Abortion in America: How access and attitudes have changed through the centuries

by: Eliza Siegel, Stacker
Jul 28, 2023

The Postal Service can legally deliver abortion medications in the U.S.—including to states with abortion restrictions or bans—according to a Justice Department decision posted online late Jan. 3. The Postal Service requested that the Justice Department provide guidance on this issue a week after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority voted to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision in June 2022. That ruling, which sparked intense debate across the U.S., led to abortion restrictions and bans in many states.

In its decision, the Justice Department ruled that sending, delivering, and receiving abortion drugs by mail is not in violation of the 1873 Comstock Act —which aimed to prevent morally “corrupt” items from being delivered by mail—because there is no way to determine that the intent of the recipient is to commit an unlawful act. There are also no federal restrictions on the drugs in question.

Continued: https://www.ksnt.com/news/abortion-in-america-how-access-and-attitudes-have-changed-through-the-centuries/


How to Give Yourself an Abortion

How to Give Yourself an Abortion

January 9, 2020
Posted by Arielle Swernoff
Illustrated by Matt Lubchansky

For as long as people have gotten pregnant, people have given themselves abortions. Historically, these methods have varied from the brutal to the toxic to the bizarre.

But history hasn’t always gotten it wrong. From the Bronze Age until the 1st or 2nd century BCE, silphium, a plant native to Libya, was used as a safe and effective contraceptive and abortifacient. It’s said the plant was so popular that it was harvested to extinction. More recently, enslaved black people in the American South devised numerous herbal treatments to terminate unwanted pregnancies, some of which are still used today.

Continued: https://jewishcurrents.org/how-to-give-yourself-an-abortion/


Midwife Means “With Woman”: ‘Call the Midwife’ and the History of Abortion in England

Midwife Means "With Woman": 'Call the Midwife' and the History of Abortion in England

4/4/2019
in History, by Janet Mullany

It’s 1964 and things are changing in Poplar on Call the Midwife.

A dad actually asks to be at the, ah, interesting end of his child’s birth and is firmly put in his place, and more women want to give birth in hospitals. Hemlines are rising as Britain becomes a fashion powerhouse. Yet some things just don’t change. As now, an obsession with royal births rules (and if you really want to know, apparently bets are now at 1:2 that Meghan and Harry’s baby will be a girl, with the top name predicted to be Diana. Yes, British bookies do big business during royal pregnancies). And sadly, not every birth is joyfully anticipated, and many women, particularly poor women in an area like Poplar, have few options for help.

Continued: https://blogs.weta.org/tellyvisions/2019/04/04/midwife-means-woman-call-midwife-and-history-abortion-england


Normalizing Abortion

Normalizing Abortion

Sep 25, 2018
Françoise Girard

On September 28, activists around the world will mark International Safe Abortion Day, a global campaign to repeal laws that deny women the right to reproductive health care. The message is simple: no woman anywhere should have to tolerate restrictions that too often lead to injury or death.

NEW YORK – Last month in Buenos Aires, Elizabeth, a 34-year-old mother of two, died after inserting parsley into her cervix in a desperate attempt to induce an abortion. Days earlier, Argentina’s Senate had narrowly defeated legislation that would have legalized abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. If that bill had passed, Elizabeth might be alive today. Instead, she is a grim statistic: one of more than 40 Argentinian women who will die this year from botched abortions.

Continued: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/international-safe-abortion-day-legalizing-abortion-services-by-francoise-girard-2018-09


USA – Inez Burns’ Abortion Clinic Was One Of San Francisco’s Worst Kept Secrets

Inez Burns' Abortion Clinic Was One Of San Francisco's Worst Kept Secrets

Podcast: 3:54
Download

April 22, 20187
Chloe Veltman

Inez Burns performed illegal abortions in California in the early 1900s. She was a shrewd real estate entrepreneur, and eventually became the target of a politician who ruined her.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2018/04/22/604702064/inez-burns-abortion-clinic-was-one-of-san-franciscos-worst-kept-secrets


Aborted Fetus And Pill Bottle In 19th Century New York Outhouse Reveal History Of Family Planning

Aborted Fetus And Pill Bottle In 19th Century New York Outhouse Reveal History Of Family Planning

April 20, 2018
Kristina Killgrove , Contributor

The archaeological discovery of presumably aborted fetuses in outhouses in New York along with pill bottles and historical records have led researchers to conclude that many 19th century American women had family-planning concerns similar to those of 21st century women.

Writing in this month's Historical Archaeology journal, archaeologist Andrea Zlotucha Kozub of the Public Archaeology Facility at Binghamton University details her discovery of fetal remains and associated artifacts in two upstate New York domestic outhouses. Although potential aborted fetuses have been previously found in an outhouse associated with a 19th century brothel in Manhattan, Zlotucha Kozub's study is the first to find this sort of evidence from middle-class houses.

Continued: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2018/04/20/aborted-fetus-and-pill-bottle-in-19th-century-new-york-outhouse-reveal-history-of-family-planning/#3c1d063c75a1


Albanian Women Remember Fear of Abortion During Communism

Albanian Women Remember Fear of Abortion During Communism
The danger of having an abortion in communist Albania did not stop huge numbers of women from taking this perilous path – but for many of these women, the fear and stress of those events has left lasting traces.

Fatjona Mejdini
09 Nov 17

Mira was a 24-year-old tailor from Tirana in 1979 when she found out that her 25-year-old lover had made her pregnant.

“I was shocked and scared since we had no chance of marrying soon. I couldn’t have a baby without getting engaged and married first, as that would have shamed my family and especially my brother in front of society. So I decided to find a way and abort it,” she told BIRN.

Abortion was a crime in communist Albania as it contradicted the party directive to increase the population at almost any cost.

Continued at source: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/albanian-women-remember-fear-of-abortion-during-communism-11-06-2017


When abortion wasn’t legal in Britain

TBT: When abortion wasn’t legal in Britain

Kate Lister
Thursday September 14th 2017

Last week, Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that abortion was “morally indefensible” in all cases, including rape and incest; and some people were surprised at this.

Now, I would have been surprised to hear these views uttered by Basil Brush, for example, or by Caitlin Moran, but by Jacob Rees-Mogg? Not a jot. The British love an eccentric and the sight of Rees-Mogg wandering about like an extra from Downton Abbey, blithely unaware the last hundred years has happened, tickled us. But Rees-Mogg’s ‘old fashioned’ values extend to far more than tailored suits, a posh accent and having a nanny on staff; they extend to contraception too.

Continued at source: iNews: https://inews.co.uk/explainers/iq/tbt-abortion-wasnt-legal-britain/