A LARGE PRINT version of this is available at Greenteeth Multi Media Follow the link to open the pager in a new window. A button is provided to close the Greenteeth window and return you to Gather.
WARNING: This article will mention from time to time the common names of plants used as contraceptives and abortificants. These medicines can be very dangerous and are cited for historical information only. Modern chemical and barrier contraceptives are far more effective and much safer. If you need any advice on how to avoid or end pregnancy PLEASE consult a qualified doctor or birth control clinic. If for any reason you wish to find out more about natural birth contro with a view to using itl, please consult a trained herbalist, preferrably one who has a recognised qualification in conventional medicine. Any attempt to treat yourself is likely to have very serious consequences.
No matter what happens between now and November 2008, one of the most contentious issues in the U.S. Presidential election is likely to be pro-choice versus pro-life, legislation on abortion and contraception in other words. This is one of the traditional battlefields of the religious and the humanist world views and as usual when these two sides clash the debate will be between the reason and logic of the pro-choice camp and the pro -life groups' obsession with the myths and superstitious of a few bronze age tribes of tent dwelling, ignorant, illiterate goat farmers. (I never said this article was going to be unbiased.)
The illiterate tent dwellers (pro - life) side of the debate will cite the usual bits of misogynistic bigotry from their holy books, how to stone to death your bride if you find on the wedding night she is not a virgin, how God will smite you if you eat shrimps, wear cotton guzzies with a wool sweater or if you plant onions between your bean rows to keep slugs off the bean plants. Oh yes, these religious beliefs are all grounded in irrefuatble logic.
On the other hand the rationalists (pro choice) will argue the medical and historic facts and be accused of not bringing anything new to the debate, just the "same old stuff." This is pretty rich coming from a group whose only debating postition, that God created the world in seven days, 6000ish years ago and since then nothing has changed except the fashions. They will claim their case is supported by an allegedly sacred text that is now known to be no more than a mish mash of myths, fairy stories and superstitions gathered from a number of early civilisations.
Just to make my position clear as some people always seem to be confused as to which side of the fence I am actually on, I was once taken to task for referring to The Bible as The Big Black Book of Evil Lies. I have since carried out further research and changed mt view. There is only one passage in The Bible that is not true. It starts at "In the Beginning" and ends at "Amen."
Really the argument of the Bible Bashers rests on the premise that abortion and contraception are modern evils that challenge the will of God. This is simply not true, contraceptive and abortificant herbal preparations are among the oldest medicines known to humanity, several thousand years older than The God Of Abraham who is a comparitive newcomer in the pantheon. Thus we can see it is not birth control that is the modern evil leading us to defy the will of God, but that God is the modern evil that causes some people to defy the will of nature.
How far back does birth control go? Certainly as far as the mesolithic (middle stone age) era. Were this evidence only from archaeological work there would be room for doubt, but the presence of the same or similar herbs in finds around the world and its correlation with the folklore of various native tribes in Africa, North and South America, Asia, India, Australasia and all over Europe prove beyond reasonable doubt there was a common pool of knowledge in the area of healing and prevention.
One of the first questions the history of birth control raises is "why?" Surely those primitive cave dwellers needed all new people they could make in order to strengthen the tribe?
In a way they did, but they were smarter than we usually give them credit for. Life was tough for the hunter-gatherers and early farmers, they were surprisingly adept at preserving and storing food but even so in the winter fresh food that was full of nutrients was scarce. A baby born in the first quarter after the winter solstice stood little chance of getting through to the following summer. Furthermore the mother's energy was depleted by trying to feed it so that if she fell pregnant again quickly she was not likely to survive the pregnancy.
The tribal healers were every bit as sharp as modern scientists in their observational ability and they noticed that women who ate certain foods regularly did not fall pregnant as readily as others.
Thus it became know that eating or drinking an infusion made from the leaves of Tansy, plants of the ribes genre, any plant from a very broad family thay provides numerous foods and flavourings, certain seeds, (Lady Anne's Lace for example) and roots including ginger would also reduce the incidence of pregnancy.
The plants had to be gathered at the right time, prepared in a certain way and given in controlled doses if they were to be effective without being dangerous. The collection of such data and further studies in using willowbark, cannabis, feverfew, mint and garlic for pain relief and trewatment of various ailments laid the foundation for medical science.
Hot on the heels of that development came another bit of ancient logic that shows up proponents of the patriarchal male God as a bunch of power crazy, cack brained half wits. This can be summed up in two words, Mother Worship.
Stone age humans did not worship the way modern religionists do, they had far more practical issues on their minds. The did however see the womb as the cauldron in which new life was made. While being completely comfortable about their own mortality, as one must be if required to face a sabre toothed Tiger with only a pointed stick as a weapon, they did revere the greater life, the collective life of the tribe. The tribe's future was held in the wombs of the womem, the cauldron of new life. Before going on we should be clear what a cauldron is. It is not one of those big, pot-bellied cooking pots we see in children's stories about witches, that's a Dutchy. It is actually a shallow drinking bowl about the same diameter as a human skull. Someone might be thinking, "but isn't the Holy Grail a symbol for the womb?"
Do you know what a grail really is? It is not a chalice as is depicted in Christian art and stories about King Arthur. It is actually a shallow drinking bowl about the same diameter as a human skull.
So the early humans revered the womb and the woman in whose womb the new life grew. And by a scientific but informal process of observation and elimination they worked out that the strongest children were born to the healthiest women at times of the yearly cycle when nourishing food was most abundant. They also understood, though this may seem rather callous to the sentimental, supernatural worhipping mindset of modern religionists, that it was better to save the mother than the child.
Religious celebration for them was not solemn and hypcritical as it is now. Think of it more as an act of celebration, not to the glorification of some imaginary God but a glorification of life itself.
A woman halfway through her childbearting years may have borne two or three more healthy babies, but a winter baby could easily die along with its mother, the pregnancy having depleted her resources so much she could not sustain the child and herself through the lean (lenten) months. Yes lent, the Christian time of fasting, is another theft from the earliest pagans. The pagans of course did not wrap it up in bullshit about sin and atonement, they fasted because there was bugger all left to eat at that time of year.
Birth control then began as a pragmatic course of action for the good of the community, cave, clan, tribe, call it what you will. It was a way of strengthening the group not depleteing it and also it improved the quality of life for women. The tribal healers and the older women passed the knowledge down to daughters and grandaughters through the generations.
There have been many theories about what led to the rapid advance of civilisation from the middle stone age onwards. Anthropologists have estimated the first pre-humans developed between for and five million years ago. The earliest examples of crude stone tools are approximately half a million years old. The beginnings of civilisation, primitive agricultural commnities can be traced to between twenty five and thirty thousand years ago.
Now, in the three thousand five hundred years since the development of metalworking, we fly around the world, send our voices and images through the air, can cure most illnesses and repair broken bodies. Among the reasons for this rush to enlightenment have been psychedelic drugs, visits from alien beings and suggestions that it is all part of a plan engineered by a supernatural being. To the best of my knowledge nobody has yet dared to suggest it may have anything to do with the strengthening of the species through those neolithic women learning to manage their reproductive process.
Somehow the followers of the patriarchal male Gods that succeeded the divine mother lost sight of these pragmatic wisdoms. They revered the male, totally overlooking the fact that a man could, if he got lucky, father a child a day from puberty until his death provided he stayed healthy.
For women the span of child bearing years was much shorter and one child a year was the practical maximum.
Men were actually much more expendible.
Once worship (in the modern sense) of the male God had displaced mother-goddess worship things went downhill for women. They lost status, were reduced to property, chattels; in some societies their status became lower than that of cattle. Worse, when men found that being a prolific father gave them bragging rights, the priests began to denounce birth control, declaring it sinful and an abomination. Then, from about 2000 BC to halfway through the twentieth century, in societies dominated by the religions of the male God, many women found their health broken by serial pregnancies so that they were old at forty and suffered increasing health problems until their (usually premature) death.
Part 2; The Demonisation of Lilith- Tomorrow
Part 3: Burning Passion, Witches and The Church - Friday
Part 4: Medieval to Modern and Back - Saturday
Useful Infoormation:
Free and confidential advice on birth control in the UK
Marie Stopes Organisation - visit homepage for clinics nationwide
http://www.mariestopes.org.uk/
Where can I get contraception and abortion advice?
http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/articles/article.aspx?articleId=940
I COULD NOT find any information on free Birth control charities in the USA, peraps someone will help me out with links. Meanwhile anyone needing help can contact the Marie Stopes organisation. They will help you find support in your area.
Birth control websites USA
Birth Control questions
http://wzeu.ask.com/r?t=p&d=eu&s=uk&c=a&l=dir&o=312&sv=0a652824&ip=52091762&id=4449797FBF4F7A911D9F1BAE8EAB4042&q=birth+control+Sanger&p=1&qs=0&ac=18&g=02e8TVmwnv3HCK&en=gg&io=0&ep=&eo=&b=spl&bc=&br=&tp=bot&ec=5&pt=Birth%20Control%20Questions&ex=sgcl%3D8df9SN-zF%26sgch%3D5719zI-Te-8rVx8CNy%2525-l0-IHjgafUM4VG-T3-Sb32diP&url=&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Faclk%3Fsa%3Dl%26ai%3DB-4Ti7ZfqR8XVKJbAwQHWpeSpA9XZrzaVu-LBA4va3wXgpxIQARgBIK1RKAUwATgBUOqPgtQEYLumqYPQCqAB8ZLB_wPIAQHIArWnpwHZA6FkILk7yDNY4AMI%26num%3D1%26sig%3DAGiWqtwgmQ1Ppzo2RSjcfbx1bUyj6_lmjw%26q%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fyourtotalhealth.ivillage.com%2Fcontraception%253FivNPA%253D1%2526sky%253Dggl%257Chco%257Cbirthcontrolgeneral%257Cob%257CPPC4DE8%257Cs
Websites
Herbal Contraception
http://www.sisterzeus.com/herbalcontraception.html
Herbal Birth Control - Ashtree Publising
http://www.ashtreepublishing.com/Book_Childbearing_Year_Herbal_Contraceptives.htm
Ayurvedic herbal contraceptives (India)
http://www.garynull.com/Documents/Spectrum/herbal_contraceptives.htm
Books:
Taking Charge of your fertility
A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West
CHECK OUT THIS STORY AT PANDANGON - its a must for anyone who thinks I'm overly tough on religion.
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 80
Nice work! I like your op-ed pieces.
Much of what you have said makes excellent sense from an evolutionary biology point of view. I believe the ancient Greeks used half of a lemon for birth control, in much the same way that a cervical cap or diaphragm is used today.
Also, your comments about the shifting of power relationships between men and women as humans shifted from hunter-gatherers to agriculturists are in accord with what I know of mythology.
I look forward to the rest of this series. I hope you will consider adding some references to this and future installments.
LOL! Don't forget that lowly pig!
Very interesting article, and for what it's worth, I would NEVER vote for an anti-choice candidate for president.
Birth control only became legal in the US as of 1965. ENOUGH of domination by men. ENOUGH ENOUGH ENOUGH.
I personally consider the transfer from Mother Goddess to Father God a real set-back for civilization. Where the emphasis used to be on the benefit to the collective tribe, it transferred to the lower (in my opinion) emphasis on getting your genes out there to as many women as you could and heralding "continuation" of onesself OVER the successful continuation of the tribe. No wonder the religious fight so hard against the Theory of Evolution - survival of the fittest does not work well into their self-absorbed themes.
When I was in Turkey, I visited the ruins at Ephesus and the museum of some of the artifacts found thereabouts. The most impressive statue is that of the Mother Goddess (if I knew how to insert a picture of it here, I would...it is truly awesome).
"The name of the city is thought to have been derived from "APASAS", the name of a city in the "KINGDOM OF ARZAWA" meaning the "city of the Mother Goddess". Ephesus was inhabited from the end of the Bronze Age onwards...."
This was the city that Mary was supposed to have gone to after Jesus was crucified:
"For the Christians, the city, with its highly advanced way of life, its high standard of living, the variety of its demographic composition and its firmly rooted polytheistic culture, must have presented itself as an ideal pilot region... "
No wonder the connection with Mary (actually mythical) since the people in this area held women in high esteem due to their history of worshipping the Mother Goddess. Such a loss to global civilization to have lost the predominant significance of the female in human society. And the history books have shown us all how much men have managed to screw things up since that transition. *sigh*
Thanks so much for this......looking forward to your next installments.
http://members.fortunecity.com/pathlesstraveled/museumartamis.jpg
It's probably about 6-7 feet high.
When I visited Israel about 15 years ago the hotels and restaurants were very civilised. And if the fundies wanted to impose the moral law of the Ancient Britons on us I would have to refer to Bronze Age tribes of ignorant, semi literate mud hut dwellers. We've all moved on.
But abortion - as this is a four parter I don't really get to the present day problem and its solution til part 4.
Its like desperate housewives, you have to stick with it as the polt unfolds.
Dont forget, no wearing a wool sweater with cotton underwear - total abomination I'm afraid, complete no no. As is planting two different crops in one field.
What antis do not understand is that nobody is in favour of abortion, it is a last resort. In nations with contraceptive advice easily available and sex education on the school curriculum unwanted teenage pregnancies run at less than 10 per 1000. In the U.S. the figure is 80 per thousand. Sex education reduces abortions, promoting ignorace increases it.
I think you are onto something there.
So do you have a point? Apparently you do, in spite of the liberal dose of liberal clap-trap. People have always used contraception. I'm almost tempted to say you win a cookie, but I won't. They also used various other medicines and abortifacients but that is another issue all together. That was, as they say, then and this is now. They may have used these techniques to adjust the seasonal timings of pregnancy, but women use these to delay pregnancy by a span of years and decades, not seasons. Moreover the long term implications of those methods were not known to those women and they would have probably cared less, since most of them would be dead by the time most modern women are considering childbirth.
One last thing, you mention, "For women the span of child bearing years was much shorter and one child a year was the practical maximum." That's not even a good minimum. The average period of pregnancy is nine months. In addition to herbal contraception having an active lactation also has a contraception effect and the average child was breast fed for a period far longer than three months. Looking on he web I see assertions that studies indicate that menstruation won't happen until a year and a half of lactation and that doesn't mean an immediate return of ovulation.
P.S. The latest thing I heard was the "Holy Grail" was a hedge maze on a mound in Ireland. The legend of Arthur really wasn't a Christian one in the first place and it's been badly scarred in the plethora of conversions by every age.
You are no going to believe tomorrows instalment, a one dose a month female contraceptive in 700BC.
The ancients knew a thing or two.
Pregnancies have occurred through anal or non penetrative sex. Those sperm are determined little fuckers.
I don't know if pictures can be pu it a comment, we'll try a little experiment.
We get onto some interesting Goddess stuff tomorrow.
Time is the most effective contraceptive for us all eventually.
Thanks for that long comment which contained many keyords that will be indexed by google and enhance my article's visibility.
Unfortunately I did not understand a single word of what you were trying to say and I don't suppose you did either.
You tell me that my assertion that once child a year is a maxium is wrong and then you prove I am right. What's that about eh?
BTW Chris, I'm noit really a liberal I'm a fire breathing socialist and I'm coming to America to eat your babies, redistribute your wealth and subvert your culture.
Liberal :
adjective (I believe this was your usage - well, for the majority of times your flung it out there at us)
1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
2. (often initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.
3. of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism.
4. favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief or expression: a liberal policy toward dissident artists and writers.
6. of or pertaining to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.
7. free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant: a liberal attitude toward foreigners.
8. open-minded or tolerant, esp. free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc.
9. characterized by generosity and willingness to give in large amounts: a liberal donor.
10. given freely or abundantly; generous: a liberal donation.
11. not strict or rigorous; free; not literal: a liberal interpretation of a rule.
12. of, pertaining to, or based on the liberal arts.
13. of, pertaining to, or befitting a freeman.
–noun
14. a person of liberal principles or views, esp. in politics or religion.
15. (often initial capital letter) a member of a liberal party in politics, esp. of the Liberal party in Great Britain.
Elite:
–noun
1. (often used with a plural verb) the choice or best of anything considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons.
2. (used with a plural verb) persons of the highest class: Only the elite were there.
3. a group of persons exercising the major share of authority or influence within a larger group: the power elite of a major political party.
4. a type, approximately 10-point in printing-type size, widely used in typewriters and having 12 characters to the inch. Compare pica1.
–adjective
5. representing the most choice or select; best: an elite group of authors.
So, next time you want to "name call", try actually knowing the meanings of the terms that you use. Unless, you really did mean to praise us to such high extent, in which case I humbly thank you very much.
I'll give you a blanket agreement with everything you said and add, for the braindead that show up to complain, a few reminders:
"Pro-choice" isn't about forcing abortions on women and never has been. It's about women having a choice over what happens to their own bodies and having options that take themselves into account. You know, like they are actual people instead of just baby-making vessels.
Lactation is not proven birth control. I have three siblings that were all weaned decisively when my mother's milk turned to colostrum when she became pregnant while feeding. So, thanks for playing.
According to Robert Heinlein, any society that wasn't based on women and children first was doomed, period. People think that being "prolife" no matter what means you put children first. Think for an instant, especially in the period of time Ian's talking about. How many children back then would survive without mothers? And, if they did, it was because of the tribe mentality, where others picked up the slack.
Finally, if you don't like Ian's view on Christianity, don't read. He makes no bones about his own beliefs and no one's having his views shoved down their throats. I will do the same and avoid self-nauseation by avoiding Christian postings so we'll all be fair.
I think that women should be able to enjoy sexual relations, use contraceptives if they like...or not. And they should be able to decide whtn THEY want to use their bodies to make a baby. And there should be NO EMOTIONAL OR MORAL DILEMMA about that.
It is their decision and nobody else's business. Period.
As for Christopher's rant...whaddidhesay? I read it three times and still didn't figure out his point.
(Thanks, Shannon, for using anti-choice instead of more popular, inaccurate term.)
I love your liberal, elite clap-trap, Ian. (Clap-trap does mean "stuff way over my head", right?)
The Church of England supported the view that doctors should be given the right to withhold treatment from seriously disabled newborn babies in exceptional circumstances, and the Christian Medical Fellowship stated that when treatment would be "a burden" this was not euthanasia.
The last I heard, The Holy Grail was the womb of Mary Magdalene. The bible never mentions the Grail or a Holy Grail. It's a myth that started with Perceval.
I'm looking forward to the second installment.
BTW - the Grail thingy wasn't helped by the Da Vinci code. Just don't get me started on ignorant tourists trying to prise up the flagstones in Rosslyn Chapel!
If you don't have the ability to post your statements intellectually without prejudice, I'd appreciate your leaving B&S out of this discussion/set of articles.
Z'
Meretricious : exhibiting synthetic or spurious attractions : based on pretense or insincerity : cheaply ornamental
"The illiterate tent dwellers (pro - life) side of the debate will cite the usual bits of misogynistic bigotry from their holy books" – CLAPTRAP!
"There is only one passage in The Bible that is not true. It starts at 'In the Beginning' and ends at 'Amen.'" – CLAPTRAP!
I won't get into a discussion between what ancient and modern people knew. We didn't know how aspirin worked until the latter half of the 20th century. Likewise it is equally difficult to ascribe motivations to ancient people who never left any records for why they did things. For example you didn't mention if those ancient drugs merely prevented ovulation, or menstrual cycles or both. Men tended to view a woman's period with fear and women didn't exactly think it was an experience they wanted to have again and again.
Remove the claptrap and all you have is that ancient women used herbal contraceptives. They also used abortifacients (in large doses parsley is an abortifacients) and they also used infanticide. Here lies an odd problem, you are in effect making the "but he did it" excuse. Ancient people also practiced genocide; that doesn't in and of itself make it right.
Happy to, a group that claims to be for serious discussuion about beliefs and sexuality but does not allow controversy is, is it not, a bit of a contradiction in terms.
If you had not stopped reading after the first few paragraphs you might have understood what a wonderfully enlightening article I had posted to your group.
Having witnessed many attempts by the rabid right clique as this site to silence views opposed to their own, I was merely drawing a line in the sand that anybody who thinks they have the right to post vrebal insults / physical threats crosses at their peril.
Sarcasm can be a leathal weapon as you are probably starting to understand.
I'm still trying to work out how Christopher thinks "one child a year" is not a practical maximum but "not even a good minimum"
Apart from backing his argument with bogus biology which Sephanie corrected, Christopher apparently thinks women can have more than one baby in a twelve month period. Unless I've missed something and multiple births are now the norm, I'm not quite sure what he is getting at.
I have three siblings. There was a seven year break after me then they were all born between May 1955 and March 1958. American Birth control campaigner Margaret Sanger's mother had 18 pregnancies, evelen live births, in twenty three years. According to into I have but would not rely on 100% a Russian woman had 23 children in twenty seven years.
Again we find Steph, there are those of us who look up facts and those who pull them out of thin air. Well we will keep telling it like it is.
Liberal, elite clap trap is what they taught us at expensive English schools. I was never an ace student but some of it seems to have stuck :-)
Forget what you heard about the Grail, it is much older than Christianity. The first Grail legend features the Goddess Ceridwen who had a grail from which she fed broth to her male visitors. The broth contained three magical drops, (wisdom, fortitude and compassion) but these would only enter the mouths of the worthy.
Its a nice story and the meaning is obvious.
Infanticide was a crude method of culling unwanted girl children but it made a kind of sense as Dr. Robert Winston points out in his book Human Evolution. If a lot of guys were killed in war or something the numbers had to be balanced.
Some of the things the ancients did seem unspeakably cruel and brutal to us but the name of the game was survival. Many female animals including cats and rabbits are known to eat their litters. This again, Winston says, makes sense from a survival pov.
The mother can survive taking nourishment by eating her young, and can then have more litters. Without the mother though, the young cannot survive.
Nature is ruthless but logical.
Where religion distorts things is in its insistence on clinging to such primitive traditions, using irrational superstitions to justify them.
I've read Rosslyn had a lot to reveal but much of it may have been destroyed pre and post Da Vinci, by nutters.
I think he's thinking of himself and his own views when he said that. This is certainly not the view of ancient cultures. Menses was widely accepted to be a very special time for women in cultures and revered by all - women were much more in tune with each other as a tribe and often experienced menses at the same time, where they would gather together for celebration and the men would pick up the women's chores in the tribe to honor their special time.
Christopher - you are imposing your own present-day fears onto people in history. Try actually doing the research instead of making stuff up in your own head, or repeating what your preacher has told you in sunday school classes.
Claptrap: literature or other expression that attempts to convince or gain applause, credit, or recognition by the use of cheap, empty, or meretricious means : pretentious nonsense : TRASH
Well you would know mate, you would know.
Actually you are nearly right about aspirin. It was named in 1899 after Dresser had isolated the active ingredient from willow bark. 1899 is only 51 years before the latter half of the twentieth century. Willow bark had of course been used for centuries before that, nobody fully understood how it worked but it did. That is pretty much the position we are in with electricity, when someone asked Edison how it worked he said "it works." We know much more about what it will do and how it can be cintrolled now but as for understanding it, we aree not much nearer than you are to understanding my argument.
You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that I am blaming men for the practice of abortion in early tribes. I am in fact blaming men and religion for stopping women from using birth control.
I', glad yoiu bought yourself a dictionary Chris, but you still have a lot of work to do on comprehension skills.
Come back when you understand the argument, OK.
I forgot to mention, your previous comment was meretricious claptrap. Full marks for that.
Synchronisation is a fascinating mystery and to my mind puts into perspective the opinions of those scientists who insist everything conforms to simple logic.
I think morphic resonance is something to do with it myself.
Do you get the impression Chris is struggling to come to terms with being way out of his depth here. His comments bring to mind Stevie Smith's poem Not Waving But Drowning ;-)
BTW do you get the impression Chris is struggling to come to terms with being way out of his depth here. H
Very sad, but probably true. The religious repression of all things natural and beautiful, especially sexual, is truly the greatest crime and I feel very sorry for those raised to be so ashamed of their natural state. The irony is, this IS the way their god supposedly made them.
And I am with Sheryl, I am PROUD to be called a liberal by definition.
That's exactly right. We make the mistake of judging the past by own own standards and values, We should always remember "the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there."
For example when we talk about The Vikings and their raping pillaging and plundering people will throw up their hands in horror at the rape bit. Oh what terrible people those Vikings were.
But what they did was normal behaviour in those days and women accepted it and got on with their lives. After all some of the alternatives were much worse.
You can address all your comments to me if you like sweetie. I did get infanticide but its probably as well to spell things out for people on the other side of the argument. In the UK we have and average of seven children a week murdered in their homes, usually by parents. So the sooner we start ignoring the ravings of the superstitious and start addressing the very deep rooted problems in society the better.
Sex education, free contraceptives, sex education, free family planning clinics, sex education and sex education seem to work in Europe.
But as ever poverty and ignorance are the chief enemy.
Thankfully my liberal parents demystified the whole of the reproductive process for me as soon as I started making stains on the bedsheets. So I was never filled with feat and loathing at the thought of menstruation. I even bought my wife's tampons at times :-)
I did however learn to be very quiet and respectful around PMT time. Just a sensible precaustion.
Nice to see you back. If you're proud to be called liberal you might like to help us explain to Chris if he comes back, why those definitions he gave are not actually insulting. He hasn't got letter S (for satire, sarcasm, sardonic) with his new dictionary yet so he is missing our sharpest points.
"to post vrebal insults / physical threats crosses at their peril."
"ignorant, illiterate goat farmers. (I never said this article was going to be unbiased.)"
"a bunch of power crazy, cack brained half wits."
"BTW Chris, I'm noit really a liberal I'm a fire breathing socialist and I'm coming to America to eat your babies, redistribute your wealth and subvert your culture."
It seems to me that your brand of sarcasm is not something I wish to use my time to wade through...even if your article was worthwhile...some of us will never know... I call it plain RUDE!
z'
1. Concerning length of time between bearing successive children: Stephanie was right, although lactatation may discourage pregnancy, the effect is very unpredictable and it's not a reliable form of birth control.
I suspect this is because most of us are well-nourished. For a malnourished woman, lactation might be effective at preventing pregnancy, as her body is already struggling with the huge caloric demands of milk production. It would be beneficial to both her and her infant to dealy another pregnancy. That's my speculation, although I suspect that supporting studies could be found.
However, bearing one child a year is not healthy even for us modern well-nourished women. My mother had 3 children in three years and was told by her doctor to slow down. So, I think it's fair to look at one baby a year as a MAXIMUM reproductive rate.
2. Concerning conception without penetration: this is quite possible and there are many well-documented cases. It usually happens when a man ejaculates close to a woman's vagina.
Conception from anal sex could happen if the sperm REALLY knew their way around (out and then in again!) or if there was a tear (fissure) between the rectum and vagina.(The later condition is common today in parts of Africa that lack Ob-Gyn care). I don't know of any documented cases, but I'd be willing to check if anyone is curious.
3. Attitudes towards menstruation vary hugely from culture to culture. Menstruating women may be either celebrated or shunned. (See Joseph Campbell's Atlas of World Mythology. It contains anthropology as well as mythology).
4. Infanticide for babies with low odds of survival is well-documented in many primitive cultures. (Check above reference). And Ian is right, many mammals will consume their own litters, especially if they are stressed in some way around the time of birth.
I agree with Ian that the most ethical route on these issues is plenty of education and easy access to birth control. The longer we wait, the crueler the solution.
Although I appreciate Bert's statement that abortion should not be an ethical or moral dilema, it's bound to be an emotional one. I personally would feel horrible about having an abortion after the first trimester, at which time the fetus has a nervous system and can feel pain. I would certainly request anesthesia for the fetus if I did so.
I am completely clueless as to why the anti-choice crowd thinks that:
a. A woman's decision to have an abortion has anything to do with them.
b. It's a good and ethical thing to picket abortion clinics, etc., and make women faced with this heart-rending choice suffer even more.
You may extrapolate that to be heartless, but most women who decide to have abortions do it for the good of themselves, and for the good of the potential child, based on their present life situations.
I am very tired of people just assuming that all women who have had abortions carry around this terrible grief and guilt their entire lives. It is the fact that they actually GOT pregnant that brings regret, not that they chose to end it legally and for everyone's best interests. Again, the fact that they are in a state of unwanted pregnancy brings the emotions, not their decision to abort. It is usually well thought-out and everyone I know had it done legally in the first trimester and are very happy that they did.
You are extrapolating. I am only speaking for myself. I love children, but have none, and never will.
If I got pregnant at say, fifteen, I might well feel very relieved to have an abortion.
But that's not where I am at now.
Again, I apologize.
When people live on a subsistence level, there isn't much margin.
The huge majority of abortions that take place in this country are done in the first trimester. I posted the statistics on this in a thread a month ago. I can't find it right now, but I think the number is over 90%. I agree with you that after the first trimester, things begin to get sticky, but I still mainatin that it is the woman's decision until the fetus is deemed to be "viable." At that point, it is arguably a human being with a "right" to survive. I am conflicted at that point...who has the greater "right," the woman or the fetus? It is a question without an answer, especially if the woman's health...or life...is threatened.
But in the vast majority of the cases, the problem is moot...in my opinion...if the fetus is aborted in the first trimester.
Note also that killing a child that does not have a life-threatening physical anomaly is not necessarily good for survival, though, and that cultures that indulged in this often did not make the distinction between "cosmetic but not dangerous" and just "dangerous." It also does not allow for other less obvious defects like mental problems which are some of the worse defects that can contaminate a gene pool. And it's only effective if one ruthlessly applies it.
I'm not condoning it, per se. I hate the thought of killing a living child, but, again, this was survival. However, I am also of the opinion that parents have the right to stop a pregnancy if the child has a debilitating genetic condition or birth defect. Modern medicine is great, but some defects can seriously ruin lives for parent and children.
What I did in this thread is in fact a robust style of argument very popular in Britain. The comedian and Hollywood actor Stephen Fry summed up one of the problems in American society when asked why he had not followed his friend Hugh Laurie in taking up residence in the US.
Fry replied, "I could not live there, they have this weird convention that nobody ever directly disagrees with anything because to disagree is disrespectful so people will perform extraordinary feats of circumlocution rather than tell somebody they are talking nonsense.
Unfortunately this idea of "manners" has backfired in that you now have fundies (and yes, I know that is pejorative, I intended it so,) who think they have the right to tell me I am a murderer and a paedophile (?) because I do not subscribe to their chosen belief system. Which hardly respect my right to differ so why should I respect theirs?
You single out these lines:
"ignorant, illiterate goat farmers. (I never said this article was going to be unbiased.)"
"a bunch of power crazy, cack brained half wits."
In each case I make it clear to the people referred to are ancients, long dead and therefore well beyond being offended. So how are my words rude to any living person unless someone takes it upon themselves to place the dead above criticism?
Then you pick up on this:
"BTW Chris, I'm noit really a liberal I'm a fire breathing socialist and I'm coming to America to eat your babies, redistribute your wealth and subvert your culture."
The thing here is Chris has already made it clear he uses the word "liberal" as an insult. After that he goes on to repeat the blatant lies of the "pro-life" camp. You object to my insulting him but not to his insulting all the rational people in the thread. So would you agree that in your resonses you prove his allegation about liberals having double standards?
I have encountered Chris and his sad little buddies on other threads where they have stifled reasoned argument. Most have learned to leave my threads alone now, I am never going to be mealy mouthed in the face of their ill manners.
Its a style of arguing know insome schools of thought as "getting your retaliation in first." It does work though as my friends and I, because of our uncompromising attitude, have some great and prolonged discussions on sensitive topics.
I actually loved your first comment. It felt really liberating and was good to hear. And I agree wholeheartedly with your comments above regarding the timing of an abortion.
Thanks for that. I also know of no documented cases of pregnancu occuring after nal intercourse but I did see a TV documentary concerning the risks of unprotected sex that said anal sex carries a prgnancy risk. The doctor presenting the show said gravity and surface tension can aid the sperm on their way.
When my mum had three kids in four years she followed that up with a breakdown so you are right on that score. When I cited a baby a year as a maximun I was trying to illustrate a point Chris seemed to be having difficulty with, that the biological differences between male and female gave rise to certain attitudes in pre-industrial societies.
I think we've shut him up now, although I have not seen the usual fundie signoff of "I can't be bothered arguing with you any more - you're all stupid" Perhaps he has realised just how stupid that is.
You are right about the cleft palate; the child cannot breastfeed, and milk needs to be squirted into their mouth with a syringe.
I'm impressed that you know about the "bottleneck effect"-- the elimination of deleterious alleles (gene copies) by the breeding of closely-related individuals. I have never heard this used to explain physical beauty, though.
I agree with your comments about electing to have an abortion rather than raise a severely disabled child. The latter seems to condemn at least 3 people (parents and kid) to a living hell.
The abortificant plants did work, it is documented as the same plants were still in use in the seventeenth century right here in England. The ones that were hugely risky were those needed for late stage abortions, the appropriately named Rue for example. This apparently causes such violent uterine contractions serious haemorrhaging resulted.
But more detail will be revealed on this in subsequent instalments.
But in early societies it is true to say women spaced their children (family planning) for very good reasons.
The Scadinaviand were late adopters because they were reluctant to give u orgiastic celebrations of holidays. They still celebrate in much the same way now.
But we are in danger of being diverted by the Christian lie here. Prior to the protestant reformation Christianity was very different to what we know now and managed to find room for many paganistic Goddess cults - that of Mary Magdalene in Southern France until the fourteenth century and in Britain the cult of Mary Gypsy.
And we should also remember Christianity only became the main religion after King Alfred gave the Danes half the country (the Danelaw) and a yearly tribute of god (the Danegeld) if they would accept the faith.
I remember your posting those statistics and have read many time the figures in Britain are similar.
In Northern Europe where there is much less resistance to sex education, abortion as a form of birth control is almost unknown and though a higher percentage of the abortion procedures are at a late stage, this is because they are carried out for the wellbeing of the mother.
Again we find that sex education works, silver rings don't - unless the girl holds the ring between her knees of course :-)
Thanks for those wise words and supporting facts on infanticide, the topic was in danger of running away with the thread.
The ancients did not kill their own kids as a means of population control, they killed the neighbouring tribe's kids as a way of making room to expand.
Also the culling of the physically disabled was not as bad as it seems to us. There was precious little support from charities or government agencies available to primitive parents with a severely disabled child.
There is no evidence of infanticide specifically but plenty for genocide. There is also no evidence to support another Christian assertion (that the Christians adopted from pagan Rome) that the barbariand practiced human sacrifice.
After 1500 BC human sacrifice rituals were rituals only, the sacrifice being symbolic. The Sun King sacrificed at the Autumal equinox actually went away to live as an honoured member of another part of the tribe. Prior to that, we just don't know for sure what went on.
I'm an engineering physicist by accident. I originally had intended to be a genetic engineer because the study of genetics fascinated me (and still does). However, I can't claim any deep knowledge because of that interest. The bottleneck effect is noted in several of Heinlein's work and it's a common theme in a number of science fiction venues - and I write and read science fiction.
The question of ending up with beautiful people as a result also fell out of a discussion with my father, a biologist, over the book "Hawaii" where prince and princess were expected to mate brother to sister. He noted that, if one was ruthless, one can cull out bad alleles over time. If "ugly" features are included in that, one could have a truly beautiful breed of whatever, but only if one is willing to make no exceptions in the culling. What that means is that I have no basis for it that I can cite; however, it seems sound logic especially if "perfection" is required from a royal mating - much as a dog breeder selectively breed for "desirable" traits. Note that my dad dealt with plants, but I don't think it completely negates the logic (although brain damage and mental disorders seem to be less of a concern for plants).
Having said all that, I don't claim to be a biologist so I could certainly be wrong. I should probably have stated it more ambiguously. Perhaps I wasn't skeptical about enough of my father's stuff. And it was a discussion from 20 years ago.
I'm not surprised you like genetics; it's the most rigorous of the biological sciences. I was confused because I thought you were talking about something else. You are right that selective breeding for any trait is usually pretty successful.
I was thinking of the "bottleneck effect' which occurs naturally when populations are small, but can also be done via selective breeding. (It's done in zoos a lot because the populations are so small).
As I'm sure you know, each of us has a small number (I think it's 10 or less) of lethal genes. They don't kill us only because our genes occur in pairs, and their "normal" counterparts function in their place (do whatever it is that the lethal genes fail to do).
In a small population, inbreeding is impossible to avoid. Therefore, individuals are much more likely to inherit two copies of a lethal gene. One way to deal with this is to SELECTIVELY mate the most closely-related individuals. Each time they produce offspring with a pair of lethal genes, well, that gets rid of some of the bad stuff, as this offspring dies. Eventually, the population contains fewer lethal genes.
Very interesting when we think in terms of world myths. Isis and Osiris in Egypt were brother and sister, Cronos procreated with Rhea in Greek myth, Rhea had to trick her hubby to stop him eating the foetus who, it had been foretold would be more powerful than his dear old Dad (the child grew up to be Zeus) and in Ireland Dagda mated annually with Boyne, a river Goddess annually to conceive the following summers Sun God.
Gods of course, like cats, are not seriously affected by genetic mutation.
I'm afraid your first statement is entirely wrong Joe, apart from the documented evidence presented in part 2 of this four parter, I actually checked with my good friend Viki, a specialist endocrinologist in Western medicine and trainted in the Ayurveda, the ancient healing tradition of India. She confirmed for me there are records showing that contraceptives and early stage abortificants I refer to in part 2 of this four part study were in use in India and Persia in the seventh century BC.
Pre-Roman texts in western Europe record the use of contraceptive herbs before the creation of the Roman Empire.
When discussing Neolithic usage we are dealing with speculation based on archaeological and anthropological evidence which means there is a degree of uncertainty, but modern studies among Australian Aborigines, the San od Southern Africa and native tribes in North and South America and Indonesia, people whose lives have changed little in the last ten thousand years, suggest that the same plants were used for the same purposes throught that period.
These herbal contraceptives were not as effective as modern chemical of prophylactic contraceptives but there is both empirical and scientific evidence they work.
You are right in saying though that the "pro-life movement is about controlling women.
As we go on through to part 4 you will see the purpose of these articles (apart from provinding a few thousand words for a book project) is to record the subjugation of women.
I can imagine any abortion is nightmarish when help from experienced and trained people is not available very quickly.
Part 2 is already posted, 3 & 4 to come.
The Book has the working title Return of The Goddess and will have chapters on Mary Magdalene, Mary Gypsy, The Maid of the Woods and other goddess figures in early Christianity, Bridget and the Sacred Flame, Arthurian Legend including The Lady of the Lake, Goddess Myths from around the world all working in a similar pattern by tracing the survival of these female traditions through the various stages of suppression to the re-emergence in the 20th century.
As this is not factual history we are dealing with but history tyold through myths, legends and folklore it frees me to be controversial, flippant, populist and entertaining.
I guess I have always been a follower of The Goddess, its my nature, but it coalesced when aged around 22 I read The White Goddess by Robert Graves. TWG was first published in 1948, had a resurgence of popularity in the 1960s and is still in print. What it deals with is not Do It Yourself Paganism, but a guide to understandin myths.
Its not bedtime reading but is a very fascinating study. You should find it in public libraries in NYS though those in the Bible Belt haven't much chance I'm afraid.
If you click my "poems" or "pagan" tag and find Three Secrets, that gives a very simplified guide to Celtic myth.