moonpath
Abortion As Sacred Initiation
What is an Abortion Doula?
An abortion doula is a person who provides emotional, physical, spiritual, and informational support to someone before, during, and after an abortion. Like birth doulas, who support people during childbirth, abortion doulas offer nonjudgmental care tailored to the specific needs of the person undergoing the process of aborting a pregnancy.
How is Moonpath's abortion doulaship unique?
An Abortion is more than a medical event—it is an initiation. A crossing. A descent into the deep waters of loss, sovereignty, and transformation. It is a portal that few speak of in its true depth, yet it carries the weight of creation and dissolution in equal measure. I know this because I have walked this path myself. My own abortions were not just a choice but an initiation that reshaped me on every level—body, soul, and psyche. It was a confrontation with power, grief, love, lineage, and the raw forces of life and death. It was a journey into the underworld, where I met myself more fully than ever before. I emerged irrevocably changed, carrying the wisdom of the dark feminine—the wisdom that holds both destruction and rebirth in her hands.
I offer myself as a guide to those who find themselves at this threshold. My work as an abortion doula is not just practical or emotional support—it is soul tending, underworld navigation, and deep witnessing. I stand with you in the liminal space, ensuring that what is released is not left fragmented or buried, but honored, integrated, and woven into the fabric of your evolving self.
What I Offer:
🔹 Holding Space for the Threshold – Abortion is a crossing, and I hold you in the fullness of what this means. Relief, grief, certainty, doubt—whatever arises, I create space for it all. Nothing is too much. Nothing is unwelcome.
🔹 Shadow Work & Soul Alchemy – This passage may stir profound emotions: shame, anger, peace, fear, even power. Together, we tend to these feelings, allowing them to be transformed rather than repressed.
🔹 Witnessing & Guiding the Underworld Journey – This is a sacred death and rebirth, and I walk with you as you move through it, ensuring that what has been let go is not lost but alchemized into something new.
🔹 Invoking the Wisdom of the Dark Mother – I draw on the energy of the Dark Mother, the keeper of thresholds, the one who understands that endings are beginnings. Through ritual, deep presence, and intuitive guidance, I help you navigate this transition with reverence and sovereignty.
This is not just about getting through—it is about being fully present with what is happening, about claiming the wisdom embedded in this experience, and allowing yourself to be transformed by it.
If you are walking this path and feel the call to be held in its depth, I am here. You do not have to carry this alone.
I offer support both in-person and virtually, ensuring that those undergoing abortion—whether medical or surgical—feel deeply supported, informed, and empowered as they navigate this sacred and transformative experience.
Questions About Abortion as an Initiatory Rite of Passage:
How can the experience of having an abortion translate to spiritual initiation?
When held with care and consciousness, an abortion becomes an initiatory experience on a profound spiritual level, one that draws deeply upon the understanding that the womb is a passageway and guiding intelligence. The very act of carrying a womb—a portal of life and death—within us brings us into direct relationship with the forces of life, death, power, sovereignty, grief, and transformation. This is a crucial guiding force on the path of women’s initiation—a path where our bodies serve as the sacred gateways through which we navigate the weight of divine responsibility. Abortion, in this light, is not just an event but a threshold, where a woman is invited to step into the raw, wild forces of existence. Like all initiations, it unravels her previous sense of self, challenges her to encounter these primal energies, and, if fully integrated, offers her a deeper understanding of her place within the cyclic dance of creation and dissolution. This sacred process holds the potential to realign her with her power and her connection to the cycles of life, holding death as an equal partner in the perpetual flow of all things.
Abortion as an Initiation into Sovereignty
To choose an abortion is to stand at the threshold of life and death and make a decision that only a woman can make. No one else can take that choice from her. It is an act of deep self-ownership—a confrontation with her own authority over her body, her future, and the sacred responsibility of choice. This initiation can be both liberating and weighty, as it forces her to claim her own power in a way few other experiences do.
Abortion as an Initiation into the Mysteries of Life and Death
Pregnancy itself is an initiation into the creative force of life. To end a pregnancy is to step into the power of the destroyer—the dark feminine archetype who understands that life and death are woven together, and that bringing death can be a deeply compassionate and benevolent act. This can be a terrifying and sacred confrontation, as it requires her to hold both creation and destruction within her own body. Many women report feeling a deep sense of communion with something primal, ancient, and beyond words—an initiation into the reality that life is not only about birth but also about endings.
Abortion as an Initiation into Grief and Transformation
Whether the choice is clear or agonizing, abortion often brings grief. This grief is not necessarily about regret but about acknowledging the weight of what was and what will never be. Initiation often requires a descent into grief because grief itself is a teacher—it cracks open the heart, expands perception, and allows for transformation. A woman who fully embraces this grief is changed by it—she is no longer the person she was before. She has touched something deeper, more elemental.
Abortion as an Initiation into the Sacred Cycles of Creation
Many earth-based, ancestral traditions recognize the womb as a portal—not just for physical birth but for spiritual power. A woman’s womb is a threshold space where souls pass through, whether they arrive into the world or not. Some spiritual traditions hold that an unborn being is not simply "lost" but returned to the unseen realm—a reminder that existence is cyclical, not linear. This initiation can deepen a woman’s understanding of her womb not just as a place of birth but as a temple of deep wisdom, choice, and transformation.
Abortion as an Initiation into the Complexity of Love
Some women experience profound love during and after an abortion—love for the potential life, love for themselves, love for the mystery of existence. The initiation of abortion often reveals that love is not always soft—it is sometimes fierce, painful, and paradoxical. It can mean holding both the choice to end a pregnancy and the love for what might have been. This is a maturation into the complexity of love, beyond simple dualities of right and wrong, good and bad.
Abortion as an Initiation into Ancestral and Collective Wounds
Because abortion carries such cultural, historical, and personal weight, a woman undergoing this initiation may find herself not only confronting her own experience but also touching into collective and ancestral wounds. She may feel the echoes of generations of women before her—those who had no choice, those who suffered in silence, those who were shamed, those who were powerful in their knowing. This can be an initiation into her place in the lineage of women, a reckoning with the stories that live in her body, and an opportunity to reclaim agency where it has been denied in the past.
Abortion as an Initiation into Trusting One’s Own Path
Like all initiations, abortion requires trust. Trust in oneself, trust in one’s choices, trust in the process of life and death, trust that meaning will emerge even if it is not immediately clear. Many women emerge from this experience with a deeper knowing of themselves, a strengthened relationship with their own intuition, and a profound connection to the sacred responsibility of bringing life forth—or choosing not to.
Integration: Carrying the Initiation Forward
The depth of the initiation depends on how it is integrated. If ignored or suppressed, the experience may remain unresolved. But if honored—through ritual, reflection, grief work, or creative expression—it can become a powerful rite of passage that deepens a woman’s sense of self, sovereignty, and soul path. Some women find ways to mark the transition, whether through ceremony, writing, or connecting with the spirit of the unborn.
Abortion, when understood as an initiatory experience, is not just an ending—it is a transformation. It is a portal through which a woman walks, never to be the same again. What she claims on the other side is hers alone to carry.