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Science and InventionThe History of Abortifacients!
Women have used all sorts of plants as abortifacients in history! : https://jezebel.com/the-history-of-abortifacients-1658993381
Would be nice to have a book with all these methods available for women! Would be very useful for women living in places where going to a doctor could risk her going to jail!
If anyone is interested in the pamphlet for menstrual extraction, it's listed here:
https:// microcosmpublishing. com/catalog/zines/6672
Broke the link just in case. There's a lot of genderwoo/general woo on the site, but the pamphlet is cheap enough. ISBN 9781648411878
There are several great books about the supressed history of these plants and methods. Sister Zeus website has options to try if you need one.
I've read a fascinating article where a female journalist visited midwives and herbal medicine women to learn about plant-based abortifacients. Unfortunately, I cannot remember the article at this time.
The one thing that I clearly remember was an experienced and renowned medicine woman refused to entertain the journalist's or any woman's attempts at performing or normalizing abortion done with herbs and plants. The reason she gave was that these herbs are varying in their potencies and can cause severe harm to women if overdosed. Modern medicine is very precise. Women have been hurt and killed throughout history by use of plant-based abortifacients due to the natural variation in potency of the herbs.
I would be more interested in bringing back the practice of menstrual extraction, which is also used as an abortion technique. When done properly with sterile tools, it is safe, fast, and requires no anesthetic.
Seconding the recommendation for menstrual extraction. I read a pamphlet about it a while back and it seems incredibly simple. I’d probably give it a go if I ever need it but I’ve often thought about trying it out just to get my period over with as quickly as possible.
Hard agree. I use quite a bit of herbal medicine in day to day life and love learning about plants and their uses but hard pass on herbal abortifacients. Too dangerous. If I was absolutely desperate and had no other recourse, maybe within the first 6 weeks. After that? Nope.
Same. I would never try this. There's too high a chance that I'd be ruined for life or dead. We have proper medical methods to deal with these kind of things, that are safe.
SOME of the plants are toxic in high quantities or when used improperly (tansy, pennyroyal), some are extremely safe even in massive quantities (queen annes lace).
This idea is honestly an outcome of propaganda. As part of the attempt to destroy this knowledge the idea was perpetuated that these herbs are 1. Dangerous and deadly and 2. Ineffective and unreliable. Ironically, this misinformation allowed some women to escape persecution for abortion, since it became commonly accepted that they dont actually work.
Queen anne's lace? I heard from a flower-binder that even touching it, it would be best wearing gloves.
Although there may be some confusion here due to common names. According to wikipedia:
There are a lot of poisonous plants in this family. There is also carrot. I highly doubt carrot would work as an abortifacient. The poison is probably the effective bit.
There is also this problem:
The main reason I would highly discourage laypeople do these kind of things is that they wouldn't necessarily end up using the right plant, and could inadvertently kill someone. Especially if working with families like Apiaceae, where some are highly poisonous and look very similar. For a lot of species in this family, I doubt a layperson could perfectly distinguish between them.
Also is the issue of dosage. It's not uncommon for plants to have highly variable amounts of compounds in them due to weather, growing conditions etc. Having a dosage vary 10x or more could also be very dangerous, even when the species itself is familiar.
There is a reason people on heart medication get it from the pharmacy instead of drinking foxglove tea. The dosage would be too uncertain, and the person could die.
Ive never heard of QAL referring to anything other than wild carrot. No, you dont need to wear gloves to handle it lol and yes, it is effective - extremely so when used correctly.
Im not in the convincing game so youre free to believe whatever you like, but most of what you said is straight up wrong.
I have a biology degree and did my masters on plants.
Several species sharing a common name is unfortunately a common thing. This is why we make it a point to use scientific names.
Yes, Im very much aware of shared common names.
Doing a masters on plants is great, i actively grow and forage and study the history of womens herbs specifically.
Fyi, QAL and hemlock are extremely easy to tell apart. For a start, one smells of carrots. Its only a problem when people learn out of books rather than experience, photos lie. But that doesnt mean foraging or using herbs is dangerous or to be avoided, it means book learning should always be taken as merely a starting point (i also have a masters, though not in biology, so im not hating on theory it just needs to be in its place). This is the real problem with common names, when they are paired with theory-only learning. Sure "milk thistle" can refer to lots of things but in practice you wont ever get one confused with the other when youre looking at them. They all look different and usually grow in different climates (this is why common names spread, people migrate and apply old names to new plants with similar properties. Shared common names can actually be a useful tool for learning). Fyi Ammi majus is called "false queen annes lace". Common names like "false blank" are actually very useful when learning to forage. If i tell you "this is queen annes lace, and that is FALSE queen annes lace, and these are the differences" it bakes in your mind the idea that they look similar and which one is to be actually used, in a way that doesnt work so well with the names Ammi majus vs daucus carota.
Personally i have issues with over reliance on scientific names. Yes, they are specific, but theyre often hard to remember or pronounce and they dont always imbue relevant information. Grouping plants by relation to eachother is not always helpful. Think of a town full of people, you can group them by family, profession, or personal traits. Many indigenous cultures name plants by season and purpose. None of these methods are wrong, they serve different ends.
In terms of it being difficult to get a consistent dose...kinda true but kinda not. If you know what youre doing and harvest the same strains of plant from the same soils at the same stage of growth and use the same parts, it is really quite consistent. If you just grab whatever whenever and use it however then yeah, you might die. One of the main reasons to use pharmacueticals rather than herbs directly is shelf life and ease of prescription. Some herbs dont last long in their most usable form, and as there is some variability on dose its sensible to start lower than you think you need and increase slowly until the desired effect is achieved. Thats a bit much mucking around for doctors and requires the person consuming to be sensible and aware of themselves.
You also assumed that poisonousness is correlated with effectiveness. That is not remotely correct.
Sorry to say but youve swallowed a bunch of patriarchal propaganda with well known roots back in the middle ages and heroic medicines.
With the threats in the USA and globally to womens reproductive freedom, I think its irresponsible for you to be spreading this sort of baseless misinformation. There are plenty of contraceptive and abortive herbs (and methods) that do work, and are extremely safe, and exist entirely outside the male-controlled medical industry. Please pull up in areas that are outside your expertise.