March 31, 1992

Frances Kissling, former founding President of the National Abortion Federation and president of Catholics for Free Choice, lectured in Rockefeller Hall on “Irreconcilable Differences? Catholicism and Reproductive Freedom.” “When I understood,” she said, “that the Church had no position on whether or not the fetus was a person, but that the Church surely knew that pregnant women were persons, it became difficult for me to understand why the Church valued the potentiality of fetuses more than it valuied the actual reality of women as persons.”

“Ms. Kissling,” wrote Emily Smith ’94 in The Miscellany News, “spoke with a passion that stems from her strong religious faith and her dedication to feminism and reprodcutive freedom.” A member of the Pro-Choice Coalition, Smith said Kissling “listened to and answered questions very well, especially those from the few anti-choice people,” mostly members of the Poughkeepsie community.

—The Miscellany News