I wrote an article for the new Exhale website about the awesome work of abortion doulas. Exhale is an organization whose mission I believe connects closely to what we do as abortion doulas: providing support to all people who’ve had abortions, without judgement.
About Exhale:
Exhale creates a social climate where each person’s unique experience with abortion is supported, respected, and free from stigma. Exhale provides services, training, and education to empower individuals, families, and communities to achieve post-abortion health and wellbeing.
In the article I talk about how I became a doula, how I made the connection to abortion work and why I started this blog.
My job as an activist – whether for abortion, reproductive justice or birth, is to make sure people have as many options as possible, and my job as a doula is to make sure they get the emotional support they need along the way. It was time to bring these two passions of mine together in a way that could improve the lives of pregnant women. I started a blog and started calling myself a radical doula.
I also interviewed a few doulas who have been involved with Exhale’s work.
There are a lot of assumptions about the personal experience of abortion, but what an abortion doula will tell you, though, is that no two people’s experiences are alike. Emotional responses vary widely. Laura shared,
“Being pregnant is significant, however a person a politically identifies or however she acknowledges the process. We’re not trying to be behind the politics of it. Her voice, her experience gets validated on her terms.”
Read the rest of the article here.
Radical Doula 