​In defence of ‘childless cat ladies’

JD Vance is wrong to pick on childless women, says Chine McDonald. Without their commitment and service, the Church would not exist 

Some of my best friends are ‘cat ladies’ – the offensive slur describing childless women used by JD Vance, the US Republican vice-presidential nominee – that sparked global outrage last month when an old interview of him resurfaced.

Criticising the current vice-president Kamala Harris, Vance said: “We’re effectively run in this country… by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made”. Vance also argued that not having children meant you had no ‘direct stake’ in the future.

This argument that being childless – whether by choice or being single not by choice or because of fertility challenges, or baby loss – is not just confined to fiery US elections. In the 2016 Conservative leadership race, Andrea Leadsom apologised after appearing to suggest she’d make a better prime minister because she was a mother, and her opponent, Theresa May was not. Leadsom had said that her motherhood meant she “had a very real stake in the future”, implying that those who were not mothers did not.