Statement of Solidarity

May all bodies have the advantages, the resources, the information, the support to make informed decisions, to feel and be safe and sovereign in pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.


The current landscape of pregnancy, birth and postpartum places an advantage on white bodies over black, brown and indigenous bodies. This is evident in the differences between maternal mortality rates between white and black, brown, indigenous people.


This reality is unacceptable and it is a responsibility to align with the people who tirelessly commit themselves to seeing change happen.


I denounce the systemic racism and oppression that impede reproductive justice. And I align myself and my work with the vision and movement founded by Black women that honors and upholds personal bodily autonomy and the ability to have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.


One critical way we can know this vision and movement are happening is when POC receive care from people with bodies that look like their own. As a white birthworker, I stand with birth workers of color and reproductive justice organizations that work everyday to see change through.  We are bound to one another in this work, and in our liberation. 

Mama was the last word George Floyd spoke when he died at the hands of a police officer. When I hear this, as a mother, I am without words. No parent should ever experience such a moment. No parent should lose their child at the hands of the police, nor should they lose their child in childbirth, at the hands of institutions. These institutions have deep unwinding to do. It is my charge to unlearn, and lean into the work-of-a-lifetime to deeply investigate my complicitness in white supremacism which also means asking, How can I personally do better? 


It is my responsibility to acknowledge the systemic racism that influences every facet of the reproductive process in our country, and here, in the state of Colorado.


If you want to do better too, here are some places to start::