Abortion & Contraceptives are ruining the world, and the use of either is a SIN!

Yes.No?

I somehow found myself on a page citing a 4000 year timeline on abortion and contraception, source material being a variety of books over the years. While I haven't sourced each book to find where the quotes are from, and validate each one, I suspect they're legitimate. The most important thing being the lack of information in the present day argument. Which is the purpose of the thread (to illuminate).

For many people born during a certain decade, contraception and abortion both may have been illegal, and decades later, legal with a good % of the population wishing it went back to the previous status.

What's interesting is looking at it with historical context.

For anyone involved in the argument/debate, or who has personal interest in the topic, I think it's worth the time to take a minute and read each account:

You can find the entire timeline here.

2700s BCE – Emperor Shen Nung of China, who laid the foundation for traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, wrote some of the earliest recipes for contraception and abortion, many of which were quoted well into the 16th century.

300s BCE – Aristotle wrote that people should produce more abundantly if the city was too small, or use birth control measures if it was too large.

300s BCE – The Greek philosopher Plato commented on population in the Roman Empire. He wrote, “There are many devices available. If too many children are being born, there are measures to check propagation.”

300s BCE – A colony in northern Africa called Cyrenne became rich from exports of silphium, a plant well-known for its abortive and contraceptive qualities. It was said to be a gift from Apollo. After six-hundred years, overharvesting drove it to extinction.

100s – Roman gynecologist Soranus wrote, “A contraceptive differs from an abortive, for the first does not let contraception take place while the latter destroys what has been conceived. Let us therefore call the one abortive and the other contraceptive.”

1318 – While St. Thomas Aquinas opposed abortion as a form of contraception and a sin against marriage. However, unless the fetus was “ensouled” at approximately 30 days after conception, it was not a sin because it was not a human being.

100s – Soranus wrote in his text Gynaecology that “the woman ought, in the moment during coitus when the man ejaculates his sperm, to hold her breath, draw her body back a little so that the semen cannot penetrate into the os uteri, then immediately set up and sit down with bent knees, and in this position, provoke sneezes.”

1500s - Women have been fumigating their vaginas with contraceptive vapors for thousands of years! Kettles were used inthe 16th century, but the method dates back to an Egyptian medical text from 1850 BCE.

1540s – When England broke with the Catholic Church in 1540, abortion was no longer considered a crime under common law.

1600s – Dr. Gabriele Falloppio recommended condoms to prevent the spread of “The French Disease”, referring to syphillis. Dr. Falloppio conducted a trial with 1100 men who all used linen condoms treated with a chemical solution. He claimed that none contracted the disease.

1700s – Condoms were sold at pubs, barbershops, chemist shops, markets, and theaters throughout Europe and Russia, later spreading to America. They were made from animal intestines or treated linen and were reusable, and used only by the middle and upper-classes.

1750s – Casanova, the famous French lover, wrote in his memoirs about his sexual escapades that women used halved lemons as cervical caps. The ascorbic acid in the juice acted as a fairly effective spermicide.

1800s - The syringe, the cap, and the sponge were commonly used in the 19th century. Victorian women were known to pin their sponges to the inside of their petticoats when they went out on the town!

1873 – The “Comstock Law” criminalized contraception and abortion in the United States, except when a physician deemed either was necessary. With the passage of this law, women lost what had been their common law right.

Highlighted some of my favourites.

Let the moral crusade continue!

reply to post by boncho


I'm pro choice. Whether it's abortion or contraceptive.

Fake morality dictates attacks on pro choice people...

Thanks for this time line of thought about the subject. Only reaffirms my belief. There is nothing magical about producing babies. All the species on earth are doing it...and it should be in check according to the needs of the current civilization.

MarioOnTheFly
reply to post by boncho

 

I'm pro choice. Whether it's abortion or contraceptive.

Fake morality dictates attacks on pro choice people...

Thanks for this time line of thought about the subject. Only reaffirms my belief. There is nothing magical about producing babies. All the species on earth are doing it...and it should be in check according to the needs of the current civilization.

I too am prochoice. But I think contraception is the way to go for most people. Simply based on learning to instil responsible decision making into peoples behaviours. Although, there are plenty of circumstances where this might not be possible, or mistakes happen, etc. Which the choice part comes in.

I think the most interesting part for me was how early contraceptives were used, and the basic knowledge around reproduction was far better understood and in some ways, a little off. *Sneezing method, squeezing the life force out of your testicles, etc.

I ought to ask my girlfriend to try the cut-top of a lemon, with natural spermicide, but I have a feeling she'd be all sour about it.

1750s – Casanova, the famous French lover, wrote in his memoirs about his sexual escapades that women used halved lemons as cervical caps. The ascorbic acid in the juice acted as a fairly effective spermicide.

S&F for having the testicles of bringing something like this to here, maybe ill come back latter to see if someone its selling grilled Boncho bits

Personally i find the mental image of this pretty disturbing

Women have been fumigating their vaginas with contraceptive vapors for thousands of years!

,

Sometimes, the most effective form of contraception is just being yourself.

reply to post by boncho


I appreciate life.....so I do appreciate the discernment between contraceptive and abortive...as you've highlighted.

I just hate the idea of destroying something that could grow to become someone wonderful....despite their parents circumstances....but of course there are always scenarios where I agree with abortion.

Always such a touchy topic.....but those women who wait until 20 weeks or later....tsk...tsk. Murder.

Why don't men cut off the donations? Oh, that's right. All the R&D money has to go for Viagra and Cialis.

reply to post by boncho

to instil responsible decision making into peoples behaviours

Hah...you are right of course...but it's a utopia I fear.

When it comes to children...people are all but reasonable.

reply to post by boncho


I find it interesting that it was only when a society had reached the ability to have surplus and was able to support priests that didn't work on the daily providing for the community, that priests as a career blossomed. They had a vested interest in the population being efficient and big enough to support their lifestyle. Look at the lives of the priesthood, living off the poor throughout the ages and you can gauge the reasoning of these 'kept' men who claim the hotline to God.

reply to post by boncho


Anyone using text written by people 4k years ago to help them make decisions today is simple to say the least.


Until anti-abortioners come up with a way to properly take care of the babies that are being aborted, they have no business even sharing their opinion. If they really cared about babies they would be trying to put something in place to take care of babies being born into bad conditions, instead of supporting legislators that remove these programs.

The truth is that they only care, because the people they look up to have told them they should. The proof is in the pudding, you either really care or you do not and since the same people that are anti-abortion do not support social programs for these children, the answer is clear that they really do not care at all.

Anyone offended by this should tell someone that cares, because I will not be reading replies.

reply to post by boncho


Ive been using the pull out method for years...so far so good....does that count as contraception?

reply to post by faradaycage


How about society put something in place to prevent those babies from being conceived in the first place ... you know like the concept that choice takes place prior to sex or something?

Biology says that sex is for making babies. It has the fortunate side effect of feeling really good and being lots of fun, but the hard truth is that if it wasn't for making babies ... well, we wouldn't be having sex because sexual reproduction is an expensive set of systems for any organism to maintain. We'd simply evolve out of the ability because otherwise it's a waste as far as our genes are concerned. They care not one wit for your jollies.

Until we start driving that basic point home mercilessly and relentlessly and society accepts it and starts to make sexual decisions based on it, we won't ever reduce the number of unwanted children, even with abortion available.

And our current societal attitudes where we relentlessly try to divorce the concepts of sex and babies as necessarily being related are only making it worse. No matter what you do, there is no "safe" sex, never has been unless you are mechanically sterile or homosexual.

I think some people should keep their noses out of other peoples lives.......
I am sick of hearing this #.....
The true facts are the taboo against this proceedure is generated by ignorance and arrogance.....
What makes you think you can tell the world what to do with its billions of unwanted babies?
Want to save some third world babies???
STOP BOMBING THE CRAP OUT OF THEM!

MOMof3
Why don't men cut off the donations? Oh, that's right. All the R&D money has to go for Viagra and Cialis.

Umm....what?

Oh, oh. Good luck with that opinion here. Respectfully, many reasons exist for both, so you can make that opinion just that: a personal opinion. But certainly, they are not sinful....in any way because of the many valid legal, medical and moral reasons for both.

reply to post by faradaycage

Anyone using text written by people 4k years ago to help them make decisions today is simple to say the least.

That was the most interesting thing about this though. If you look at cross-sections through the timeline, there were times when it was and wasn't acceptable.

For many years it was accepted, then the pendulum swung the other way. People in Islam, people in Christian ruled states. It is something that has existed for eons and cannot be ignored as it seems to be a necessary function to regulate our carnal nature.

Not just Christianity, but Islam too.

In other words, there is no religious argument for banning it. As it can't be banned.

depends

personally I don't think life begins at conception

nor do I think it begins at birth

human life in my opinion begins at some possibly vague point in the pregnancy, when the brain of the fetus has reached a certain point in its development. I couldn't say when specifically, I'm not a doctor/biologist.

Keeping abortion legal insures that it can be properly regulated, and moreover, ensures that there are facilities where it can be safely carried out.


The religious right has been on the losing side of history lately and just needs to retreat back to its volcano where it can recover and not alienate potential new supporters.

boncho
I too am prochoice. But I think contraception is the way to go for most people. Simply based on learning to instil responsible decision making into peoples behaviours. Although, there are plenty of circumstances where this might not be possible, or mistakes happen, etc. Which the choice part comes in.

I think the most interesting part for me was how early contraceptives were used, and the basic knowledge around reproduction was far better understood and in some ways, a little off. *Sneezing method, squeezing the life force out of your testicles, etc.

I ought to ask my girlfriend to try the cut-top of a lemon, with natural spermicide, but I have a feeling she'd be all sour about it.

1750s – Casanova, the famous French lover, wrote in his memoirs about his sexual escapades that women used halved lemons as cervical caps. The ascorbic acid in the juice acted as a fairly effective spermicide.

edit on 7-2-2014 by boncho because: (no reason given)

Well according to the science, you better hope she never goes off birth control.

Birth Control Pills Affect Women's Taste in Men
How synthetic hormones change desire in women—and their choice in a mate
www.scientificamerican.com...

It’s all about scent. Hidden in a man’s smell are clues about his major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes, which play an important role in immune system surveillance. Studies suggest that females prefer the scent of males whose MHC genes differ from their own, a preference that has probably evolved because it helps offspring survive: couples with different MHC genes are less likely to be related to each other than couples with similar genes are, and their children are born with more varied MHC profiles and thus more robust immune systems.

Incompatible MHC profiles have been linked to "weaker" offspring.

I wonder if there is a connection here?

I could always troll you and ask if you think it is a sin to bring forth weak spawn which is likely to fall prey to a horrible disease due to incompatible parents, but that would just be trolling.

-FBB

reply to post by FriedBabelBroccoli

Incompatible MHC profiles have been linked to "weaker" offspring.

I wonder if there is a connection here?

I could always troll you and ask if you think it is a sin to bring forth weak spawn which is likely to fall prey to a horrible disease due to incompatible parents, but that would just be trolling.

-FBB

Doesn't bother me. If she goes off the pill it means we're having babies, and she won't have time to cheat. Or be able to walk straight…