later-term pregnancy losses or lethal anomalies, are in fact the exact same procedures people get when they have abortions. No one talks about that.”

  — Lauren Mitchell

  Truer words were never spoken. The loss of a baby can render many people speechless at best, and clumsy and insensitive at worst. Almost half of the births I’ve attended as a doula were stillbirth inductions, which became an accidental specialty. It’s a skillset that is important to pass on to other doulas because -- hopefully -- they won’t see it often, and therefore there’s not a lot of training around it.

  While not all doulas view their work in this way, I feel that the work of the doulas in The Doula Project is an emotional labor. I have felt that the most during stillbirths, where the physical and emotional intensity of the experience is not only high, but very unique. Few people will be able to understand what it was like for the client to go through it, and so you, as the doula, are by her side to do a great many things, but above all, to hold the memory of the experience for and with her.

  “Fifty-three percent of white women who voted, voted for Donald Trump. These actions have terrible consequences, but they are also an indictment of the complicity that comes with privilege — when people are primarily worried about maintaining their own comfort.
  We have to call selfishness by its name. We have to become better.”

  — Lauren Mitchell

  How do you think we can best work together to get rid of these archaic notions that a woman shouldn't be in control of her own choices, her own body?

  Lauren: Elect a new president!!!! Haha, just kidding. Not really.

  Truth be told, this is a question I’ve been struggling with a lot since the election. Intersectional feminism notwithstanding, it feels like there is so much work to do on the ground to fight this administration that it’s hard to stop to breathe and figure out a cohesive organizing strategy, for any of the numerous issues that we’ve had to confront in the last few months. Personally, I’ve felt as if I am in a constant state of “activist triage,” wondering what needs my time and energy the most at any given moment. As many articles and internet memes have pointed out, it’s an excellent way to grind yourself to nothing, and it’s something I fear many of us will do if we’re not careful and intentional about our actions and our energy. Somewhere in between all of that, we have lives to live, too.

  A number of organizations, like National Advocates for Pregnant Women, have worked to engage those who label themselves as anti-abortion by pointing out that it’s the same legislators who create laws that oppress pregnant people, whether or not they are seeking termination. Bills like Tennessee’s “Fetal Assault Laws” or other laws that give way to fetal personhood -- like the ones in Indiana that have gotten women arrested for having miscarriages (thanks, Mike Pence) -- or any law that makes it permissible for hospitals to obtain court-orders for c-sections for laboring women, are routed through abortion laws. Having open conversations that make it clear that reproductive health is tied in a number of ugly, legal knots is one place to start.

  But these conversations need to be firm and clear, and we have to be prepared to put up a fight on all fronts: in policy, in direct care, on the streets, and in our homes. Fifty-three percent of white women who voted, voted for Donald Trump. These actions have terrible consequences, but they are also an indictment of the complicity that comes with privilege -- when people are primarily worried about maintaining their own comfort. We have to call selfishness by its name. We have to become better.

  How do you think we can inspire change in our every day lives?

  Lauren: One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is how poorly we define empathy in our culture, in that often people look at it in terms of whether or not they can imagine themselves in the position of another person. At the same time, many people do not have humility toward the limitations of their imaginations, or are otherwise willing to reject or harm what they can’t identify with. I hope we can be part of a system that shifts the rhetoric of “empathy” to something that looks more like trust and acceptance: I don’t have to “completely understand” your decision or “get” all aspects of your life to trust that you need the service you are asking for.

  With that in mind, I believe we all have an ethical obligation to offer as much compassion and support to one another, as people, as our capacities allow. Part of that can come in an exchange of story, which builds community for the teller as much as it does the listener. And I hope that the book can be a part of a shift: we owe it to one another to listen with good, loving intention, to bear witness to experiences, to follow others—our clients—wherever they need us to be, whether that’s in their greatest anguish or their most incredible happiness.

  “I believe we all have an ethical obligation to offer as much compassion and support to one another, as people, as our capacities allow.”

  — Lauren Mitchell
  www.doulaproject.org

• LifeNews.com - http://www.lifenews.com/2016/09/01/a-team-of-radical-doulas-wants-to-help-women-kill-their-babies-in-abortions/

  A Team of “Radical Doulas” Wants to Help Women Kill Their Babies in Abortions
  National Micaiah Bilger Sep 1, 2016 | 1:59PM Washington, DC

  They hold women’s hands as they grieve the loss of a child to miscarriage. They watch happily as a mother holds her newborn child for the first time. They also sit beside conflicted women and try to convince them that it is ok to abort their unborn children.

  New York City’s Doula Project founders see no differences between these situations.

  A new Narratively piece followed the group of self-described “radical doulas” and described how they provide volunteer support for women in a variety of pregnancy and parenting situations, including abortion.

  The New York City-based group began several years ago with a young woman from conservative Indiana. Mary Mahoney taught abstinence education at her high school at one point, but when she moved to New York City, she quickly became involved in abortion activism. At one point, Mahoney was the assistant director for the Pro-Choice Public Education Project, according to the report.

  Here’s more:

  Nine years ago, Mary Mahoney showed up for her doula training class eager and hopeful. A young reproductive justice researcher, she spent her days scrutinizing statistics about pregnancy and birth in New York City. Becoming a doula – a non-medical caregiver who supports clients before, during and after childbirth – would allow her to see things firsthand. But as the day unfolded, Mahoney noticed the training’s narrow focus. Everything was geared toward serving clients who would likely be white, affluent, cisgender women. No one mentioned race or class. And no one brought up the many pregnancy experiences that do not end in live birth.

  “I do a lot of work around abortion,” she announced at one point. The room went silent.

  Mahoney left discouraged, but not defeated. Soon after, with Lauren Mitchell and Miriam Zoila Pérez, she founded the Doula Project, the first organization in the country to offer volunteer doula support for abortions. As part of a rising wave of self-identified “radical doulas,” Mahoney says she faced disavowal from the birth community. Some opposed abortion, and those fighting for wider recognition of birth doulas did not want to share the word “doula.” Yet Mahoney pressed on.

  The group says it provides a “full spectrum” of services, including support for childbirth, abortion, miscarriage and adoption. However, abortion appears to be the group’s central mission. It is the same group who told volunteer doula Alex Ronan not to question or judge an 11-year-old who was statutorily raped by a much older man and wanted birth control without telling her parents, and a woman who wanted to abort her unborn daughter just because she was a girl. They told Ronan to simply be supportive.

  CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!

  Brenna McCaffrey is a PhD student who currently volunteers with the pro-abortion doula team. She described how she has provided care both to women having abortions and women experiencing miscarriages.

  “I have over here a woman who wants anything not to be pregnant right now, and right next to her a woman who has had seven miscarriages and wants a child more than anything,” she said. “They show up in the same room and they’re talking to each other. The dividing line between a birth doula and an abortion doula shouldn’t be there. What we do is the same, across any experience.”

  McCaffrey described how she “can handle” supporting a woman through a second-trimester abortion. What she said she struggles with most is watching the anesthesiologist putting the patient to sleep. She did not mention any qualms about watching the abortionist kill the woman’s unborn child. She said she sits beside the patient while she is asleep and makes sure the abortion staff are respecting and caring for the woman. If the woman’s covering slips off her body during the surgery, McCaffrey said she tells the staff to “cover her up.”

  “This is a person,” she said. “If we don’t need to be looking at her stomach right now, we don’t need to be looking at her stomach right now.”

  She also admitted to sometimes hearing abortion staff make discriminatory comments about the woman’s race or size while she is under anesthesia. Sometimes she speaks up, sometimes she doesn’t, she said.

  To the Doula Project volunteers, women are people who deserve support, compassion and respect, but unborn babies are not.

• Observer - http://observer.com/2011/11/the-rise-of-the-abortion-doula/

  The Rise of the Abortion Doula
  As Abortions Become Harder to Obtain, Pro-Choice Activists Eschew Policy Debates for Flesh and Blood Activism
  By Rachel R. White • 11/14/11 2:17pm

  new doulas for web The Rise of the Abortion Doula

  Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell of The Doula Project (Photo credit: Jackie Snow)

  At 9 a.m. on a recent Sunday in a small conference room on the 13th floor of a Manhattan hospital (The Observer agreed not to name the facility), Lauren Mitchell, a 27-year-old gynecological teaching associate, invited a group of 15 medical students and one reporter to introduce themselves. “So go around, state your name, why you are here…and your star sign,” she prompted, sitting at the head of a conference table.

  Awkward pause.

  Astrology probably isn’t what any of them expected when they signed up for the class, which will account for the first 6 of the 40 hours of classroom required to volunteer as an abortion doula.

  One by one, the students introduced themselves. One was male, the rest female. There were a smattering of future OB/GYN’s, a few pediatricians, and an unusually high percentage of Earth Signs.

  An abortion doula is a new concept, pioneered by the Doula Project, of which Ms. Mitchell is a cofounder. In essence, it’s the same as a birth doula—in fact, most practitioners do both—except that she provides support to women getting abortions who’ve chosen not to take their pregnancies to term, offering counseling, back rubs and reassurance.
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  A familiarity with the zodiac, it turns out, can come in handy.

  “We often ask patients their star-sign,” Ms. Mitchell told The Observer in an interview after the class let out. She was petite and wore a denim dress. “When a patient is nervous or anxious, telling them a little about their sign can take their mind off the abortion—everyone loves to hear about themselves.” (It occurred to us that talking about birth signs might have the effect of reminding women of, well, birth, but we went with it.)

  New York has been called the abortion capital of the U.S., a title granted by pro-life organizations and made official earlier this year in a column by Ariel Kaminer in The New York Times. Ms. Kaminer cited a health department report released in December of 2010 which found that about 40 percent of pregnancies in New York City end in abortion, about 90,000 per year. “New Yorkers seeking to terminate a pregnancy can choose from more kinds of procedures at more kinds of facilities with fewer obstacles—and more ways to pay—than just about any place else,” she wrote, noting that it was covered by Medicaid here, unlike many other states, and that there were few of the restrictions involving parental consent, waiting periods and viewing sonograms found elsewhere. Last week, a local blog devoted to bargain living, brokelyn.com, even published a guide to local providers.

  Despite the failure last week of Mississippi’s “personhood” amendment, which would have given a fertilized embryo the status of a human being in the eyes of the law—criminalizing all abortion as well as some forms of birth control, like the IUD—state legislatures, buoyed by Republican election gains, did pass more than 80 laws restricting abortion in 2011, making it a watershed year for the pro-life movement. Meanwhile, pro-lifers are working on personhood initiatives in six other states. Ohio is considering a “heartbeat bill,” which would outlaw abortion as early as six weeks. Other states have adopted restrictions like mandatory ultrasounds, mandated counseling, and bans on coverage of the procedure by Medicaid and even private insurance policies. Today, 88 percent of U.S. counties have no abortion provider, and in non-metropolitan areas this statistic rises to 97 percent, according to the US National Abortion Federation, an organization of abortion providers. As a result, New York has increasingly become a magnet for women from other states who are seeking to terminate their pregnancies.

  Given their string of legislative losses, there seems to be a shift of energy underway in the pro-choice movement, as activists back away from policy debates and instead turn their attention to practical matters, organizing to assist women in navigating the shifting legal landscape. In New York, they are offering hands to hold and backrubs, opening up their apartments to women from out of town, and helping them deal with insurance claims. “It is about finding the flesh and blood approach, rather than the theoretical one,” Ms. Mitchell said.

  Rebecca Stanton, a professor at Columbia University, felt a little guilty when she and her husband purchased a roomy two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, she told The Observer over tea, in front of the impressive view from her Harlem apartment. “We had all this extra space and it seemed sort of silly,” she said. A friend directed her to Haven, an organization that finds volunteers willing to house low-income women and their partners who are traveling to the city for abortions. Haven was founded in 2001 when Catherine Megill, an abortion clinic social worker, discovered that a number of patients were forced, due to financial circumstance, to sleep on park benches or in their cars.

  Ms. Stanton remembered one family she hosted, who’d driven up from Virginia in a dilapidated station wagon. The bumper sticker on their car made her draw a hand to her heart. “It said, ‘I am the proud parent of an honor roll student at [so and so] middle school,” she recalled. The honor roll student was the one seeking the abortion. She and both parents crashed in Ms. Stanton’s extra bedroom the evening before the procedure.

  The girl’s parents had already extended the lines on their credit cards to initially make the trip. That afternoon, an ultrasound indicated she was further along, by four critical days, than previously thought, tacking another $400 onto the medical bill. As Ms. Stanton busied herself ordering Chinese food, the girl’s parents called bank managers. When that didn’t work, they called in favors.

  “The girl was very quiet,” Ms. Stanton recalled. “I am not even sure if she knew she was having sex. She was overweight, and her family didn’t find out she was pregnant until she was 21 weeks along.”
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  Another volunteer, author and political activist Jane Weissman, opens up her spacious Greenwich Village apartment for Haven when she’s not traveling. Ms. Weissman said the roughest part of the experience is dropping the patient off at the clinic, sometimes walking her past protesters—each party knowing they will likely never see one another again. While most women Haven sees are getting second trimester abortions, Ms. Weissman said they often just want to go straight home after the second day, regardless of how they feel.

  Approximately 4,000 women have been assisted by abortion doulas trained by The Doula Project, which was started by Ms. Mitchell and Mary Mahoney in 2007. The group partners with clinics and public hospitals to, as the website delicately puts it, “support people across the spectrum of pregnancy.”

  “The mission of our project is to support people who would otherwise not have access to doula services,” Ms. Mitchell said. “So we see, for instance, people who are undocumented and can’t apply to Medicaid, or folks who are really lacking in resources.” They started the project after undergoing doula training in college. Ms. Mitchell says she went to a “hippie college, where it seemed everyone was training to be a doula.” The idea of an abortion doula, she said, was a way to stand out. Originally, the project caught some flack from the pro-choice community. As Marisa Meltzer wrote in a 2010 Slate piece, “Even as a pro-choice feminist, when I heard about abortion doulas my first thought was: Are women really so fragile that they need to hire a complete stranger to hold their hand at the doctor’s?”

  “We were concerned about that when we first started, that the pro-choice movement wouldn’t exactly embrace us,” Ms. Mahoney said, “because we come from the reproductive justice movement, which is more holistic and looks at people’s feelings and individual experiences, not just policy.” Ms. Mitchell added that some abortion providers were skeptical at first, as well, but that they now they find that the doulas make their job easier.

  During the doula training, one instructor explained how to help clients who don’t speak English. She sucked in her breath, and moved her arms encouragingly. “I try to mime how to breathe, like an owl: ‘who, who.’ At first they think you are crazy, but they realize you are trying to help.”

  Ms. Mitchell estimated that doulas see about 15–20 later term abortions a week, and about 75 first trimesters. In training, the instructors explain that many women seeking abortions are nonetheless not politically pro-choice. She handed out flash cards with real-life situations. The first read: “A woman tells you, ‘I just killed my baby.’ How do you respond?” The students broke into groups to discuss the question. Many came up with a similar answer: Explain that the procedure is legal because the fetus is not a baby, it just has the potential to be one.

  That, of course, is the murky distinction that makes the issue so difficult for everyone it touches. As the executive director for Feminists Choosing Life of New York, Kelly Brunacini has thought a lot about about the flip-side, how to convince someone that a fetus is a baby: “The quickest way to change a pro-choicer’s mind is to let them see the procedure,” she said. “A lot of the argument is intellectual: ‘My body, my choice’ sounds really good. When you see an abortion or you go through the mourning process with a woman who has aborted, it becomes less intellectualized, and more real.”

  To some extent, Ms. Mitchell sees her point. In an interview with The Observer, she joked that she sometimes wants to automatically reject the abortion doula applications of pro-choice activists, because it’s so hard to go from pro-choice rhetoric to supporting real people who don’t necessarily find their abortions empowering.“Those pictures pro-life activists flash are real,” Ms. Mahoney said. “That is what a fetus looks like when its head is crushed. When you see the procedure, you must decide, as a pro-choice person, whether you are in or out.” She’s thought about it a lot. “I have never been more in,” she said.

  As restrictions on abortion have tightened, talk has grown among members of Haven and the Doula Project of creating a national network, an underground railroad of sorts, made up of women who would provide places to stay and/or transportation to and from clinics all over the United States. “Abortion doulas can offer someone to travel with, so they could have a support person the whole way, and not just your Mom or husband who is freaking out,” Ms. Mahoney explained. Other pro-choice organizations have begun raising money to help women pay for abortions, including The New York Abortion Access Fund, which earlier this year held a fundraiser, sponsored by Jezebel, that included a screening of Dirty Dancing.
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  During the doula training Ms. Mitchell demonstrated the manual vacuum aspirator for the class. Reaching beneath the conference table, she removed several small cups green Jell-O and placed them on the table. “I remembered the green this time,” she said, to nervous titters all around. “The last group, we had red, and I think it scared some of the doulas.”

  Ms. Mitchell stood up and placed the end of the device, which resembled a very large syringe, into the cup. She pulled the handle. There was a loud slurping sound as the Jell-O was sucked into the chamber and liquified.

  “Does it sound like that in the room?” we asked.

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “You should play music or something.”

  Ms. Mahoney said that some clinics do in fact turn on a radio, but sometimes the song can be wildly inappropriate, i.e., “Papa Don’t Preach.” “One time ‘Everybody Hurts’ came on,” she recalled, “and the doctor slammed it off.”

  The students then tried out the procedure for ourselves. The Observer found it fairly easy, but some students had more trouble. There were squeals when one glob of Jell-o flew across the room and landed on the table in front of us.

  The purpose of the demonstration was to familiarize us with the procedure, but some pro-choice activists have begun to consider whether they would break the law if abortion became illegal. “Doing them underground is a major last resort,” Ms. Mahoney said. “I would be willing to, if things came to that.”

  Such actions recall the work of the Jane Collective, which was one inspiration for the Doula Project. The collective was a feminist organization in Chicago that performed more than 11,000 illegal abortions in the 1960s, before the passage of Roe v. Wade. Women calling to make appointments would ask, “Can I speak to Jane?”

  When the Jane Coalition was uncovered by the police, seven women were arrested. They were looking at lifetime prison sentences. But while they sat awaiting trial, Roe v. Wade passed and the group walked.

  Since The Doula Project launched, a handful of similar collectives have popped up across the country. The Observer spoke with abortion doulas in places like Ohio and Illinois, for whom a ban on abortion is considerably more likely. They agreed performing them underground is a last resort, but not off the table.

  What is more feasible, some advocates told us, is insurance fraud. At many public hospitals in New York, abortion is on a sliding-fee scale like any other surgery. With proof of residence and a low income, a patient can be treated for around $150, payable over time. “Find a friend in New York City, get an address and mail yourself something, go to New York the next week and get your abortion fee scaled,” one pro-choice advocate suggested.

  Some pro-choicers are also considering medical school. Ms. Megill, the founder of Haven, is currently doing her residency in order to become a provider. “What is most needed is for doctors to go into this line of work and to be willing to set up clinics in places where abortion is unavailable,” she explained.
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  “The fact that medical schools don’t teach abortion procedures as a matter of course is criminal,” Ms. Stanton said.

  While the pregnant 13-year-old made the biggest impact on Ms. Stanton, she said all of the women she has hosted had excellent reasons for terminating their pregnancies. “One woman said over dinner that she didn’t believe in abortion, she was a Christian. But she had two kids already. She said, ‘I know I have to take care of the two kids I have first.’ This was her making the best choice she could, between two things she believed in.”

  Those behind the restrictions of 2011, believe that more laws will equal less abortion. New York has yet to pass any restrictions on abortion, and in fact, state Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins has introduced the Reproductive Health Act, which among other things, grants “the fundamental right of every female to determine the course of her pregnancy.”

  “New York is primarily a democratic state” Ms. Bruncini said. “This is a tough state for us. I don’t think legislation can end abortion. That would have to be s shift in peoples hearts, a cultural shift.”

  According to a recent report by the Guttmacher Institute, abortion rates declined by 8 percent between 2002 and 2006.

  Correction: An earlier version of this story erroneously reported that the Doula Project had placed an announcement on its website stating that it would provide support to women taking Cytotec. It also misattributed two quotes to Ms. Mitchell that should have been attributed to Ms. Mahoney. The Observer regrets the errors.

• Amazon -

  Lauren Mitchell, M.S., has been working to change the culture of medicine for the better part of a decade. In addition to being a full-spectrum doula and founder of The Doula Project, she is a certified Gynecological Teaching Associate, teaching medical and nurse practitioner students to be able to perform gentle, patient-centered physical examinations, and a teacher of literature and the humanities in medical school settings.

  As a co-coordinator of the Reproductive Choices Service of New York City's largest public hospital, she has been able to infuse an extremely medicalized system with compassionate patient care. She is a graduate of the Narrative Medicine program at Columbia University, and is currently pursuing a PhD in medical humanities at Vanderbilt.

  Lauren is a well-known and established speaker and trainer in the fields of reproductive justice and medical humanities, and has presented for a wide variety of organizations including NAF, NAPW, the Abortion Access Network, NOW (National and Regional Summits), FemSex, Hampshire College, Columbia University, the Barnard Center for Research on Women, among many others. She currently lives in Nashville, TN.

  Human and women's rights activist Loretta Ross co-founded and served as National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, a network that organizes women of color in the reproductive justice movement. In fact, Ross is one of the creators of the term "Reproductive Justice," which envelops human rights and social justice into one movement. In 2004, Ross served as National Co-Director of the March for Women’s Lives in Washington DC. It became the largest protest march in US history with more than one million participants.

  Ross is the co-author of Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice and author of “The Color of Choice” chapter in Incite! Women of Color Against Violence published in 2006. She has also written extensively on the history of African American women and reproductive justice activism.

• Mutha - http://muthamagazine.com/2017/01/radical-care-for-pregnant-people-jacqui-morton-interviews-the-doulas/

  QUOTED: (Lauren) "our place in doula work has been heavily informed by our activist politics. The entire spectrum of reproductive choices—whether it’s birth, abortion, adoption, miscarriage, or stillbirth—is fraught with politics, whether we like it or not. There are a lot of policies that are under way that emphasize fetal personhood, and these laws are used to create structures that will allow court-ordered c-sections, and can be used to criminalize pregnant people who have had miscarriages, among many other things."
  "The politics of birth and abortion are linked: reproductive justice came into existence because it acknowledges the need for an intersectional approach to advocacy and care; one that takes into consideration how someone’s race, class, and gender/gender presentation might affect her access to care, and the decisions she will be able to make."
  (Mary) "We chose the title The Doulas because we wanted to emphasize the many different ways there are of being a doula ... and that one is not more important or purer than the other—we don’t need to separate them. We also want to constantly put that word out into the world so more people know what doulas are—where better than on the cover of a really loud, bright book? Maybe people will look at it and see that weird word and read the back (or buy it?!) and have a little bit of knowledge to take home."

  Radical Care for Pregnant People: Jacqui Morton Interviews THE DOULAS

  Doula. Don’t you love this word? Its very presence has purpose. Doula is derived from ancient Greek. The core of its definition—a person who supports a mother in pregnancy, labor, and beyond—is a timeless role in our world. When people hear that I doula as a part-time job, they sometimes say, “Like a midwife?” No. We are not medical professionals. We are companions, cheerleaders, deep breathers, and story keepers.

  Purple and yellow are my favorite colors, but its vibrant cover is not the only reason I was excited to hold Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell’s beautiful book, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People, out now via Feminist Press. I was excited for the arrival of the first-to-my-knowledge book about the work of full-spectrum doulas, those of us committed to providing support for every pregnancy outcome, including abortion, miscarriage, stillbirth, and adoption.

  I was grateful to find myself in the pages of The Doulas and to connect with Lauren and Mary via email. Their words, and the stories in the book, held me through the months I spent with them, and will stay with me. What follows is condensed version of our chat, which, perhaps fittingly, has been gestating a bit between our inboxes… – Jacqui Morton

  doulascover

  MUTHA: I was excited to read about full-spectrum doula care. I am frustrated by the huge disconnect between birth and abortion care in our communities, because I feel a pregnant person should receive the same level of care whether they decide to have a baby or not. Do you think that if we can get past the politics of abortion, we could see more compassionate care?

  LAUREN: We’ll start by saying that our place in doula work has been heavily informed by our activist politics. The entire spectrum of reproductive choices—whether it’s birth, abortion, adoption, miscarriage, or stillbirth—is fraught with politics, whether we like it or not. There are a lot of policies that are under way that emphasize fetal personhood, and these laws are used to create structures that will allow court-ordered c-sections, and can be used to criminalize pregnant people who have had miscarriages, among many other things. The politics of birth and abortion are linked: reproductive justice came into existence because it acknowledges the need for an intersectional approach to advocacy and care; one that takes into consideration how someone’s race, class, and gender/gender presentation might affect her access to care, and the decisions she will be able to make.

  We both came from backgrounds that were organizing and policy based. We had a lot of ideas about how reproductive justice would fit in cleanly with the doula model of care, which centers on forms of quiet, compassionate activism that builds up from individual connections between clients and caregivers, rather than shaking things up and demanding change from the top down. When working one-on-one with a client, we rarely get into political discussions, and the ways in which we advocate are soft, quiet, patient.

  But that doesn’t mean we’ve transcended politics. To the contrary, while our activism has taken on a different form, doula work can be thought of in terms of a politics of compassion, where the intersectional framework given to us by the founders of the Reproductive Justice movement is what leads our approach. Compassionate care needs to come from a space that meets people where they’re at, with humility and the willingness to offer a stranger abundant love.
  lauren

  Lauren Mitchell

  MUTHA: I love this thing you refer to as “story-based care.” It makes sense that pregnant people should be able to turn to someone who understands all the stories that their body holds, in the moments when that matters most. Is this why the book is The Doulas, not The Doula Project? Was this a no brainer—to focus more on people vs the organization you built?

  MARY: We chose the title The Doulas because we wanted to emphasize the many different ways there are of being a doula—birth, abortion, post-partum, etc.—and that one is not more important or purer than the other—we don’t need to separate them. We also want to constantly put that word out into the world so more people know what doulas are—where better than on the cover of a really loud, bright book? Maybe people will look at it and see that weird word and read the back (or buy it?!) and have a little bit of knowledge to take home. I just did a career day at the middle I work at in Brownsville and talked about doulas, and these kids were utterly captivated—now my nickname at the school is “doula” and I hear them talking about it and they come up and ask me questions. The more we put that word out there, the more interest we generate and the more access we can create for pregnant people to have doulas.

  We wanted to focus on people, in addition to organization because it’s an entire movement we are trying to speak to, not just the Doula Project. With our “How To” sections, we interviewed people all over the country because we recognize that doula work can look really different depending on your geographic location. And it’s vital, challenging work no matter where or how you practice.
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  Photo by areta ekarafi / Creative Commons License

  MUTHA: I love how vignettes are interspersed with the guidance. How did you determine which stories to share? How are people responding to their stories? Also I am impressed by the details recalled in these stories. It’s almost as if they were carefully preserved for this purpose. The book really beautifully captures many intimate moments between doulas and the people they are with.

  MARY: The stories themselves happened somewhat organically. With a few exceptions, we didn’t know which way the oral histories would go or what the doulas would want to share. We chose an oral history format because we wanted things to be as open and respectful as possible for the people we were interviewing. The details came through sensory activities we asked them to do during the interview. And many of the doulas told the most transformative stories of their careers or lives so the details were deeply ingrained in their memories—we just helped bring them out into the light.

  We were intentional about the doulas we selected to be part of the book. We wanted a diversity of experiences and personal backgrounds and seasoned doulas who had seen a lot. Kat’s was the first oral history I did, and it really helped shape the book for me and guide direction. And I would just sob transcribing and thinking about her and how incredible she is. And then you have Kira, who, literally everything she said was a beautiful soundbite and I had to force myself to stop doing large chunk quotes in her chapter. Or Symone, who did one of the hardest things, which was talk about working with a difficult client.

  They shared their souls and then it became our responsibility to tell their story in the most meaningful, respectful way. And while we were writing this book, these doulas were always in our heads. Always. I said to them, “you think no one thinks about you more than your mom, but you’re wrong, we do.” Probably to a creepy level! We wanted to invite them into the editing process, and Ann Fessler, who helped advise us on how to collect oral histories, recommended reading aloud to the interviewee. And so the most terrifying and beautiful part of the book-writing process became meeting with each doula and reading their chapter out loud to them. I cry just thinking about it! In a way, you can’t get more intimate with a person—that exchange requires so much love and trust. I mean, they allowed us to write their stories. I still can’t believe it. Lauren and I constantly say to each other, how are we going to get through this book tour without buckets of our own tears?
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  Doulas featured in the book reading copies hot off the press!

  MUTHA: In the book you also talk about your work with stillbirth inductions & adoption plans. The two differ but seem spiritually similar, and it seems we don’t talk about either enough. I know it’s hard to guide someone without being present, but… Can you talk about what families might want to ask for if they are facing either of these outcomes? What if they don’t have access to a doula?

  LAUREN: This answer shifts a lot depending on whether we’re talking about stillbirth or supporting people who have made adoption plans, but if families are moving through either of these processes without a doula, the best suggestion we can offer is to find someone in the institution where you’re going—whether it’s a hospital, birth center, adoption agency, law firm, wherever—who will take the time to spell out as much information as you need. We know that this is easier said than done, but we often suggest that people take as much time as they can with their decisions—though often there isn’t a lot of time to waste—if it means that they can move forward confidently.

  For the book, we did an oral history one of our former clients, Kiya, who discussed the hazards of trying to make an adoption plan on her own; the couple was friends with her high-school guidance counselor. In her seventh month of pregnancy, they old her that they had already gotten another baby lined up. They agreed to adopt her child as long as she would agree to a completely closed adoption and they could raise both babies “as twins.” She realized that to them, it didn’t matter who she was—they just wanted a baby. And, navigating the situation on her own meant that she was pretty powerless: she had no money, no lawyer to advocate for her and to tell her about her rights. The adoptive parents had a disproportionate amount of control.

  Many of our clients who chose adoption were very alone in the process, save for their social workers and their doulas, and having the support of a fantastic adoption agency helped them understand their rights. Having some kind of external support from an organization or lawyer is crucial for birth parents; laws vary state-by-state, and it’s really important to have someone available who can talk through all of the nuances, in addition to providing therapeutic support if the birth parent wants it. We would encourage any potential birth parent in search of an adoption agency to look for somewhere that emphasizes open adoption—meaning that the birth parents have access to their child, and vice versa. What those relationships look like, specifically, will vary, but a good adoption agency will help mediate those terms.

  Stillbirth inductions are more straightforward in the sense that most hospital (or birth center) staff will have some knowledge about what to do—the process is a lot more medically standard. When we’ve attended stillbirths, we find that although we offer a lot of physical support, a lot of our job is being a continuous, loving, normalizing presence.
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  Photo by Gustavo Devito / Creative Commons License

  MUTHA: What would you say to someone supporting a mother through stillbirth?

  LAUREN: Stillbirths are brutal; often-induced labors, with contractions that are long, hard and painful, and the process can take way longer than a typical birth.

  Remain focused on the needs of the mother, who is not only going through a deep emotional grief, but also an intense physical process. Offering her steady, strong, unflinching support is crucial—let her cry on your shoulder if she needs to, give her space to be angry, don’t be alarmed if she is completely numb. Whatever she is feeling, make room for it. When she walks away from the experience, her body will still be reeling from the birth process, and so offering physical presence and comfort, like meals, massages, and running errands, will be helpful. Offer your presence without demand; write letters without the expectation that she will answer them. If she wants to talk about it, remind her that she is no less a mother for having experienced a loss; remind her that there is nothing wrong with her; remind her that being a parent can come in many different forms.

  MUTHA: How do you tend to your own souls through such experiences?

  LAUREN: The connections we’ve made with our clients is rare and beautiful—many doulas will agree with this. Often doulas will have a high ceiling of tolerance for enduring grief, and a higher-than-average capacity for care. But, it’s hard; we’re human. We could say all of the basic things—that after stillbirths or adoption births we tried to be kind to ourselves, and develop a “self care” practice, but the reality is it’s more complicated than that. It can be a slow-burning fire that turns into a form of “provider trauma” if you’re not careful.

  In part—and this is represented in the book, too—part of tending to our own souls is letting ourselves burn out a little and taking a step back. A lot of doulas take time away, even when they consider it a calling. A lot of people think of burning out as an ending point, but as we tried to show in the book, it can actually be a cyclical process. You’re stopping to replenish, so you can come back stronger, and more loving to yourself as well as your clients.

  Part of it also means seeking or creating a community of doulas or caregivers who are willing to go into these difficult emotional spaces with you. We’ve been super-grateful for the doulas in The Doula Project who we are so, so lucky to have as friends. It’s a small army of some of the most compassionate and loving people we know. There’s a lot of mutual support within the organization.

  Realistically, this work can be hard—and not always appropriate—to talk about with friends, family, or partners. In addition to being mindful of our client’s confidentiality… well. People often just don’t want to hear about stillbirths and adoptions over the dinner table. Not everyone has signed up for this work. Many doulas have an important community surrounding them and supporting them in the work they do, whether by being able to bear witness to our stories, and at times, our trauma, or being available to care for us in more intuitive, or basic ways: calling to check in is a huge kindness.

  image1

  MUTHA: So, when I am working as a doula in addition to my other responsibilities, it’s a lot to juggle. I am sure you get this. Do you have tips for newer doulas that are kind of juggling multiple “jobs”? I know this sort of gets into burnout and self-care, but really how do you stay rooted in your own real life?

  MARY: We talk about this A LOT in the book because most full-spectrum doulas face this challenge. I think for both me and Lauren, we were just so driven and inspired to make this happen. You have to want to do it so badly, you have to really really love it. And that will take you far because then it’s authentic and it becomes part of your real life, you don’t have to separate. Is that sustainable? For me, yes and no. I burned through that way with the The Doula Project for four or five years, and then I discovered some other things I was interested in, like mental health and social work, and wanted to go deeper with that, so I transitioned out of such a huge role with the DP. But 10 years later at the age of 35, I think I am probably working as hard and juggling as many things as I was when we started the DP, my inspiration has just shifted a bit. I’m all about following what inspires me, first and foremost. If that’s not there, I won’t make it far.
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  Photo by Wendy Kenin of a doula supporting a client / Creative Commons License

  Speaking to self-care, for me it’s never been a list of activities I do or this really conscious “tonight is self-care night.” It’s a continuous process of self-awareness and reality-checking. Annie talks about it beautifully in a chapter in our book. My best advice is know your limits, know when it’s time to give a little more or a little less, and, most importantly, surround yourself with people who get that and support that way of doing the work. I was so lucky because when we started the DP, I had a boss, Aimee Thorne-Thomsen, who was 100% supportive and would just be like “do what you need to do.” She knew the work at my day job would get done and, I think in her mind, what Lauren and I were doing was bigger than making sure I sat at my desk 8 hours a day. I recognize I was in a very very unique position, and I owe a lot of my early efforts with the Doula Project to having that supportive person who started every conversation with “how are YOU doing?”

  Lauren found herself in a good spot too because the clinic where we were doulas hired her full time, so she could juggle more Doula Project work directly on site and didn’t have to separate it out quite so much. Were we tired all the time? God, yes. But we were in our 20s and only had to worry about ourselves, we didn’t have kids or other major family situations pulling at us, we both had lower-middle class backgrounds and education privilege. You always have to take those factors into account before you can go too deeply into any advice on self-care. We’re capable of different things at different points in our lives. I’m about to have a baby and I’ve started saying “no” more than I ever have before…and it’s both uncomfortable and liberating. At the end of the day, no matter how low Lauren and I would get—and it did happen—we were pretty fearless and incredibly patient. We were able to see the long-term vision of the work and knew people would eventually come around to it.
  Mary_2-2 copy

  Mary Mahoney

  MUTHA: The world doesn’t look as we planned for it, when we first scheduled this interview before the election. I am nervous, as a doula, as a parent, and as a woman. And I did make an appointment for an IUD. I’ve been thinking about it for a couple of years anyway, and because I live in Massachusetts I know I’ll be able to access care, but still, I did sort of think “maybe I better get this reproductive health stuff done now!” What are your post-election thoughts?

  MARY: We are feeling very stricken like many others in the country right now. We have a unique opportunity with the release of the book and our book tour, to go into communities, both pro-choice and anti-choice, that are struggling and to listen and discuss plans of action to help support those who will be most affected by the new administration. Outside of that, all the doulas in the Project remain dedicated to being a listening ear and a loving presence to all the pregnant people they encounter.
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  Painting by Katie Knutson / Creative Commons Licensed

  MUTHA: What is the most important thing that you’ve learned from your work and founding the Doula Project?

  MARY: The first and most obvious that the emotional labor of doula work will change you in ways you won’t be able to anticipate. In her interview for the book, the doulas talk about their work—our work—as a kind of ethical calling. It’s not work for money, but it’s looking to our ability to hold physical and complex emotional spaces. Kat Broadway says that after working with the Doula Project, being a doula is core part of her identity. She will always be a doula. Even when we step back from the work itself, we’re still always doulas. It becomes an embedded part of who you are, no matter where you go.

  We’ve learned that being a good activist doesn’t necessarily make you a good doula. Doula work can be a form of activism—at least, we certainly think it is in the Doula Project’s model—but it is a very different set of skills. Political advocacy and organizing thinks about the macro-level pieces that will hopefully obtain collective liberation and justice. There isn’t a lot of room for the messiness of individual narratives when shit needs to get done, when mobilization needs to happen. Direct care is the opposite. You get down low in the nuances of someone’s story, and you stay there. Often, no one has any idea about the work you do, and that’s okay because that’s not why you’re there. You come home tired and exhilarated in equal proportion. Political rhetoric can seem painful and alienating compared to the vulnerabilities of the people you take care of, and you yourself.

  Doula care has also offered us the rare opportunity to let go of skepticism toward other people. Our job is to offer compassionate care to everyone who reaches out to us. That doesn’t mean we’ll necessarily always like our clients—people are people, some aren’t nice—but we at least get to begin from a loving space that gives the benefit of the doubt. That’s what makes it all worth it.

  There are a lot of other more logistical lessons, too, including “learning where to stand during an abortion procedure” and “how to make small talk” and “how to rub someone’s lower back during contractions.” Also, “how to get dozens of volunteers through cumbersome clinic volunteer processes” and “how to swallow your ego in front of clinic bureaucrats so your program doesn’t get shut down.”

  MUTHA: Wow. Thank you. I think it’s really important to make space for the difficult stuff in our lives, and yet it’s so hard. On that topic of self-care, here’s my last important question: What’s your favorite ice cream flavor? (Mine is Oreo though I feel I should have a more exciting favorite.)

  Lauren: Good question. I’m a fan of flavors that involve cookie dough, and peanut butter.

  Mary: I can’t lie—my favorite is Oreo, too! This may give away my Indiana upbringing, but is there anything better than an Oreo Blizzard from Dairy Queen?
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  “Oreo Blizzard break” by Bradley Huchteman (Creative Commons License)

  Yum.

  Let’s pause here where we can all soak in this lesson from The Doulas, shall we? Be a listening ear and a loving presence to all people we encounter. Maybe this book is really for everyone.

  Thank you, Lauren and Mary!

QUOTED: "The authors' stories are vivid, absorbing, and informative."
"eye-opening book" "a gripping chronicle that will be especially useful for expectant or aspirational mothers."

Mary Mahoney, Lauren Mitchell: THE DOULAS
(Sept. 15, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/

Mary Mahoney, Lauren Mitchell THE DOULAS Feminist Press (Adult Nonfiction) 19.95 11, 15 ISBN: 978-1-55861-941-8

The story of the transformative Doula Project.Mahoney and Mitchell explain how they were inspired as activists to broaden the reproductive rights movement to make sure that women seeking abortions “have continuous, nonjudgmental physical, emotional, and educational support just like people giving birth.” During the summers of 2007 and 2008, they “set out to translate the reproductive justice framework into a more direct-care-oriented approach.” They took the term “doula,” derived from the Greek name for female slave and in the past only used to describe birth attendants, and adapted it to include “abortion doulas.” The authors aimed to include not only women who suffered miscarriages, underwent deliberate abortions, or decided to become single mothers, but also “transgender and gender nonconforming people,” and they helped to bridge the gap between birth and abortion activists. As they note, those who sought their help were mainly “women of color, immigrants, and young people.” While the main focus of the book is the women they served and the causes they supported, the authors also discuss the problem of caregiver burnout in this emotionally charged field. During the past decade, doulas have been credited with helping to create a more broad-minded acceptance of their craft, and just as significantly, they have gained acceptance by the medical profession, something that was sorely lacking in previous decades. For women without support from family or friends, their presence during medical procedures can be crucial. Doulas represent their clients’ wishes when they are unable to do so—e.g., helping to make a decision about induced labor or C-section. This eye-opening book also includes a glossary that defines common terms such as “epidural” as well as less-familiar ones like “dilation and curettage” or “manual vacuum aspiration.” Throughout, the authors’ stories are vivid, absorbing, and informative. A gripping chronicle that will be especially useful for expectant or aspirational mothers.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Mary Mahoney, Lauren Mitchell: THE DOULAS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA463215901&it=r&asid=eb673c50fd0ee8be76f564cedb221d20. Accessed 10 May 2017.

QUOTED: "The writing is clear, and the message is too: reproductive justice for the poor starts with the 'quiet brand of activism.'"

Gale Document Number: GALE|A463215901
The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People
263.36 (Sept. 5, 2016): p74.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/

The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

Mary Mahoney and Lauren Mitchell. Feminist

Press, $19.95 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-155861-949-4

In this thoughtful book, Mahoney and Mitchell chronicle their efforts to bring labor and postpartum support to many women who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford the assistance of a doula. Recognizing that low-income women in particular need support dealing with the "medical industrial complex" and restricted reproductive choice, the authors formed the Doula Project in 2008 and coined the term "full-spectrum doula": part activist, part advocate, and part direct caregiver; The Doula Project has trained a few thousand full-spectrum doulas to provide support for all pregnancy options arid experiences, including birth, abortion, adoption, miscarriage, stillbirth, and perinatal loss. In five sections told mostly from the points of view of different doulas, the book covers the origins and scope of this approach, with personal narratives demonstrating the concerns of the caregivers as well as of the women they support, whatever their choices. The writing is clear, and the message is too: reproductive justice for the poor starts with the "quiet brand of activism" of oneon-one support and telling other people's stories. A final chapter on how to build a full-spectrum model in other parts of the country outside Mahoney and Mitchell's home base of New York City, rounds out the book. (Nov.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People." Publishers Weekly, 5 Sept. 2016, p. 74. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA463513617&it=r&asid=9bcbacf74f523627f85e4edce38d8440. Accessed 10 May 2017.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A463513617

"Mary Mahoney, Lauren Mitchell: THE DOULAS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Sept. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA463215901&asid=eb673c50fd0ee8be76f564cedb221d20. Accessed 10 May 2017. "The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People." Publishers Weekly, 5 Sept. 2016, p. 74. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA463513617&asid=9bcbacf74f523627f85e4edce38d8440. Accessed 10 May 2017.

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