Mary Mahoney > Quotes

“While our book may not recreate the lasting bond you had with your childhood doll, we find some comfort in knowing it's priced more competitively.”
― Mary Mahoney, Dolls of Our Lives

“Maternal mortality and C-section rates were on the rise and people were speaking up.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“all set within a medical framework that can feel both archaic and chaotic.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“standing on the shoulders of giants,”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“Often, the feminist movement of the 1960s is associated with a reproductive rights framework—the right to choose when, how, and with whom someone has children. Reproductive justice takes that movement further, bringing together intersections of identity to form a definition of social justice hinged on lived experiences—especially lived experiences of women of color.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“According to Grimes, in the act of providing the abortion, the provider accepts and takes away the patient’s emotional burden.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“Looking back, it would be convenient to say that we didn't fit into academia, or we were too much for it. But is anyone really a good fit with a dumpster fire?”
― Mary Mahoney, Dolls of Our Lives

“My clients would change me, how I practice care and walk through the world.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“Having a doula present during an abortion is no longer “icing on the cake”—our clinics consider us an important part of their infrastructure.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“When I was growing up, no one ever spoke to me in a real way about my body or my health”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“Choosing certification is a personal decision, and we completely respect the many reasons why doulas choose to become certified. But we believe that it is not certification that makes a good doula.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“people having abortions should have continuous and nonjudgmental physical, emotional, and educational support just like people giving birth.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“Conversation around abortion and birth in my community was not nuanced—there was no conversation at all.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“We created a purposeful position and named it, giving people something to hold on to. But mostly, we kept our heads down and served our clients. That’s what this work is all about.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“The common pro-choice refrain was “most women feel relief “—and nothing else—and pro-choice advocates rejected the idea of a “postabortion syndrome” (characterized by stress, anxiety, and depression) that had been coined by pro-life organizations. It was assumed that anyone who talked about abortion feelings, especially difficult ones like sadness or grief, had been bamboozled by pro-life extremists.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“You were either an abortion rights activist or a birth activist, and we are not the same; we are not community. Even as an abortion activist I remember feeling completely alienated from the birth rights people, and I couldn’t believe this chasm exists, but it does.” As a full-spectrum doula organization, we would find ourselves managing either side of this equation throughout our existence.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“using pieces of what Jane did as a model.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“I am pregnant. This is what I choose to do for this pregnancy. This is what I am able to do. Next time, I might choose something different. Can I get some care and support for this pregnancy’s path?”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“This would be our first lesson in the power the abortion counselor has in the clinic, the way in which they hold the service together.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“Doula” finds its roots in the Greek word for “female slave,” an unfortunate denotation that has morphed over the years into the less embattled “woman who serves.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“We discovered groups that, for years, had been promoting a message of care similar to ours. We began to connect with them.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“we became more intentional about using the term “pregnant people.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“most parents don’t know how to talk to their kids about sex.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“a swath of the country where conservative roots grow into all its children”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“holistic justice-based framework created by women of color in the 1990s, with Loretta Ross spearheading the conversation.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“This message of abstinence hovered over my Christian community”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“busting our asses at our full-time jobs, navigating a city that left us worn to the bone at each day’s end.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“The reproductive justice movement promotes the idea that, in a lifetime, a person might experience the full spectrum of reproductive health decisions, that these decisions are linked to other intersecting factors in their life, and that any decision made should be respected and protected.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“ice packs, hot packs, bendy straws, hair ties, essential oils, face masks, latex gloves (in case things get unexpectedly messy), tennis balls and various other massagers, snacks for both you and your client, extra socks, breath mints and a toothbrush, as well as visualization and hypnobirthing exercises.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People

“The abortions, the stillbirth inductions, the adoption plans, they would move into me, and I would hold on to tiny pieces of every person I cared for.”
― Mary Mahoney, The Doulas: Radical Care for Pregnant People