As someone who is kind of Catholic, a feminist, pro choice, liberal, and has a weird name, it is hard to find people who are similar to me and also Catholic. I was on Instagram a few weeks ago, and found an account called CatholicsforChoice. This shocked me. There is a group of Catholic people who support abortion and Planned Parenthood? I was ecstatic. It felt so great to find others who thought the same as me. As I did more research, I felt so fulfilled. This organization was founded in 1973. From 1982 to 2007, their president was a woman named Frances Kissling. Someone with my name? And spelled with an E! It seemed like the whole thing wasn’t real. I did more research on Frances specifically, and learned so much. She is Polish, and was born in New York City in 1943. After attending Catholic school, she decided to join a convent. After realizing that wasn’t for her, she began attending the New School. Throughout the 60s and 70s, she was a women rights activist, and directed an abortion clinic in Pelham, which is about ten miles northeast from Manhattan. In 1978, she joined the board of Catholics for Free Choice. She took over as president in 1982, and served as that for 25 years. Although she is retired now, she is a visiting scholar at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas in Mexico City. She’s also a Co-Founder of the Global Fund for Women and the president of the Center for Health, Ethics, and Social Policy. I really like Frances Kissling, and I want to be just like her.
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