That looks kind of circular.
If you interpret all sorts of language as being euphemisms for abortion - as the article in the OP does - then you can conclude on that basis that these things were believed to be “abortifacients”. Question is if you have anything that doesn’t ride on the assumption itself.
That’s not at all how I read
[The book] starts to prescribe basically all of the best-known herbal abortifacients and contraceptives that were circulating at the time,” Farrell said. “It’s just sort of a greatest hits of what 18th-century herbalists would have given a woman who wanted to end a pregnancy early.”
I read that to mean that Farrell has investigated, or already knew, what 18th century herbalists gave women who wanted to abort an early pregnancy; and was using the fact that Franklin listed the same items to support the interpretation that he was giving abortion instructions. Nothing circular about that.
Where are you getting the idea that Farrell only thinks they were considered abortifacients because Franklin’s recommending them in the book? That’s the only way it would be circular; and that’s quite clearly not what’s being said. The Slate article linked in the NPR article goes into more detail, and it also makes clear that Farrell has plenty of other reason to say they were considered abortifacients.
Oh, for pity’s sake. How are you going to handwave away the fact that Franklin explicitly associated this “Suppression of the Courses” malady with “unmarry’d Women” in particular? And that he advised them that “to prevent this Complaint”, they must not “long for pretty Fellows, or any other Trash whatsoever”?
Obvious interpretation: “If you’re an unmarried woman and your periods stop, well, this is a family book so we won’t say right out that you got pregnant from premarital sex, which would be unseemly. But we know that you, unlike your lawfully wedded sisters, consider this pregnancy a definite Misfortune and want to end it. So take these herbs that just happen to be considered abortifacients in contemporary materia medica. And if you don’t want this to happen again, or happen in the first place, then don’t get yourself hot and horny by thinking about sexy guys or self-stimulating with inanimate objects (‘trash’).”
(And no, “trash” in the 18th century didn’t have the default meaning “garbage” as it does today, but could mean all kinds of trinkets and trifling objects. And if you think that 18th-century people didn’t know about “trinkets” intended specifically for sexual stimulation, prepare to be surprised.)
Per my understanding, it was widely thought (and may have some basis in fact) that sexual desire itself would impact the regularity of menstrual cycles.
Irregular cycles were largely an issue for unmarried women. Pre-menopausal married women in those days were pregnant or nursing a big percentage of the time. (Conversely, there were probably a lot of married women who had unwanted pregnancies as well.)
Cite? I have carefully re-read all your posts in this thread, and I haven’t seen any reference to any knowledge or sources on 18th-century medicine other than what other posters have provided.
I suspect you may have got a bit too attached to your original position of naive skepticism on this subject, leading to the tossing around of further and more tenuous speculative hypotheses that might lend support to that position if by some chance they turned out to be true.
Feel free to provide cites from contemporary sources that demonstrate otherwise, though: I’d always rather argue about textual interpretation on the basis of solid documentary evidence than on the basis of unsupported speculative hypotheses.
Abortion was not just legal—it was a safe, condoned, and practiced procedure in colonial America and common enough to appear in the legal and medical records of the period. Official abortion laws did not appear on the books in the United States until 1821, and abortion before quickening did not become illegal until the 1860s. If a woman living in New England in the 17th or 18th centuries wanted an abortion, no legal, social, or religious force would have stopped her.
The Puritans brought their laws on abortion from merry old England, where the procedure was also legal until quickening. Although the Puritans changed much of England’s legal system when they established their “city upon a hill,” they kept abortion as a part of Puritan family life, allowing women to choose when and if they would become mothers—whether for the first time or the fifth time.
Acceptance of early-term abortion changed during the 19th century as Victorian sensibilities took hold. By 1910 abortion—except in cases to save the mother’s life—was a criminal procedure in every state except Kentucky, where the courts declared the procedure to be judicially illegal.
The new restrictions on abortion were caused by many factors, including changing social, class, and family dynamics in the early 19th century. Americans in the Victorian era thought abortion was a problem brought on by upper-class white women, who were choosing to start their families later and limit their size. Increased female independence was also perceived as a threat to male power and patriarchy, especially as Victorian women increasingly volunteered outside the home for religious and charitable causes.
Other than, “oh shit, I’m pregnant”, why on earth would anyone ever want her period to come?
You are really stretching to avoid recognizing abortion advice when it’s laid out very clearly.
This was gonna be my question. I mean, I’m a dude, so maybe I’m ignorant here (and Spaceman Spiff, maybe pay attention here). So, folks with periods, can you help me out? I know a woman who’s pregnant might decide she wants to bring on her period in order to end her pregnancy, i.e., have an abortion. But what other occasions do folks decide to bring on their period using dangerous painful herbal remedies?
Spaceman seems to think that “regulating courses” doesn’t necessarily mean “have an abortion.” So there must be other occasions for painful regulation of courses. Right? Right?
For the record, the Bible published abortion instructions (unless you think that force feeding someone limestone water will cause their thigh to fall off and plop onto the ground).