A Pagan Perspective on Abortion

A friend of mine is Wiccan and she commented that we've covered many spiritual perspectives at abortionclinicdays, but haven't had a post that spoke to her sense of faith and right action. She forwarded me this post by Anne at Blog o' Gnosis, which I'm going to repost in its entirety.

Abortion: Holding Life and Death

What with the persistent attacks on women’s right to abortion and birth control in this country, I feel I must start clarifying my own position in the (falsely dichotomized) pro-life vs. pro-choice debate. I am both pro-life and pro-choice. I do believe life begins at conception, AND I do not believe it is a sin or a death to end that life before the fetus is born.

Because nobody is ever listened to these days without having to stand on their credentials, here are mine: 3 live births, 2 abortions, 1 miscarriage. 2 children adopted as teenagers. 4 children successfully raised to adulthood, one still an adolescent. Have attended births, deaths, fertility rituals, infertility rituals. Have friends who were adopted out as infants, friends who gave up infants, friends who adopted children. Have taught the kids of abusive and/or addicted mothers. Have counseled addicts and women who are unable to support themselves to have abortions.

Ursula LeGuin has a wonderful article (”The Princess”, an address to NARAL in 1982 collected in Dancing at the Edge of the World) where she writes, in response to the ridiculous claims of the Christian Right that every pregnancy must continue to birth, that as a young woman she got pregnant accidentally. Because she was in no position to raise a child, because she chose abortion and finished her schooling, she then went on to create a stable relationship and have three very wanted children. But if she’d had to raise that one, none of the other would have happened. So with the abortion, it is still a net gain of 2 babies. Following the Right’s crude mathematical logic, this should be cause to celebrate, right?

I don’t have the patience to write so craftily in response to this right-wing assault as she has. I am plain furious that our government keeps narrowing the birth control and abortion options for women both in this country and abroad. I hate that they think this is good for social ills of any kind. And I am furious that reasonable-minded people are letting this happen. I don’t like the fact that the Left keeps letting itself get out-flanked on the issue, and I don’t like that by saying I’m pro-choice I’m not supposed to admit that life begins at conception. As a Pagan, there is no contradiction here. Our religion teaches us to hold both death and life simultaneously.

I have trained for many years to sense energy, to feel what is going on both inside my body and in the spiritual realms around me. Each time I have gotten pregnant, it took very little time for me to make contact with the spirit of my unborn child. For me, that connection was so instantaneous, so deep and intimate, that the thought of bearing a child and then giving it up once it was born was not an option for me. That would have been far more devastating than having an abortion.

Each time I had an abortion, it was because I knew I did not have the time and energy to raise that child to my own childraising standards. That is a knowledge borne out of the experience of many, many hard years of mothering. I was completely clear that aborting the pregnancy was the best thing to do. Where I part company with the pro-lifers is here: it is not murder to abort a fetus. The child at that point is a spirit, not a body. It resides only occasionally in its little, developing fetus body. Mostly, it hovers in and around the mother, feeling what we feel, remembering where it’s been before, riding the changes in its consciousness and ours in a completely non-judgmental way.

When it is time to abort the fetus, I have felt the spirit around me strongly. I have said good-bye in a tender, loving, deeply grieving way. The fetus is expelled, and the spirit just drifts away. It does not die, it is not harmed. I know this to be true. It goes back to the spirit world to wait for its next opportunity to come through, hopefully richer for the experience of our having been so close for a short time. That is what happens, yet even with this outlook abortion is deeply traumatic for women, something to be avoided if at all possible. It is not an easy process, even when we want it.

In a term pregnancy, usually the child’s spirit fully enters its body at birth. So from a spiritual perspective I can see why pro-choice folks rally round the credo that life begins at birth. But for me, acknowledging that life is there at conception allows me to take the pro-choice argument a step further: it is a woman’s birthright, this ability to judge which spirits pass through our wombs into life, and which pass through into death. That is part of the deal, part of the package of being born a woman.

We have that power, and we need to claim it, learn how to use it wisely, and guard it ferociously. We need to teach our daughters about their birthright, and be comfortable ourselves talking to them about birth control and our own deepest experiences with our fertility. If we give up the right to choose when we want to have children, either by apathy or by struggle, we will be giving up power over our own bodies AND an important part of our spiritual power. Women are the gates, and the gatekeepers, between the born and the unborn. We hold life in one hand and death in another, and that is how we are meant to be. This cannot be neatly parsed into the ridiculous boxing match of pro-life vs. pro-choice. Abortion should be legal, and extremely rare. We achieve this through realistic sex education (I’m not talking about abstinence-only here) and by providing free or low-cost birth control and abortion services to all women of childbearing age. End of story. Now, just how do we go about making this the law of the land?

Comments

[MG1988]

I'm so grateful to have read this. I'm contemplating making this decision for myself at the moment. I've been struggling with myself and my morals, but I can't seem to justify carrying to term. There are a lot of physical and mental health problems that run in my family that are nearly guaranteed to be passed on. I can't in good conscience bring a child into this world to suffer, either physically or mentally. As or myself, I don't think I have it in me to mentally or emotionally cope with a pregnancy. Or to raise a child. I've been struggling with my own issues, an eating disorder for example. I'm not fit to be a parent.

I don't know why I'm even typing all of this. Maybe because no one besides my boyfriend will ever know about this. But thank you. Thank you for writing such a thoughtful piece

[Esther Labbe]

Thank you so much. Reading your article is like tapping into something I have always known. I cannot thank you enough for sending me your wiadom,strength and warmth. Right now, it means the world to me. Blessed be

[FyreFly]

Wouldn't it be a wonderful world if everyone could understand this and not criticize us for embracing our inner Goddesses? Thank you for your wonderful post. It is an inspiration! Blessed Be Kind One.

[Winona]

Thank you for sharing your experience with so many. Your words spoke to me as I presently struggle to overcome the pain and guilt of a recent abortion. The philosophy of my spirit child returning to another womb was very comforting.
Blessed Be

[NotYetDemeter]

..... As a young woman about to go through this process I have been struggling with this immensely; I watched a friend go through it just after I found out and she nearly lost her mind... she did not handle it well. It scared me to my core watching her go through the pain and now I am left to trying to handle this my own way... I did a meditation and a ritual that involved an egg that I ended up putting into a soft white bag tied shut with an old necklace that meant a lot to me...I left it in a circular tree not far from where I live.
I have no idea why I am sharing this; something that not even my closest friends will ever know... I think it is because you shared your experience and it gave me tears of strength... I know that women have experienced this miracle since the dawn of time and you will never understand it until it happens to you....
I can feel that life force you spoke of....and I wish it could stay, I wish I could get to know it. But there are cases where it would be crueller to raise the child in unfit circumstances than it would be to postpone that life spark taking form in the world. So instead I thanked the universe for its gift... and the lesson; but I know it is not my time yet and would the Universe please accept the energy back for a time? to be given to a mother who truly wants to be??........ thank you for providing your insight and courage; the balance of life and death must be just as it should be otherwise who knows what would be happening? ....

[PJMama]

"God Complex" much?

[AnnaArcturus]

I'm so grateful you wrote this post, it put into succinct language how I feel about the spiritual/thealogical status of a child from conception onward. I have always agreed with the Shinto concept that the spirit flows into a child progressively for some time, even after birth. As I see it, it is all a continuum. Thank you.

[fuzzit]

wonderful post.

[shrimplate]

Bravo.