Reproductive Justice and Calm Birth
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We've been thinking hard about what to say about the SCOTUS attack on reproductive rights. How can an organization that encourages building a bond with a baby as early as possible take a pro-choice stance? Isn't that contradictory?
The truth is, it's okay to believe that life begins at conception... and to still support reproductive rights. There are many truths in this vast universe. But fundamentally, energy can be neither created nor destroyed. Life itself continues.
Plus... forcing a life into existence against the consent of the life-giver is violence. It increases suffering. It is not an individual failing it is a product of systemic failures that banning abortion does nothing to address. All of this goes against the tenants upon which the Calm Birth practices are based.
This opinion is not reflective of every Calm Birth teacher or practitioner, but the directors and founders have agreed it's time to take a public stand. Silence is another form of violence.
We have some projects underway to support people through the emotional and physical experience of abortion. These are scary times and sometimes it feels like all we have is our breath.
Sending this intention out to the Universe, through our thoughts and actions: May we all breathe and live free from oppression.
"According to Tibetan Buddhist contemplatives, there is an unbroken thread of consciousness through life, death, and through the intermediate state and on into the next life. Therefore if an embryo or fetus is aborted it does not die but inevitably continues on. The infinite universal energy is the indestructible ground of the continuum." - Robert Newman, Calm Birth founder