Welcome To Your Abortion
Not many people aspire to one day have an abortion. It is an experience that surprises us, catches us at our most vulnerable, and can lead to some very difficult realizations about oneself and one’s life.
Pregnancies, marriages, divorces, births, and deaths all trigger deep emotions in us and the people around us. To be pregnant, and to not want to carry to full term can raise emotions that an individual didn’t even know existed in the depths within them.
It can be a lot to process, and on top of this, your pregnant body is full of hormones.
Self-managed abortion is one in which you will be managing the process at home. You may have received the pills online or at a clinic or pharmacy, but you will be managing the bleeding, and the passage of the fetus, at home.
You may be alone or have a companion, but either way—you are managing the abortion yourself—it is happening in your body.
This experience can be potentially terrifying or very empowering. Knowledge is powerful, and if you know what to expect, and when to seek help, you can relax a little more and focus on your healing.
A sacred abortion recognizes the spiritual nature of abortion and invites you to conduct your abortion in the container of a ceremony. It is the process in which you fully recognize all aspects of your emotions and desires—even the ones that seem to conflict with the choice you are making to have an abortion.
By feeling all the present emotions completely, we can eventually fully heal. Some women never get “over” their abortion, while others can make the decision and never look back. This depends upon the context that brought you to your choice today, as well as your beliefs around reproduction, childbirth, and abortion.
Sacred abortion is to step into this process as a ceremony, giving deep reverence to the pregnancy, to yourself, and most of all—to the universal mystery that connects us all.
Women’s bodies have long been taboo within the framework of patriarchal culture, and common experiences such as abortion and miscarriage have been kept in cultural shadow.
Abortion has not been considered on the spectrum of sacred, and for this reason, many women are never able to properly grieve their abortions.
Every aspect of human experience is sacred, including the hard or difficult parts.
My Story
In my early 20s, I had a medical abortion in a country where abortion was illegal.
The doctor did not want to give me too many details, and I spent hours scouring the internet for more answers. Why wasn’t I bleeding yet? When did I need to take the misoprostol? How was I supposed to take the misoprostol?
I was terrified and had no one to turn to for real answers. I realized just having the ability to access abortion was only one-half of the process.
To know HOW to have an informed medical abortion with grace was also important.
At that time, the internet only had answers hidden in lines of medical textbooks. This was complicated to navigate and understand and still left me with questions.
The experience of having a medical abortion in a country where it was illegal changed the course of my life.
I was determined to do something about it. I have worked in clinics, and have access to mifepristone + misoprostol abortion pills. I always keep a pack on my altar, as a blessing to all people who have self-managed their own abortions.
When I again fell pregnant in my 30s, I had a unique and privileged experience. I had the ability to truly spend time with my decision, from the moment I found out I was pregnant at my missed period (around 4 weeks) until 7 weeks (the cut-off for early abortions). My abortion pills were waiting for me, to be used or not to be used.
I did not have to stress about finding a doctor for an appointment, hoping that my pills would arrive in time through the mail, or worry about being arrested for an illegal abortion (as is many women’s experience worldwide).
When I made the complicated decision to end my pregnancy, I was able to start my abortion process in a deliberate manner, setting a spiritual space and choosing to start the process intentionally mid-week so the bleeding would come over the weekend.
Every woman deserves this freedom of choice in this experience, to truly choose birth or abortion, from the strength of her heart, without the added burden of doctors, appointments, mail, and outside judgment.
If we lived in a world where everyone kept an abortion pill on her altar, or in her medicine cabinet, we would live in a world where every baby was truly, genuinely wanted, and every baby birthed was intentionally and consciously raised.
This is a world I am working to build, and with this course, supporting people who have accessed the pills through their abortion ceremony and the journey is a big part of helping us all achieve a future of reproductive alignment.
As you set up your ceremonial space to have your abortion, know that you are entering a space between worlds, and joining in a collective experience shared by women who have lived and aborted, birthed, and miscarried since the beginning of humanity.
You are not alone, and your experience is sacred.
REFLECTION
- Did you have any emotions that surprised you during this pregnancy process?