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 Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2006 7:34 am
If abortions are outlawed, more women will resort to old-fashioned and dangerous methods of getting rid of their unwanted fetii.
Abortion did exist before The Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision, and outlawing the procedure now will certainly not stop desperate women.
Chinese folklore states that Emperor Shennong gave mercury to use as an abortifacient. Mercury is a potentially dangerous element to use that messes with the endocrine and nervous systems in humans.
Mercury isn’t the only abortifacient around. Nutmeg, Mugwort, Pennyroyal, Black Cohosh, and Wild Carrot can serve to induce an abortion.
Nutmeg can lead to liver damage if used in large quantities, and can kill used in this manner regularly (small amounts are used in cooking and are therefore no harm there, so there is no risk in eating a baked good that has nutmeg as an ingredient). Nutmeg Psychosis is an acute psychiatric disorder that can be caused by ingestion of a large amount of nutmeg. It is characterized by agitation, a sense of impending death, thought disorder, and hallucinations.
This use of Mugwort still occurs in traditional Chinese medicine. However, its use is uncommon in other areas due to a toxic substance called thujone found in the plant.
Pennyroyal has its uses in history as both a way to promote menstruation and an abortifacient. The plant’s oil can be used to induce abortion, and according to King's American Dispensatory of 1898, a mixture of pennyroyal tea and brewer’s yeast can be used as a “safe and effective abortifacient.” However, as expected, complications can occur from consumption of pennyroyal. A woman who had a then-unknown ectopic pregnancy died after consuming tea containing an extract of pennyroyal in 1994, and in 1978, a woman took two tablespoonfuls of pennyroyal oil and died.
However, in modern times its effeciency has been doubted. The American College of Physicians has found no evidence to support it.
The risks of using Black Cohosh are few compared to other known abortifacients, but the use of this herb and expecting to stay healthy is like having protected sex and expecting to remain childless and STD-free: The risks can still happen. Use of Black Cohosh can lead to hepatic dysfunction or gastric discomfort. It may also promote the spreading of breast cancer tissue due to its estrogen-like effects.
Extra caution should be taken with Wild Carrot, also known as Queen Anne’s Lace. It has a close resemblance to two poisononous species of hemlock and can be easily mistaken.
The harmful effects of the herbs stated above are likely to happen due to desperation and ignorance.
A well-known alternative to the use of such herbs is the use of an uncoiled wire hanger. In this process, a pregnant girl who most likely doesn’t know what she is and how properly carry out the procedure (Hey, she’s using a coat hanger!) sticks the wire into her birth canal. She is aiming for the womb, but can also puncture another part of her body that can prove to be very dangerous or fatal. Driven by desperation and ignorance (again), this is very likely to happen.
Abortion will happen whether the law is in favor of it or not. So if you say you’re pro-life, wouldn’t it be better to stay on the side with a more safe operation done in the hands of a trained professional, and which won’t result in two deaths?
Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion - The history of abortion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortifacients - Abortifacients.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutmeg - Nutmeg.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_vulgaris - Common Mugwort.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennyroyal - Pennyroyal.
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/124/8/726 - Pennyroyal 2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_cohosh - Black Cohosh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_carrot - Wild Carrot.
http://www.hepnet.com/liver/biopsy.html - Hepatic Dysfunction.
http://www.guardian.com.my/article.cfm?id=373 – Mestasis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clothes_hanger - Wire hanger abortions.
(Please add some info for non-herbal abortion methods if you can find them.)
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Posted: Sat Jul 22, 2006 11:49 am
Here is a post that might be helpful. Nethilia posted it in the abortion thread, but it seems it wasn't taken much notice of. Nethilia Here's a topic that was brought up on ElJay: Quote: Last night on the Travel Channel, I watched this TV show called Tribal Life about the indigenous people of the village of Bunlap (population 500) on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu. They are a tribal society, living as they have lived for thousands of years, in the jungle, hunting, gathering and cultivating, isolated from our modern, materialistic, secular, clothes-wearing culture. Anyway, on this episode I watched, there was this couple who had three children, and the wife was pregnant. They explained that they didn't want the pregnancy, because they "couldn't take care of anymore children," so they were going to get rid of it. The husband went off in to the jungle and found some plants and mixed them with water to create a red "potion" that he said would "stop the baby." He took it home, she drank it, and later in the program, they said that she had "lost the baby," as planned. They seemed happy about it, like it was no big deal. These people live a traditional tribal lifestyle! This woman has no worries about working a 9-5 job, going to high school or college, finding child care, joining the feminist movement or anything like that. No outside "culture of death" influencing her, no lack of family support. And yet, she still chose abortion simply because she didn't want anymore children. --Nothingmuch ( http://community.livejournal.com/abortiondebate/359277.html?style=mine ) Does this make abortion--or the regulation of reproduction, more accurately--a universal situation? I think so. There have always been women who want to avoid birthing unwanted offspring, and have found ways to do it. And here is Munkers' answer; Munkers And if, for whatever reason, there was no way to complete the abortion, many societies have made infanticide a common practice. Example: The Inuit tribes. If a couple has a child that they cannot care for, they go around to the other members of the tribe and see if anyone else can support the child. If no one can, the baby is left outside to die of exposure. The concept of "save those who are already here first" has been how humans have lived most of their existance. This "potential life > actual life" concept is rather novel and, honestly, I'm not even sure how it even first sprang up.
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Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2006 5:57 pm
The truly frightening thing? Most of the unsafe methods are easily availiable. Most people have nutmeg in their homes, and Black Cohosh can be purchased in many stores that carry herbal remedies and supplements. Hell, I have a bottle of it in my medicine cabinet.
I have read of other older, non-herbal methods in novels. There's a reference to abortion in the novel The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan. I think a piece of a broom or something was used in a similar manner to coathanger abortions.
Abortion has probably been around in some shape or form as long as homosexuality. There have always been women who didn't want a child because she doesn't have the means, the shame it would bring to her and her family (like in The Kitchen God's Wife; the girl aborted because she was pregnant out of wedlock)... many reasons. What's new is safe abortion.
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Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 10:48 am
If abortion were to be made illegal, I would highly recommend that no one use pennyroyal in the attempt to stimulate an herbal abortion. American College of Physicians Since Roman times, herbalists have recommended the herb as an abortifacient. Although no evidence supports its efficacy in this regard, many herbal books continue to cite the use of pennyroyal for this purpose, despite reports of centrilobular hepatic necrosis and death in connection with its use.
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Posted: Tue Oct 10, 2006 4:11 am
Asexual-Slut~Enya If abortion were to be made illegal, I would highly recommend that no one use pennyroyal in the attempt to stimulate an herbal abortion. American College of Physicians Since Roman times, herbalists have recommended the herb as an abortifacient. Although no evidence supports its efficacy in this regard, many herbal books continue to cite the use of pennyroyal for this purpose, despite reports of centrilobular hepatic necrosis and death in connection with its use. Edited.
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 4:19 pm
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/news-articles-press/politics-policy-issues/abortion-access/before-roe-6159.htm
Not exactly about DIY methods, but it is rather interesting.
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Posted: Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:51 pm
I thought that I might do a little more research on practical "do it yourself" abortion methods that might be helpful for women who are denied access to proper abortive care. And, I came up with this interesting tidbit. It is certainly something to mull over, no? Mother Jones The drug she took was misoprostol, also known by the brand name Cytotec, a prescription ulcer medication introduced in the 1980s that can cause pregnant women to miscarry. This unintended side effect has quietly transformed the pill into an increasingly popular abortifacient. The story behind this story revolves around a woman who, upon finding herself pregnant, needed a method to induce abortion -- she received five pills from her sister in Mexico and took them all at once to induce the miscarriage of her five month-old fetus. She was successful. Of course, there are risks involved. Mother Jones ...advising women of its potential risks, which can include severe bleeding and toxic shock syndrome.
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