The Catholic University of America announced Tuesday that it had terminated a contract with one of its professors who brought an abortion doula to guest lecture for a class, according to an email to students from President Peter Kilpatrick.
Melissa Goldberg, a professor of psychology at the Catholic university, invited Rachel Carbonneau, the founder and CEO of Family Ways, which provides doula services, who told the class that she is also an “abortion doula,” according to audio obtained by the Daily Signal. Kilpatrick told students that the university was not initially aware of what happened but had found out through several requests for comment from different media outlets, according to the email obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation; abortion is strongly opposed by the Catholic church. (RELATED: Abortion Activists Forced To Scale Back Operations After Funding Dries Up)
“Now that we have clear evidence that the content of the class did not align with our mission and identity, we have now terminated our contract with the professor who invited the speaker,” Kilpatrick wrote.
Abortion rights advocates and lawmakers hold a press conference before the debate of a bill that would restrict abortions after six weeks, at the South Carolina State House in Columbia, South Carolina, on May 16, 2023. (Photo by LOGAN CYRUS/AFP via Getty Images)
Doulas are a non-medical advocate that help women through the birth and the postpartum processes, providing education resources, emotional support and advocate for them during birth, according to Healthline.
During the lecture, Carbonneau, who told the class that she attended the university as a student in the past, explained that she was “comfortable navigating” the abortion space when a student asked her about her views, according to the audio. She also said that her company also works with transgender clients for “seahorse” births.
“I have some men who have given birth; it’s amazing, we call it seahorse birth. It’s lovely, especially when it’s a water birth; it’s fantastic,” Carbonneau said.
She also encouraged students to normalize talking about “pregnant men” and use “gender-neutral language” such as “pregnant people, pregnant women, pregnant men, pregnant humans,” according to the Daily Signal.
Kilpatrick also noted that after finding out Carbonneau’s views on abortion were not in line with the university’s, they decided to bar her from being invited back to speak, according to the email.
“The speaker identified herself as an “abortion doula” and she advocated for abortion, for language that distorts the distinctions between the sexes, and for the normalizing of transgender births …we did determine that the speaker’s views on life issues and on the anthropology of the human person were not consistent with our mission and identity as a faithful Catholic university and that she should not be allowed to address the class again,” the president wrote.
Goldberg did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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