We Stand With Roe

By Rachel Zar, LMFT, CST

It’s been a heavy week. It’s an especially heavy week to live in a female body, and we’ve been feeling that weight at Spark. Roe vs Wade being overturned was far bigger than just a political move; it was personal. It’s personal to us, and it’s personal to our clients. We’ve been leaning heavily on each other for support, processing our grief and anger, and taking extra care of ourselves so that we can show up wholly for our clients.

Here's what we want you to know:

 We unapologetically and completely stand behind womxn’s* right to choose and their right to abortion access. We work daily with clients on feeling good and whole and empowered in their bodies, on making decisions for themselves that feel in line with their values and goals, and on knowing that how they feel and what they want matters. You matter. Your choice matters.

Access to abortion is fundamental to physical, emotional, and sexual health and wellness. Of course, it’s crucial for those who are pregnant due to tragic or traumatic circumstances and for those whose life or health is threatened by pregnancy; but it’s also just as crucial for those who choose to take a different path in life right now, don’t have the financial means, energy, or support system to have a child, or who just don’t want to be pregnant.

Our pro-choice stance is absolutely crucial to the work we do as sex therapists because abortion rights are sexual rights. We believe that you have the right to decide what to do or what not to do with your body—to be able to have sex without fear of forced pregnancy, to be able to say no to sex without justification, to say no to pregnancy without justification, to say yes to sex when it’s wholehearted, and to say yes to having a baby when you want to.

Dear clients, we are committed to creating a safe space for you to process your feelings about this decision, to contemplate your own reproductive choices, to help you cope with this new reality, and to point you toward resources when you need them. We care deeply for each of you, and we’re in this fight with you.

Love, Spark

*We use the term womxn to be inclusive of trans and nonbinary people who share this right.