Excerpts from the essay entitled “Pro-life Feminism” in the text Conscious Conception.
“Arising from the Great Cosmic Song are the growing voices of feminists who respect life in all its forms–even down to the “unplanned” pregnancies.
For too long the spiritual communities of the pagans and the yogis, the two philosophies I have studied for many years, have neglected to re-vision abortion.”
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“Allow me first to first turn my attention to the Yoga community wherein it is all too common for women yogis (yoginis) to abort their babies so that they can get on with the “real” spiritual work: i.e., a meditation practice. Babies are sometimes seen as a distraction to a heroic spiritual practice.
I have six children and have been practicing yoga for many years. I have received overt as well as more subtle condemnation for my “attachment to fertility” from the yogi community. Somehow being a mother is not viewed as spiritual as being able to go on solitary meditation retreats.
In Yoga there are two clear paths to liberation–the sadhu and the householder traditions. The path of the sadhu is to withdraw from the world, unravel our natural attachments and transcend ignorance/suffering by realizing the source of pain: attachment to the ephemeral. From the sadhu’s perspective, being sexual and reproducing is seen as adding to the load of attachments.
The path I am on is the one of householder–of being in the world, and yet not of the world at the same time.”
Jeannine Parvati Baker
Thanks Jeannine for your clarity!
Jenny Hatch