Long before the term “abortion” entered our history, Anglo-American legal traditions protected this practice of menstrual regulation.
justified their decision in part by asserting that abortion rights did not exist in the 1860’s when the 14Amendment was passed. We disagree with the Justices’ legal reasoning. For centuries, women took concoctions or drugs to induce bleeding when their periods were late, “regulating” their menses and restoring what was seen as a healthy, normal flow of blood, while also ensuring an end to any possible early pregnancy.
Under common law, from at least the early 1600s onward, the practice of bringing on a late period was bothin the British colonies and early United States. Anytime before the “quickening”—the time in pregnancy around 16-18 weeks when women can feel the fetus moving within them— women could ingest herbs or teas to try to get their menses to restart. A late period mightAdvertisement
In the 1860s, an American suspecting a possible pregnancy may have used plants like tansy, black or blue cohosh, rue, angelica or pennyroyal to bring on bleeding. Today we have: life-saving medicines that have been used safely around the world for over thirty years. We spend our days working to expand access to this form of fertility control. Anyone who can bear children should have access to medicines that can bring down their menses—they should have access toYes, the purpose of these historical remedies —and now, of period pills—is to ensure that women do not have to carry an unwanted pregnancy if they suspect one might be developing. But unlike abortion, period pills embrace the ambiguity that can come at the beginning of a possible pregnancy.
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