Leeches, Lye and Spanish Fly (Or, Historical Evidence That Abortion has Always Existed)
Someone linked this to me after seeing my abortion resource mega-post yesterday. It’s an article that appeared in the NY Times this week about how, yes, abortion existed before Roe v. Wade - it just killed way more people. The article ends on a very good - and extremely correct - note:
If the Supreme Court were ever to overturn Roe v. Wade, or if anti-abortion forces continue to successfully chisel away at a woman’s access to safe abortion, many women will still choose abortion — by their own hands. Leeches, lye and Spanish fly are still among the many tools available to the self-abortionist. So are knitting needles, with predictable, disastrous consequences. There is no law that will end the practice of abortion, only laws that can protect a woman’s right to choose it, or not, and to keep it the safe and private procedure still available to us in 2013, 40 years after the Supreme Court made it legal.
Yesterday, some little shit wrote me an Ask saying they were going to the March for Life in Washington next week, and that they would pray for me and my ignorance. I wrote back, “I’d prefer if you prayed for the 72,000 women who die every year from illegal abortion.”
But what I wish I’d said was this: all you fucking pro-lifers want to do is pray. Maybe instead of going to DC and marching for fetuses, you could spend the day writing to your representative about creating a subsidized childcare program, or increasing funding for Planned Parenthood, or asking them to support birth control with no co-pay, all of which would prevent abortions. But no. Walk and pray. Roe v. Wade has been around for 40 years and your prayers and walks haven’t worked yet, but go ahead and give it another shot.
