Both abortion and birth have their place in healthy cycles of life

June 25, 2022

This is a little raw. Because right now I feel a bit raw. A lot of people are feeling a bit raw after yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling.

I had an abortion on June 26, 2018. Tomorrow will mark four years. Today on June 25th, 2022 I am six months pregnant with a different unplanned pregnancy and a due date of late September. There’s a part of me that feels like this baby deserved a birth announcement full of only joy, but the truth is, it’s terrifying.

By now you must know that yesterday the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe v. Wade. I feel so demoralized bringing a child into such a wounded world where some of the people I share a country with don’t believe I should get to have autonomy over my own body and make the decisions that I know to be right for me with regard to reproduction.

I unequivocally support a pregnant person’s right to discern when is and when isn’t a time that they consent to carrying a baby to term. I fundamentally protect the right to have autonomy over saying not this one, not this time. Deciding when is and isn’t a good time for a person to proceed to birth with a fertilized embryo has depended on many factors over time including what the environment could sustain, what the capacity was of humans to care for another child, and simply whatever the pregnant person’s guidance is about what the right choice is for them.

With nearly eight billion people on the planet having such deleterious impact, I believe it is our human responsibility to think very consciously before making the decision to birth another human into this planet. Not every human egg that is fertilized needs to be birthed. The planet can’t support that. If you are “pro-life” in a way that supports every fertilized embryo being birthed, you are not actually pro-life. You are pro human baby birth at the grave expense of so much other life - beginning with the life of the person carrying the fetus.

Being pregnant now and knowing how much it takes, the thought of forcing someone to carry a baby against their will is one of the grossest violations of a person I can imagine. It is just as violent a violation of consent as is rape, although of potentially a different magnitude. I don’t believe in shaming, so that is not what I am doing when I say that anyone doing this is just so fundamentally wrong. If you support this cruel and dehumanizing behavior, please go reflect on your values. What makes you think you have the right to control what someone else does with their body in this way?  And what about the child? What about the trauma they will feel from being unwanted, the revulsion a parent must feel to be carrying a child they don’t want? Why burden that parent, society and the biosphere with caring for yet one more human if that is not something that is even wanted?

Being anti-abortion is so fucked up on so many levels and I am so angry that overturning Roe v. Wade will make it so much more difficult for pregnant people to get the health care they need in what may already be an exceedingly difficult time with facing an unwanted pregnancy. I fundamentally believe in the right for people to consent to what happens to their own bodies.

If anyone I know lives in a state where abortion access is compromised and you can get to Massachusetts and need this form of care, please know I have a guest room you are welcome to in my home. I had the enormous privilege of being deeply supported through my abortion, and any person facing that may be a very difficult choice deserves this. I am sorry that some parts of our society are trying to take that away from you. If you need help, please reach out and I will do what I can. If you aren’t able to travel and this is an option for you timing wise, I’d also be willing to help research your options for safe ways to abort early pregnancies at home with medicines that can be mailed to you. I will also be starting monthly contributions to abortion funds, as they are already better positioned to help than I may ever be. I will also say that while I’m here to help as an individual, we need systemic changes. We need to rise up together and throw off the yoke of these oppressive systems. We need transformation now.

It is going to be 90 degrees today, and 94 tomorrow. Climate change is here and now and intensifying with every day. Many people are suffering from climate change, and many more will suffer. As a species, a radical reorienting of out ethics and priorities is needed if we are to actually be pro-Life, that is supporting of the entire community of life on this planet rather than one very limited facet of it – fertilized human eggs being brought to term.

When I chose four years ago to terminate an unplanned pregnancy, I did so with the desire to have most of my time go to working for the healing of the world, and for all of the future ones whose lives depend on of the actions those alive today. We who are alive today have an awesome responsibility to not only help stem the tide of damage, but to actually change the tide towards life affirming and life sustaining ways.

With 9 billion of us humans on the planet, when I’ve heard that sustainable carrying capacities are closer to 1 billion or less, how can we get to a more sustainable carrying capacity? I would like it to be as voluntary as possible. If people don’t want to have children, please don’t force them to. I wanted to be one of the ones who said – I am willing. I am willing to be one of the people who forgoes procreation so that the human population may come down in as compassionate a way as possible. When my partner and I were faced with a second unplanned pregnancy in our 18 years of being together, we decided to make a different choice. It took me many months to be at peace with that decision, and while I am consenting, I still have so many hesitations.

I think one of the deciding factors for me was a shift in my orientation. I had been operating from a place of “how can I have less of a bad impact on the planet?” And bringing one less child onto the planet was a way of reducing my impact (I’ve heard the statistic that having a child doubles your ecological footprint because then there is a whole other human consuming). But the community of life on earth doesn’t need just less human consumption (although that would be some of a reprieve), just less of a bad thing. The community of life on earth needs for humans to actually be a force for healing and good. There is a very important role humans can play in contributing to accelerating the healing of life systems on the planet. Part of it is taking our foot off of the neck of mother earth by decreasing the devastation, but at least in equal part if not more, we can partner with the other life of this planet in regeneration. Life knows know to create conditions conducive for the community of life, and if we as a species change our ways, we can be a part of the healing and regeneration of the biosphere. There are some things it is too late for, a species once extinct is not coming back. That death of birth is final for that lineage. And there are some things it is not too late for. We need all hands on deck for whatever healing and regeneration is possible. We won’t know what is possible until we try.

While in general I have thought I that I could be a good parent and enjoy this miraculous aspect of being human, my partner was far more interested in becoming a biological parent than I was. My commitment and life force has been far more towards supporting the wider community of life than one particular human. While I know I have the right to choose what happens with my body, I felt like my partner deserved some say in the life of this child too. What is helping me to be more at peace with the decision to continue with the pregnancy, despite many valid hesitations, is that I am choosing to commit to raising this child in a way where I and the child can be a force for not being just less bad, but rather being a force for good, a force for healing. Raising a child with secure attachment and values that affirm and support the community of life can be an important part of transformation. Because we don’t need to just consume less, we need to transform our impact from being consumptive and drawing down the life force of the planet to being regenerative and healing. I believe in that.

And I also believe in boundaries. I don’t need to give all of my time to raising one little human (what a patriarchal, colonial, oppressive cultural construct), as awesome as they may be. I still have my relational responsibility to act for the good of all life. So I will need the support of my community, to help me raise this child in a conscious way and continue showing up as I am able to for all of life. Any new parent needs the support of a village. To all you pro-lifers out there, please be as supportive of parents and children after birth as you have been controlling of pregnant bodies before birth. Please extend your care to all life. It is not only human babies that matter. Our species has a responsibility to contribute in ways that enhance the community of life and its continuation rather than burning down our only earthen home. Check your anthropocentrism. Check your patriarchy. It is killing life daily. And that is not okay.