Pregnancy And History

[ADoyle90815]

And it kills me, kills me, that the same group of people in the U.S. trying to take away a woman's right to an abortion are frequently the same group of people that want to do away with public housing, assistance for those below the poverty line, WIC, etc.

Women who seek abortions are frequently young and poor. What the hell are these young women supposed to do with their offspring with no help from a potential government that refused to help them out of their pregnancies when they were able and refuse to help them once the child is born! Compassion my ass...

Grrr! :evil:

Same here, as George Carlin said, they only care about fetuses, but once the fetus is born, they don't want to deal with it. "If you're preborn, you're fine, if you're preschool, you're fucked."

[kb2]

History is a vast era so it's impossible to make a generalization about "what they used to think", but it has been common throughout many periods and cultures for people to not consider a fetus alive until "quickening", which is when the pregnant woman could start to feel it move. I'm sure it has been rare to consider life to begin at conception. There have even been plenty of cultures that believed life begins at birth. There was never a universal "olden days" like the fundies believe. Abortion was common and matter-of-fact. Many cultures didn't think it was wrong so it wouldn't have even been sneaky or shameful. It was just a part of life.

This. They couldn't advertise abortifacients as such in the early 1900s because birth control in general was taboo. Douching was advertised as a birth control method, but the coded message it used was that it was for "hygiene." It wasn't for actual hygiene until more effective methods were created. I don't know if one was considered worse than the other, or if they were considered ethically equal.

[MrsKay]

My maternal grandmother died 3 days after my mother's birth (complications from toxemia in a terrible military field hospital). My first child and I would have died without a c-section. I'm pretty sure that in somewhere in Africa, or some place like that, a pregnant woman is considered to be between life and death until the baby is out. I remember reading about it, much like the "one foot in the grave" saying that a PP mentioned.

There is a fascinating wall display in the waiting room of my OBGYN, which chronicles the history of birth control from ancient times to present. There are ads shown for teas and pills to "regulate" menstruation" - in other words, to induce an early abortion - from the 1800s. Women in every culture have always had their own favored method, generally herbs, to make sure a "period" arrives. They just never talked about it, at least until they were already wives and mothers, in most cases.

Midwifery and herbalism are two of my obsessions, and have fascinating histories. I know ways to end a pregnancy, and ways to help achieve and maintain one. I'm doing my best to pass it on to my daughter; it's a shame that such knowledge has been all but lost to recent generations, and I plan to do my share to help pass it along to future generations. Partly because you never know what rights might be lost in future, but mostly because I believe every woman has the right to such basic, intimate knowledge that can change or save her life.

[Mama Mia]

As far as their reasoning goes ... maybe some of them have family histories like mine, or have heard of people with those kinds of histories and generalized and idealized them.

We have a really detailed family history going back a couple hundred years on one side - and many of the women had very, very large families but there were remarkably few ( I actually can't recall any) deaths of younger women of child bearing age - so I'm assuming very very few if any deaths due to pregnancy/childbirth/childbirth complications. There were also incredibly few (also, can't recall any) deaths of infants or young children. Most of them lived until at least today's average lifespan and many lived well into their 90's.

Obviously that wasn't the norm for the time and place, but it is like any idealized history - you like the good parts.

[shesinsane]

This. They couldn't advertise abortifacients as such in the early 1900s because birth control in general was taboo. Douching was advertised as a birth control method, but the coded message it used was that it was for "hygiene." It wasn't for actual hygiene until more effective methods were created. I don't know if one was considered worse than the other, or if they were considered ethically equal.

There was a man named Anthony Comstock who took over the postal system in the US in the second half of the 1800s. He was big on pushing his type of morality, and created the "Comstock Laws", which prohibited using the USPS to transport any birth control information or device (including newspapers with articles about birth control). Before telephones were in widespread use, the postal service was the way to communicate, so one guy was able to keep the whole country from discussing/researching birth control.

And it kills me, kills me, that the same group of people in the U.S. trying to take away a woman's right to an abortion are frequently the same group of people that want to do away with public housing, assistance for those below the poverty line, WIC, etc.

Women who seek abortions are frequently young and poor. What the hell are these young women supposed to do with their offspring with no help from a potential government that refused to help them out of their pregnancies when they were able and refuse to help them once the child is born! Compassion my ass...

That's why I refer to them as pro-life/forced birth. They claim to be pro-life, but really just care about getting the baby born. They'll scream about innocent babies being killed, but scream just as loudly if you try to use their tax money to feed/clothe/shelter said innocent babies.