Birth Is Political - But It Shouldn’t Be Politicized

For many moons, I’ve felt an activation pulsing through my veins. Maybe you’ve felt it too, the sense that since COVID, the world has been unraveling.

When floods in North Carolina swept through my father’s antique business and apartment building around this time last year, I remember thinking: we are so busy fighting each other about politics while the world is literally flooding and burning around us.

We are caught in this cycle of outrage, fueled by algorithms, and forgetting that we actually need each other to survive.

Because people… winter is coming.

And last week, once again, the rage boiled over. I felt it rise in me as I saw it consume so many others. Both sides of the political spectrum up in arms, in agreement to the horror, yet so far from a common solution. It feels like the divide has grown stronger than the issues at hand.

Birthwork Is Political. But Birth Is Sacred.

You’ve heard me say it before: birthwork is political. Who lives, who dies, who has access to care, and what kind of care they receive, all of it is shaped by policy, by systems, by power. And in so many ways, birth has become deeply politicized. We’ve seen the over-medicalization of birth create tension and mistrust, even within our own birthworker communities. We’ve seen the staggering racial and socioeconomic disparities in maternal outcomes, and the relentless attacks on reproductive rights across the United States. Instead of uniting around care, we have been taught to turn against each other.

But birth is also sacred. And this is where we, the birthworkers, are called to be bridge-builders.

Lately I’ve been asking myself:

• How can we hold onto our values and still find the humanity and intention in others?

• How do we remember that people are more than their voting records?

• How can we resist being flattened into categories by algorithms and echo chambers, and stay rooted in curiosity, compassion, complexity?

Because I have been guilty of this too. I’ve let my rage fuel me, let the rabbit holes shape me. And yes, I have a platform, and social justice and reproductive justice and basic human decency will always be at the forefront of what I stand for.

But this… this is a reflection of my own softening.

Decolonizing Our Minds

When we talk about “decolonizing birth,” it also means decolonizing our own minds, stepping away from the linear, from binaries, from boxes.

There can be multiple truths. Knowledge can be a circle instead of a spectrum with two extremes.

And I need to find a way to uphold my truths, to alchemize the rage, to fight for equity and justice, while not losing sight of what we are meant to do as doulas: to meet people where they are. Without judgment. Without agenda.

I want to believe there’s more softening ahead. Because that’s how we’ll form community. And right now, that is what we need more than anything:

• Coming together

• Caring for one another

• Showing compassion and empathy when things feel dark

(And yes, that doesn’t mean we stop glitter-bombing ICE agents. For those unfamiliar: glitter is very hard to remove, and this is simply a sparkly form of gentle civil disobedience).

Returning to Our Humanity

This softening even connects to my fear of AI. What will we do when the supercomputers take over? Will they give us more time to be human- to be kind, to be generous, to remember how to love?

And that brings me back, as it always does, to birth.The most human thing there is.

To be born, to die, and, if we are lucky, to be loved unconditionally somewhere in between.

Usually by a mother.

May we remember: birth is political, but it should not be politicized. Because the divide does not serve us.

Here’s to love. To softening. To humanity.

— Charlotte