Ashley Judd has chosen the childfree life and is using her resources to help improve the lives of others

By Nina Steele 

Ashley Judd undoubtedly deserves her spot on the cover of Time Magazine as one of the “silence breakers”. The courage she showed by telling the story of her encounter with disgraced former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein in 1997, led to women all over the world coming forward to tell their stories of sexual harassment too. But way before making headlines about sexual harassment in the movie business, Ashley Judd was already making headlines by choosing the childfree life. That she is helping children and adults alike, around the globe, through her charitable work, shows a woman keen to make her mark on the world.

In her 2011 memoir, “All That Is Bitter and Sweet”, Ashley said this about the reason why she has chosen not to procreate: “I figured it was selfish for us to pour our resources into making our ‘own’ babies when those very resources and energy could not only help children already here, but through advocacy and service, transform the world into a place where no child ever needs to be born into poverty and abuse again”.

How absolutely spot on she is! As I have written before, there are an estimated 400 million children sleeping rough on streets around the globe, yet some people feel as though their world has ended just because they cannot have children of their own. It simply does not make sense, and thankfully, just like Ashely Judd, there are many others who get this.

On her website, Ashley Judd is described as someone who “speaks on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves”. Of her humanitarian work, she is said to have “travelled the world to do international public health work on all fronts, including maternal health, child survival, human rights, and family planning”. As someone who originates from the third world, now known as the developing world, I know how important issues of family planning are. It is a fact that a lot of women in the developing world have no access to contraception and because of that, they go on to have more children than they would otherwise have.

With humanity at a crossroads because there is simply too many of us, it is important that people are shown alternatives to the traditional route to adulthood. What the world needs right now is not more people, but rather, the ability for those already here to enjoy a decent life, free from the kind of suffering we are currently witnessing all around us, and Ashley Judd is playing her part in that bigger picture.