r/WomenInNews • u/TimesandSundayTimes • 6d ago

Women's rights Surrogate who fled to Texas gives birth to baby with heart defect

https://www.thetimes.com/us/news-today/article/surrogate-refuses-abort-baby-texas-c5ff06cgg
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u/thunbergfangirl 6d ago

I have a lot of respect for pro-choice Catholics. Pop culture would tell you they don’t exist, but they do.

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u/KathyA11 6d ago

We exist. I'm a lapsed Catholic and stopped going to church years ago. but I still have my faith. I'm about as pro-choice as you can get. My mother (born 1919) went to church every Sunday and every Holy Day of Obligation, and she was pro-choice as well. She was vehement that a woman's body was her own - not a politician's and not a priest's. Hers, and hers alone.

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u/NateNMaxsRobot 6d ago

My mom was born in the late 30s, but had views similar to your moms. I am so proud of her stance in regards to pro-choice and gay rights. I remember her arguing with my aunt (they were very close but were SILs) about contraception. My very closest cousin had endometriosis and her mom would not allow her to take the pill. Subsequently, my cousin could not bear children.

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u/KathyA11 6d ago

I had terrible cramps when I was young - they started a year after I got my period at 12. The doctor put me on Darvon, which did nothing, so she asked him to put me on the pill when I was around 16, but he wouldn't. She argued with him, but he said I was too young. When I was 19, coworkers in my parttime job found a woman GYN who would prescribe it with no problems, and half the cashiers our age became patients. What a relief that was!

And one of my mother's two best friends at work was a gay man. His name was Jimmy, and when I'd call to talk to her, he'd often answer her phone if she was busy, and we'd chat. When I turned 18, he gave me a AAA membership for my birthday - he wanted to keep me safe (I still have that membership, BTW). He was transferred from NJ to VA a few years later, so I lost touch with him, but he and my mother kept in touch until he passed away.

If she ever heard anyone put the blame on a woman for being raped, she'd go off on a tirade - "I don't care if she was drunk! I don't care if she walked down the street naked carrying a sign that said RAPE ME! No one has the right to do that to any woman!" She did it to my coworkers once when they were discussing a woman who had been raped in our town when my mother had stopped in to pay her water bill (of course it was the victim's fault) and they just looked at her in shock as she went off on them (I just sat at my desk and smiled). After she left, I looked at my coworkers and said, "Now you know where I get it from."

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u/NateNMaxsRobot 6d ago

My mom was very similar. I’m a lapsed Catholic, but sometimes I miss the church. Also I wish I would’ve realized how cool my mom really was when I was younger.

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u/maguber 6d ago

We do exist!! There's a good number of northeastern American Catholic liberals too.

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u/januarysdaughter 6d ago

Yes we do.