In 2007, a group of New York pro-abortion activists decided to provide doulas to women undergoing abortions. Traditionally, doulas assist women throughout the last few months of pregnancy and during labour. They do not have the same education as midwives or social workers. Rather, they provide comfort to the mother through techniques such as hand-holding, breathing, visualization or pain management.

The New York City Doula Project, however, was the first to provide these services for women going through abortions. Since then, other groups in Asheville, N.C., Greensboro, N.C. and Seattle, Wash. have started to provide abortion doulas.

“To me, it seemed like a very intuitive idea,” said project co-founder Lauren Mitchell to Bust, a women’s magazine. “Why aren’t there doulas for abortions? It’s usually an uncomfortable procedure, it can be emotional, it encompasses a huge range – life, sex, death. It’s intense.” The project, operating from a public hospital in New York City, provides free volunteer doulas to Manhattan and Brooklyn women who will be undergoing abortions, birth mothers at a pro-choice adoption organization and women who cannot afford doula services. They have volunteers that operate in two New York City abortion facilities and claim to have assisted 1,000 women in the last 18 months.

“We hang out with them in the pre-op waiting room, accompany them to their procedure and stand with them during (it) and then spend time with them in the recovery room,” said Mary Mahoney, co-founder of the Doula Project and assistant director of the Pro-Choice Public Education Project, in a Slate article by Marisa Meltzer.

This initiative has sparked debate among the doula community, which contains a strong pro-life element. Replying to a post by pro-abortion doula Miriam Pérez on Alldoulas.com, “Doula Lori” wrote, “When I was new in this doula work, I started out assuming that most in the childbirth field would naturally be pro-life. It was very hard for me to comprehend how doulas and midwives could be pro-abortion.”

The concept of the pro-abortion doula is seen by many as yet another attempt to normalize abortion. On her blog, pro-life columnist and speaker Jill Stanek writes that “while pro-aborts fervently deny the physical and psychological pain of abortion, they furtively acknowledge them by trialing abortion doulas, also an attempt to legitimize and destigmatize abortion by making it a component of maternity.”