The Bay Area Doula** Project is a volunteer group of reproductive justice advocates based in the San Francisco Bay Area, occupied Ohlone territories. We are one of many Doula Projects across the country, formed with support from the original project in New York.
Our Vision and Beliefs
We are working towards a world in which people of all identities and families of all kinds and configurations have access to respectful, caring, and competent support in all their health care experiences, with a specific focus on abortion.
- We believe that neither stigma nor fear should be barriers to seeking and receiving good health care.
- We believe that people’s bodies are their own, to do with what they choose.
and
- We believe in active and informed consent, free from coercion — physical, psychological, economic, or any other kind.
Our work
We build awareness and cultivate community via our salon series, community trainings, partnerships with other organizations, and social media.
- Salon series
- We have gatherings approximately once a month with speakers or activities that focus on some element of reproductive justice and bodily autonomy
- Community trainings
- We offer trainings roughly once a year (depending on capacity) to the community at large. These trainings focus on improving our reproductive justice framework and teaching physical and emotional skills for supporting a person through an at-home abortion.
- Organizational partnerships
- We partner with ACCESS to train their volunteers to provide free abortion support to their healthline callers
- Social media
- Our social media team promotes awareness of a variety of topics related to reproductive justice locally, nationally, and internationally
We strive to center the experiences of marginalized communities in our leadership and our programming.
**We have very similar feelings to The SPIRAL Collective, and we’ve adapted this statement from theirs: You may have heard pregnancy- or health-care-related support work referred to as “doula” work or this role referred to as “a doula”. While some of us identify as doulas, some of us do not. We recognize that doula is a racially charged, class stratified, and gendered word. We wish to break down those barriers by questioning and expanding its meaning. While its origin is not completely clear, it’s typically said to come from the Ancient Greek word δούλη meaning “female slave” or “woman who serves”. That makes us feel complicated feelings.
