Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (87 page)

In the mid-1980s, I stopped doing abortions. I was tired of mucking around in women’s ambivalence about their fertility, and I was tired of performing repeated abortions on women who came back every year for the procedure. I needed to take a break from this arena and preferred to work on other aspects of the problem—like helping women understand their sexuality and their need for self-respect and self-esteem, regardless of whether they had a relationship with a man.

Unintended pregnancies will continue to occur. It’s simply the nature of nature. And some women, particularly those whose boundaries have been violated in the past, do not yet have the strength or self-esteem to assume dominion over their own fertility and sexuality. We are still evolving on this point. Voluntary pregnancy termination will always be necessary. I will support its availability. Still, I look forward to the day when abortion is rare, when women and men in cooperation will conceive carefully, thought fully, and purposefully, and every child will be wanted and cared for.

Another View of Abortion

I first heard about communication with the unborn from Gladys McGarey, M.D., M.D.(H.), in her book
Born to Live
(Inkwell Productions, 2001). Dr. McGarey writes of her many years of delivering babies both at home and in the hospital. Her deeply spiritual ap proach to medicine and women’s health care has been a great comfort and guide to me over the years, particularly as it relates to the abortion issue. She told me the following story: “I can see that abortion is frequently reasonable, understandable, and the ‘right’ thing to do. The new light dawned with a story one of my patients told me some time ago. This mother had a four-year-old daughter, named Dorothy, whom she would take out to lunch occasionally. They were talking about this and that, and the child would shift from one subject to another, when Dorothy suddenly said, ‘The last time I was a little girl, I had a different mommy!’ Then she started talking in a different language, which her mother tried to record.

“The magic moment seemed over, but then Dorothy continued, ‘But that wasn’t the last time. Last time when I was four inches long and in your tummy, Daddy wasn’t ready to marry you yet, so I went away. But then, I came back.” Then, the mother reported, the child went back to chatting about four-year-old matters.

“The mother was silent. No one but her husband, the doctor, and she had known this, but she had become pregnant about two years before she and her husband were ready to get married. She decided to have an abortion. She was ready to have the child, but her husband-to-be was not.

“When the two of them did get married and were ready to have their first child, the same entity made its appearance. And the little child was saying, in effect, ‘I don’t hold any resentments toward you for having the abortion. I understood. I knew why it was done, and that’s okay. So here I am again. It was an experience. I learned from it and you learned from it, so now, let’s get on with the business of life.’ ”
¹⁰

My own sister, the mother of three strong-willed and active sons, became pregnant inadvertently when she ovulated during her men strual cycle—a rare event. She knew that the pregnancy was not right for her—in fact, she felt that it was actively
wrong
on all levels. So she began to work on communicating with the unborn baby, asking its soul to leave. She continued this inner work daily for two weeks. Still she remained pregnant. Finally, she called an abortion clinic to make an ap pointment, a step she had never dreamed that she would make. No sooner had she hung up the phone than the bleeding started. She miscarried later that day.

Stories such as this one shed a whole new light on the “morality” of abortion, not to mention parenting in general. And such stories reflect my belief that our souls choose our parents and the circumstances of our births. Caroline Myss is very clear that the energy of spirits remains behind after abortion and needs to be fully released. Many ancient traditional cultures acknowledge this as well. (See the story of a patient who went to a Native American shaman for healing around three past abortions that were still emotionally unresolved, in chapter 6.)

In 1985, while I was attending an international meeting of the Association for Pre-and Perinatal Psychology and Health, I participated in a healing abortion ritual performed by Jeannine Parvati Baker, author of
Conscious
Conception
(North Atlantic Books, 1986). Baker had learned the ritual from a Native American medicine woman. All the women at the meeting who had had abortions and all those who had been deeply affected by them sat in an inner circle. Included in this latter group were a man whose mother had unsuccessfully tried to abort him and a man whose wife had aborted a child he had wanted. In an outer circle surrounding this one sat all of us who had ever seen or done an abortion. We were con sidered the “eyes” that had witnessed abortion. The outermost circle also included people whose friends and loved ones had had abortions. They were the “ears” that had witnessed abortion. Throughout an entire afternoon and into the evening, both men and women spoke of—and let go of—years of previously unvoiced personal pain surrounding abortion. Baker, representing a conduit between the worlds, helped release the energy of the aborted spirit. For many, it was a powerful healing.

Each woman’s situation is unique regarding whether to have or keep a pregnancy, and no one but that individual woman can or should decide. Whatever her choice is, however, there will be consequences. What is important is that each woman be clear that she had a choice.

EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION:
ABORTION PREVENTION

Though emergency contraception has been available in the United States and Europe for more than twenty years as an off-label use of birth control pills, it wasn’t until 1998 that the FDA first approved a standardized regimen that was safe and effective for preventing pregnancy. Now, emergency contraception is available in just one pill, which is effective if taken within seventy-two hours of unprotected intercourse. Plan B One-Step consists of levonorgestrel, a synthetic progestin found in birth control pills. It is available over the counter (or on the Internet) for those who are seventeen and older, and it is safe and effective (see
www.PlanBonestep.com
). It’s estimated that it prevents pregnancy in about seven out of eight women who otherwise would have become pregnant and that regular use of emergency contraception could cut the number of unin tended pregnancies and abortions in half.
¹¹

Emergency contraception prevents pregnancy by inhibiting or delaying ovulation or altering the lining of the uterus, making it in hospitable to implantation of an egg. It also alters sperm and egg transport. It does
not
cause abortion of an established pregnancy. However, if a woman needs emergency contraception, she should take a pregnancy test first. If she does not have an already established pregnancy, she should take the pill within seventy-two hours of intercourse, the sooner the better. Side effects include nausea in some patients. The vast majority of women will menstruate within twenty-one days after treatment. Having an IUD inserted soon after unprotected intercourse will also prevent pregnancy; I recommend this only for those who are at a very low risk for sexually transmitted disease, are in a monogamous relationship, and will want to continue this birth control method.

CONSCIOUS CONCEPTION AND CONTRACEPTION

If you are contemplating pregnancy, think of yourself as a vessel for new life. Prepare your vessel with intent. Traditional Tibetan women have always spent time in prayer and meditation before conceiving. I believe that there are thousands of souls waiting to incarnate. Not all of them are highly evolved. When you raise your vibration through conscious prayer and meditation, alone or together with your partner, you make it more likely that you’ll conceive a like-minded soul. So many women have told me that they have “felt” their child around them even before they became pregnant. You can conceive consciously even if you’re considering single-parenthood through donor insemination! The important point is to see your body as a channel for a new spirit and to surrender yourself to the experience—to be open to all that it has to teach you. A high-vibration soul isn’t necessarily a physically perfect baby. One of my friends gave birth to the most incredible little boy ever. He was born with all kinds of so-called “congenital” defects and lived until he was four. But he opened her heart and the hearts of her entire family (who tended to be quite serious and scientific) in ways that were miraculous. (For those women who are considering single motherhood, I recommend the book
Single Mothers by Choice
[Times Books, 1994] by Jane Mattes, C.S.W.; for more information on single motherhood and support for single mothers, visit
www.singlemothers.org
.)

Conscious Contraception

All the currently available methods of birth control—pills, IUDs, diaphragms, condoms, and the rest—have their place. (See
table 6
, page 410.) Unfortunately, many health care practitioners do not present birth control methods objectively. Birth control pills have been pushed by the medical profession as the optimal method of contraception for the last forty years, while the reliability of other methods, such as the diaphragm and/or condoms, has been downplayed. Given our cultural approach to control of the female body, and the reality that many women still don’t have conscious dominion over their fertility, this is not surprising. The pill (and now the patch) is easy to prescribe, easy to use, very reliable, and very convenient. We can use it to manipulate our men strual cycles, avoiding periods altogether or on weekends. In short, it fits our cultural ideal. The pill is the most-studied medication in history. Unfortunately, because it’s made from synthetic non-bioidentical hormones, it has more side effects than it should. Though we have the science and technology to make safer oral contraceptives from bioidentical hormones, there is no profit in doing so—and therefore no support for it. None is currently available.

Most other birth control methods require more education about the body and more active participation than the pill. They are not geared to the average busy doctor’s schedule. Many physicians feel that women will not use barrier methods of contraception, such as diaphragms, con doms, or contraceptive foam, because they have seen too many “failures.” This is true of some women but not all women. The data show that in the women who are ideal users—who use the method correctly every time—barrier methods and even “fertility awareness” (natural family planning) can be 95 to 98 percent effective.
¹²

It is important to distinguish between the failure of a birth control method itself and the failure of a woman to use it properly. Many women are socialized to be available for sexual intercourse without involving their partners in contraceptive responsibility. Many women are involved with men who will not cooperate with contraception and feel that it is the woman’s job. Though I’d like to suggest that it is not worth having sex with such men, I know that this is not always an option—especially in the all-too-common situation when domestic violence is an issue. Obviously, it is best for women in this situation to use a contraceptive method that requires no male cooperation. Such methods in clude birth control pills, the birth control patch, implants, NuvaRing, the IUD, Depo-Provera, tubal ligation, and the Reality female condom. Methods that require conscious partner participation, such as condoms, simply are not appropriate for these women. In fact, in one study, when the Philadelphia Department of Public Health offered a choice of birth control to a group of low-income women, the majority chose the Reality female condom because this method gives more control over their risk of pregnancy and infection than they otherwise would have experi enced.

In order to choose the right birth control method for you, you need to decide
honestly
where you are in your own life—and how much responsibility you are willing to assume over your fertility. Some women don’t even want to think about getting to know their times of ovulation and checking their cervical mucus, let alone inserting a diaphragm before each intercourse. That’s fine—they often do well on the pill or an other “automatic” method. Other women prefer barrier methods, such as diaphragms, and I encourage these methods, too—but only in those women who are committed to using them consciously. I’ve worked repeatedly with women who’ve had three or four abortions because they refuse to use what they call “unnatural” contraceptives. I counsel that there is nothing natural about abortion when a woman fails to use her “natu ral” method of birth control conscientiously. These women, though conscious about food and the environment, often suffer from the mind-body split we’ve all inherited—that it is part of being a desirable woman to be available sexually, without asking our partners to share in the responsibility. This is a shame, particularly given that there are so many ways to express oneself sexually without the risk of unintended pregnancy. (see
chapter 8
, “Reclaiming the Erotic.”) I recommend that all women make every effort to put their own sexual and fertility needs first in every relationship. Doing so takes courage and support.

Intrauterine Device

The intrauterine device (IUD) is a good choice for some women. Though it may carry an increased risk of pelvic infection, I’ve worked with women who’ve done beautifully with the IUD for up to twenty years. However, IUDs are associated with an increased risk of tubal pregnancy. They are also associated with increased cramping and bleeding in some women. They work best for women who’ve had a child. Although there used to be some dangerous IUDs on the market, other far safer IUDs are now available and are, in my opinion, underutilized given their safety and effectiveness.

Combined Hormone Methods