Did you know:

—in old-timey-times women got abortions w no constraints?

—ads for abortion were so common in the 1800s they were blasé?

—native women controlled their fertility & men had no say?

Today's @OrdEquality ep will blow your freakin’ mind

There's this perception that women didn't have abortions in the past— that we were somehow better & more “moral” in the past— but, that could not be further from the truth.

Women have always controlled their fertility throughout the entire history of time. — Dr. @lmacthompson1
We interviewed @LorettaJRoss Prof, Co-founder @sistersong_woc & Godmother to the reproductive justice movement:

"Emperor Augustus was complaining about elite Roman women not having enough children... Roman women were using knowledge from Egypt to practice fertility control..."
"I discovered that the kidnapped, enslaved Black women who were brought over in the slave trade actually brought knowledge about abortifacients with them. And so, they were secretly controlling their own fertility on these plantations." — @LorettaJRoss on @OrdEquality
"Black women have been fighting for reproductive self-determination since our arrival in this country." —@LorettaJRoss on @OrdEquality

https://t.co/cDGZbKKBdG
Wa'kerakats:te Louise "Mama Bear" Herne is a Condoled Bear Clan Matron of the Mohawk Nation. She said:

The woman is the power. It's up to her to be able to decide if she's fit enough to carry a pregnancy, or whether she's going to return it to creation.

https://t.co/cDGZbKKBdG
Prof John Riddle author of “Eve's Herbs: A History of Contraception & Abortion in the West" said on @OrdEquality today:

During the period of witchcraft suppression of the things that the witches were accused of doing 7 items were listed &— 6 of those 7 had to do with sexuality.
In early America, women were thinking & writing abt how it was exhausting to have 10 children in a row. So, it's no surprise that they were wanting to control what they could in their lives that were otherwise so incredibly politically & socially circumscribed. Dr. @lmacthompson1
The fab voice of @cameronesposito brings us these classic (& real) old-timey abortion ads from famous abortionist Madame Restell in 1865 on @OrdEquality today!

https://t.co/cDGZbKKBdG
Learn more about the historical prevalence of abortion ads from Dr. @lmacthompson1, who we interview in today's episode of @OrdEquality, on this fantastic thread:

https://t.co/0XU05vzOG3
Anthony Comstock was the porn-obsessed Inspector Javert of obscenities.

He relentlessly hounded Madame Restell until he had her arrested & she tragically died by suicide the day before her trial!

This dude kick-started the crusade against birth control & abortion. 👇
Medical doctors are also part of the reason we have LESS access to abortion

"After the civil war, state after state began criminalizing abortion & doctors who were male tried seize everything having to do with childbirth & pregnancy from midwives who were women." —@KathaPollitt
So, women have long known how to regulate pregnancy. When colonizers arrived on the shores of what is now the USA, the native people on this land already knew how to terminate pregnancies, & in colonial times abortion services were advertised openly.

https://t.co/cDGZbKKBdG
The birth rate went down & men wanted control over the ONE realm they didn't already control.

Doctors professionalized & voilà!— in order to get power— took it away from midwives.

This depressing arc is ALL about power & control.

CHECK THIS EP OUT 🎧

https://t.co/cDGZbKKBdG

More from Culture

I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x
@bellingcat's attempt in their new book, published by
@BloomsburyBooks, to coverup the @OPCW #Douma controversy, promote US and UK gov. war narratives, and whitewash fraudulent conduct within the OPCW, is an exercise in deception through omission. @BloomsburyPub @Tim_Hayward_


1) 2000 words are devoted to the OPCW controversy regarding the alleged chemical weapon attack in #Douma, Syria in 2018 but critical material is omitted from the book. Reading it, one would never know the following:

2) That the controversy started when the original interim report, drafted and agreed by Douma inspection team members, was secretly modified by an unknown OPCW person who had manipulated the findings to suggest an attack had occurred. https://t.co/QtAAyH9WyX… @RobertF40396660


3) This act of attempted deception was only derailed because an inspector discovered the secret changes. The manipulations were reported by @ClarkeMicah
and can be readily observed in documents now available https://t.co/2BUNlD8ZUv….

4) @bellingcat's book also makes no mention of the @couragefoundation panel, attended by the @opcw's first Director General, Jose Bustani, at which an OPCW official detailed key procedural irregularities and scientific flaws with the Final Douma Report:

You May Also Like