Catamount Tavern News Service, Chicago, IL

While in my mid-twenties, “I had an abortion,” joining the statistical thirty-six percent of women in the United States who have terminated pregnancies. Unlike many who share in this statistic, I was fortunate to be surrounded by a supportive group of friends but, initially, it felt as if I didn’t or couldn’t share my experience with anyone else - even the thirty-six percent.

At the time, I stood at a loss: alone and uncertain of an experience that seemed to be lacking in meaning. Without sure footing, I could not have foreseen how a few common seeds, securely planted in the soil beneath my feet, would connect me to the cycle of life as well as the countless women before me who had cultivated herbs in the rows of their gardens or gathered errant growing plants of forest and field to terminate unfortunate pregnancies.

In my first tentative efforts to understand, I began to look for literature that might help me explore my sense of isolation and provide insight for integrating my experience into a sense of self. Yet when I searched for books on abortion, I found shelves heavy with the weight of their politically-charged titles but disconcertingly irrelevant to my needs.

Looking for a secure place of escape from the political debate, I turned to the history shelves, presuming there must be reference to women's abortion experience somewhere in the pages of the past. I was correct, but that “somewhere” was in the footnotes. Naturally, I began to follow these glimmering fragments of information in pursuit of understanding.

During my research, I found the work of John M. Riddle, Chair of the History Department at North Carolina Sate University, who writes about the multitude of plants used for contraception and abortion throughout Western history. For the first time, I was reading the work of a historian that presented not only a continuum of historical information on contraception, but a historian who also examined the contemporary, scientific analysis of herbs that proved the viability of plant-based contraception and herbal abortion methods. Prior to Riddle, my reading of history promoted reliable contraception from a medicalized position: only the almighty pill had given women freedom and women's reliance on old wives’ remedies had been dangerous quackery or superstitious nonsense, at best. With Riddle’s work, I began to see the agency of women actively maintaining and controlling their fertility through viable contraceptive practices, and I began to question the validity of Western history's assumptions about women's fertility practices.

Riddle's work suspended a footbridge, connecting me to the women throughout history who had successfully aborted pregnancies, and, unwittingly, offered a means for me to connect with the thirty-six percent: my contemporaries. Riddle's work also served to connect me to my natural environment in new ways, as many of the plants used throughout history to successfully control fertility were common to my environment: the billowing umbrels of queen anne's lace, seen swaying along roadsides and railways; the migrating family of mint, found bed-hopping with abandon in kitchen gardens; and the conifer cone of the juniper, at one time the true flavor in gin.

Through Riddle's examination, these plants were given new meaning, inspiring me to grow the very same plants that for centuries before me had been gathered and cultivated by women in their desire to control and order their reproductive lives. I decided to grow my birthright.

In consulting my notes from Riddle's text, I composed a list of plants that I could grow in my seasonal zone including queen anne's lace, wormwood, juniper, mugwort, pennyroyal, rue, and chaste tree. Although I did not intend to use these plants as contraception or abortifacients, I wanted to use organic medicinal sources and researched numerous on-line sources, including Cyberseeds, Boudreau Gardens Herb Farm, Elixer Farm Botanicals, and Horizon Herbs. I chose to work with Horizon Herbs because they are a family-owned company, growing all the seeds and roots they sell on their own farm and holding a longstanding commitment to “local gardening for personal, bioregional, and global rehabilitation.” Their catalogue provides growing conditions and suggestions, but for optimum results, I also consulted a number of additional books specific to herb gardening.

I purchased an herb encyclopedia for general reference, but used Growing and Using Herbs Successfully by Betty E.M. Jacobs as my main source of information, as it referenced the largest number of herbs that I wished to grow. In considering my seed choices, I took into consideration seasonal limitations, germination success rates, and levels of growing complexity. I was intending to plant my garden in the spring, which eliminated tubers that require an autumnal planting to overwinter or cold germinate.

To put this project into perspective, I will admit to having been, at the time, a novice gardener, at best. As a child I had helped in the tending of my mother's garden and had even helped an elderly neighbor pull weeds from the profusion of her old-fashioned flower beds, but my adult experience with gardening had, up to this point, been of the fire escape variety: a few clay pots with requisite geraniums and a couple of clinging morning glories to tendril up the wrought iron posts. I had a lot to learn, but I also had a great deal of incentive to keep me motivated.

I began many of the seeds indoors in little cut-away, paper, milk cartons. Each sprout the cause for notation in my notebook.

Queen Anne's Lace

April 6: Evening. Sowed seeds in common potting soil. Top watered with spray mist. Semi-dark location. Covered with plastic.

April 7: Watered – spray mist. Also sprayed in sack for additional moisture.

April 10: First seedling. Very pleased. Looks as if it came above surface yesterday. Tall spindly stem. Top watered.

April 12: A few more seedlings. Moved to west window. Placed in greenhouse to protect from Brave Boy (cat).

April 28: Seedlings doing well. Have been watering every third day. Have developed their mature “carrot” leaves. Pretty tiny. Am getting ready to transplant to individual pots. Am pleased with their progress.

April 30: Plants growing in profusion. Madness. Looks good. Top watering.

May 6: Growing well. Have definite dacus leaves.

May 9: Purchased clay pots. Will transplant tomorrow.

Once the ground was warm and the plants were strong, they were transplanted in an old, communal, urban garden attached to what was once a single-family residence that had, thankfully, escaped the bulldozer and development. While transplanting, I considered all the women who had tended the garden plot before me and mused on what their thoughts might be about my endeavor.

That summer was spent tending and observing the plants as they grew and then later flowered and seeded. Many friends and neighbors came to view the garden, and, for the first time, I felt that I could speak openly about my project and the impetus behind the garden, spreading in a historically appropriate way the oral tradition of women’s use of herbs to control their fertility.

Since my first garden project many years ago, vital sources for the reclamation of women’s fertility history have become available without a determined search through the footnotes. Instead of accepting the medicalized view of fertility, women across the United States are reclaiming their bodies and inherent agency by actively writing and organizing in resourceful and successful ways to ensure knowledge and women’s well being. Much of the written work can be found on the Internet, including an extensive source of herbal contraception, emmenagogues and abortifacients at Living With Our Fertility www.sisterzeus.com/.

It is important for each individual to consider their health before adopting any of our older methods of menstrual regularity, as many herbs must be considered in ways that were familiar to generations before us, and should not be used as the pharmaceutical companies would have us take medicine today. Living With Our Fertility offers many options from which to choose a method most suited to individual needs, while also recommending and guiding woman through the steps to cleanse and care for the body after using potentially toxic herbs.

In addition, Pomegranate Health Collective www.pomegranatecollective.org/, an organization of health activists in Chicago, provides information on gynecological care, and will gladly assist and encourage others in starting a like-minded organization, of which many communities are in desperate need. Finally, it would be remiss of me to fail in recommending Exhale www.4exhale.org/ an after-abortion telephone hotline 1-866-4 EXHALE where women are encouraged to speak about their abortion experience freely.

With the above resources as a guide, it may not be necessary to grow a fertility garden, as I did, to connect with women who have experienced abortion, but the enjoyment keenly felt when hands are caked with dirt and green is growing greener may provoke your own green patch of earth for the reclamation of women’s fertility history.

Plants Grown in the Fertility Garden:

Queen Anne’s Lace, Daucus carota (still growing and multiplying in the garden)
Family: Apiaceae

Queen Anne's lace has been recorded as an emmenagogue and abortifacient since ancient times. Hippocrates is the earliest known reference, but others include Dioscordes in Material Medina, and Pliny the Elder (Riddle 50-51; Tiamat 62). Contemporary women in the Appalachian Mountains as well as Rajasthan, India chew the seeds with water after intercourse (50-51; 62). Testing shows that Queen Anne's Lace contains terpenoids, which block progesterone, preventing implantation much like the effects of RU486 (50; 63).

Wormwood, Artemisia absinthium
Family: Asteraceae

Wormwood is the common name for absinthium of the genus Artemisia: a name derived from the Greek goddess Artemis who was considered an assistant to women in childbirth. Wormwood was believed to hastening childbirth, as it is an effective emmenagogue i.e. that which hastens menstrual flow will also quicken afterbirth (Riddle 48). In current testing, the property scoparone from Artemisia scoparia has been shown to be one-hundred percent effective in terminating pregnancies in rats, making it a highly effective anti-fertility agent (48).

Juniper, Juniperus communis, (unsuccessful germination)
Family: Cypressaceae

Juniper has been noted as an abortifacient since ancient times. Dioscorides records juniper's contraceptive use as an emmenagogue and this knowledge was transmitted to the Seventeenth Century where it is found in the Complete Herbal of Nicholas Culpepper (54). The berries may have been used in pessaries, as early references instruct topical application for both men and women (54). Juniper's essential oils are uterine relaxants, which have been shown to cause abortions in contemporary research (54). The roots of juniper may have implantation impeding properties, which are currently being tested (54).

Mugwort, Artemisia vulgaris (still growing and multiplying in the garden)
Family: Lamiaceae

Like wormwood above, mugwort is connected to the goddess Artemis and is currently used by many across Europe, Asia, and China as an emmenagogue (Tiamat 58). Native Americans also used the leaves in tea to promote menstruation (58). Artemisia's properties are mentioned above under wormwood.

Pennyroyal, Mentha pulegium
Family: Lamiaceae

Pennyroyal is a member of the mint family and grows without much fuss in many gardens around the world. It's most famous literary reference is in the play by Aristophanes, Lysistrata, in which a woman who eludes pregnancy is described as “A very lovely, and well cropped, and trimmed and spruced with pennyroyal” (qtd. in Riddle 47). Western medicine employed the use of pennyroyal tea as an abortifacient until the nineteenth century, or until abortion was made illegal in most European countries (47). It is reported that early American colonist's brought European pennyroyal to the colonies for their gardens and used it in conjunction with brewer's yeast to procure abortions (Tiamat 58). The American varietal was reported to be used for similar purposes by Native American women in many tribes (58). Pennyroyal is a highly effective abortifaciant, but due to toxicity the dosage must be exact. Pennyroyal is shown to contain pulegone, which terminates pregnancies in proper dosage, but in high dosages it is toxic to the liver (Riddle 47; Tiamut 59).

Rue, Official, Ruta fraveolens
Family: Rutaceae

Rue is ritually connected in many ancient cultures with fertility goddesses, who in ancient cultures held dual power: creation and destruction. In medieval times, it was considered an herb of repentance and grace, perhaps perceived as providing grace to women with unwanted pregnancies (Riddle 49). Rue's ambiguous symbolic meaning allows us to question Ophelia's use of rue in Shakespeare's Hamlet (49). Contemporary women in Latin American countries are reported to use rue commonly for abortions (Riddle 50; Tiamat 65). Containing chalepensin, a toxic substance in high doses and philocarpine which is used in veterinary medicine to abort horses, rue is a highly effective abortifacient (50; 65).

Chaste Tree, Vitex agnus-castus (unsuccessful germination)
Family: Verbenaceae

Historically, chaste tree was used in ancient fertility festivals to promote “chastity” and many ancient sources report it as an abortifacient (Riddle 57). It was also used by men to curb desire and priests were reported to chew on its bark, supposedly to reduce sexual urges (Riddle 57). Studies show that flavonoids in the chaste tree inhibited implantation 100 percent of the time, while others indicate that the seeds disrupt sperm production (57). As in the ancient texts, the chaste tree may be an effective fertility inhibitor in both sexes (58). CT

Works Cited:

Jacobs, Betty E.M. Growing and Using Herbs Successfully. Pownal, Vermont: Storey Communications, Inc, 1976.

Riddle, John M. Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1992.

Eve’s Herbs: A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1997.

Stanley, Autumn. Mothers and Daughters of Invention: Notes for a Revised History of Technology. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1995.

Uni, Tiamat M. Herbal Abortion: The Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Peoria, Illinois: Sage Femme, 1994

Work Consulted:

Kowalchik, Claire, William H. Hylton, Rodale’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs. Emmaus, PA: Rodale Press, Inc, 1998.

Useful Source:

Horizon Herbs, LLC
P.O. Box 69, Williams, OR 97544
(541) 846.6704, horizonherbs.com

A Poem

we are without privacy

i will tell you what it feels like
to be sucked out
by a vacuum

vacare

knowledge common

in ancient greece 25-28
in early modern europe 153-162
in middle ages 111-112 118 124-126
in roman society 48-51 60-63

banished voices

midwives

artesesia
needs light to germinate
grow in partial sun or full shade
transplant when cool and overcast

tube inserted through cervix into uterus
sealed off from external environmental influences
i will tell you what it feels like

a sack is sewn
from the lining of my uterus
filling with
tubing
cannula
bottle

vacuum

end note
mifepriston
ru486

patient 001

“bleeding was
very
heavy heavier
than a period
i heard it fall
it looked like
a blood clot
i cried from relief
i cried from sadness
i knew it was over”

tube inserted through cervix into uterus
aspiration
doctor knows
it is finished


-Angela Ogle Mar