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~ Sex, Abortion, and Contraception

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Tag Archives: abortifacients

Blue Hawaii

29 Monday May 2023

Posted by Ann Hibner Koblitz in Uncategorized

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abortifacients, abortion, birth control, blue state, contraception, folk traditions, Hawaii, herbal medicine, reproductive rights

For some people, the title of this blog post might conjure up memories of the old Elvis Presley film of that name.  “Blue Hawaii” featured gorgeous Hawaiian scenery, implausible shots of Elvis supposedly surfing, and pretty much everyone in the movie routinely mispronouncing the islands’ names as ha-WHY and ka-WHY rather than ha-WHY-ee and ka-WHY-ee.

For my purposes, I am more interested in the sociopolitical meaning of “blue” states as opposed to “red” states in recent U.S. history.  Put simply, the blue states are those in which women’s rights, the right to health care, and humane policies are still valued and defended.  These are states in which reproductive health rights are not under siege, states whose citizens have successfully resisted gerrymandering that disenfranchises Black voters, states that have not approved any anti-women legislation, such as fetal personhood measures.

Most people are not aware that Hawai`i legalized abortion in advance of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, slightly before New York and California did so.  The relatively easy passage of a liberal abortion law in Hawai`i has been attributed to the multi-ethnic, multi-religious composition of the state.  The relevant stakeholders, from feminist activists to politicians to physicians to ordinary citizens, appear to have viewed abortion law reform as an affirmation of shared commitment to Hawai`i’s pluralistic society as well as a way to improve women’s reproductive health options.  And despite recent efforts by conservative, misogynist zealots, abortion rights are not under threat in blue Hawai`i.

Interestingly, promoters of abortion law liberalization in the early 1970s do not appear to have particularly emphasized indigenous Hawaiian attitudes toward the practice of abortion.  This might have been because people living in Hawai`i circa 1970 were not yet experiencing the widespread renaissance of interest in indigenous Hawaiian language and culture that started a decade or so later.  Now, however, as stated on the book jacket of the 2022 printing of June Gutmanis’ immensely influential The Secrets and Practice of Hawaiian Herbal Medicine, Hawaiian herbal medicine “is emerging as a popular alternative to traditional [i.e., modern allopathic] medical practices today.”

Originally published in 1976, this book is a classic. The late June Gutmanis was a renowned author and researcher who contributed greatly to the revival of Hawaiian culture and traditions.

Gutmanis’ book was first published in 1976 and has been continuously in print since then.  At first glance, she seems an unlikely author for such a well-regarded compendium of Hawaiian herbal lore.  Born in 1926 in Nebraska, she served as a pilot in World War II.  She never got an academic degree but was an avid amateur historian and a founding member of the East Hawai`i Historical Society.  She interviewed many k­ahuna (Hawaiian healers) herself and supplemented her first-person accounts with little-known archival materials.

Gutmanis explains that before European contact Hawaiian youth were expected to experiment sexually from a relatively young age.  Girls and young women were taught several methods of herbal contraception, and there was no stigma attached to using them.  Couples could use birth control to limit or space out their children, or even to not have children at all if that was their choice; and women who had their children too close together were scorned.  To illustrate the acceptability of childlessness in old Hawai`i, Gutmanis quotes Hawaiian folklorist S. M. Kamakau, writing in 1870: “A man and a woman might live together from the time they were young and strong and full of hope until old age approached without having a child or children.”  The elders of the community would help the couple prevent pregnancy.

Koa and other tannin-rich leaf tampons are among the pre-coital contraceptives mentioned by Gutmanis’ sources.  Parts of the hau tree were also used, though Gutmanis laments that her sources don’t specify the parts used.  She speculates that the tree’s bark, which produces a thick, mucus-like sap “may have been used as a spermicide.”

As in most indigenous (and modern) societies about which something is known of contraceptive practices, abortion was also employed for birth control.  Indeed, the Hawaiian language has seven words for abortion.  Abortifacient plants such as noni (Indian mulberry), hau, and `ohi`a `ai (mountain apple) could be taken orally to induce abortion.  An alternative was for the woman to squat over a steam bath infused with parts of the above plants as well as several others.  Surgical abortion with a sharp bamboo blade was sometimes used, but, according to Gutmanis’ sources, was more dangerous than the herbal methods.

Hot infusions of `ohi`a `ai (Mountain apple) were one of the methods traditionally used to induce abortion.
Eating Noni (Indian mulberry) was traditionally believed to induce abortion.

Sources:  June Gutmanis, The Secrets and Practice of Hawaiian Herbal Medicine; Honolulu: Island Heritage, 2013 (2nd edition; 1st edition 1976); Patricia G. Steinhoff and Milton Diamond, Abortion Politics: the Hawaii Experience; Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii, 1977.

Indian Princess

18 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by Ann Hibner Koblitz in Uncategorized

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Tags

abortifacients, Chrystos, cultural appropriation, Native Americans, patent medicine

wine-of-cardui-lr
Nineteenth-century patent medicines for fertility control often invoked some sort of (possibly fictitious) Native American origin to lend credence to their claims of efficacy. For example, this McElree’s Wine of Cardui advertisement featured a kneeling but regal-looking Native woman showing plants to a standing white woman; the caption is “take and be healed/ the Great Spirit planted it.” The advertisers of Cherokee Pills, another 19th-century patent medicine that billed itself as a first-trimester abortifacient, similarly alluded to Native American origins for their product with an illustration of a Native woman among plants.

Although the 19th century was a time of pervasive anti-Indian racism, and the U.S. government and Euro-ancestry settlers were engaged in genocidal actions against the indigenous occupants of the land, there was also a widespread belief that so-called “civilized” peoples had lost certain types of knowledge about nature that Native Americans still possessed.

But this illustration, while the white settlers would have viewed it as expressing a positive attitude toward Indians, should be understood as a precursor of the 20th- and 21st-century appropriation of Native American healing arts and spiritual practices by people of European descent. Present-day Native Americans often deeply resent these borrowings and the accompanying patronizing attitudes. For a discussion of this issue, see Chapter 6 (titled “Spiritual Appropriation as Sexual Violence”) of Andrea Smith’s widely acclaimed book Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. Resentment of cultural appropriation is also a theme of the poem “I Am Not Your Princess” by the Menominee activist and writer Chrystos. Here is an excerpt:

I’m not a means by which you can reach spiritual
understanding or even
learn to do beadwork…
I won’t chant for you
I admit no spirituality to you
I will not sweat with you or ease your guilt with fine
turtle tales
I will not wear dancing clothes to read poetry…
If you tell me one more time that I’m wise I’ll throw
up on you

(from Not Vanishing, Press Gang Publishers, 1988, used with permission)

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  • Blue Hawaii
  • Boycott the Red States for the Sake of Women’s Health
  • U.S. Supreme Court to Overturn Roe v. Wade
  • Backlash Against the Misogynists
  • Dr. F. J. Taussig, Abortion, and the Washington University Medical School
  • With a Little Help from Their Friends
  • “Fetus-Centered” yet High Infant Mortality
  • Women of Texas: South of the Border for Reproductive Rights
  • U.S. Bishops vs the Vatican
  • Anti-Abortionists Took Part in Attack on the U.S. Capitol
  • Huge Victory for Argentinian Women
  • Hypocrisy and the Geneva “Consensus” Declaration
  • A Tale of Two Books
  • Abortion Access During the Pandemic
  • U.S. Politicians Use Pandemic As Excuse to Attack Abortion Rights
  • Clarence Thomas Race-Baits Abortion Rights Advocates
  • An Opportunity for Indonesia?
  • Congratulations to the people of Ireland!
  • The Outrage of El Salvador
  • “Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics”
  • A New Book Describes the Women’s Wing of the U.S. Anti-Abortion Movement
  • Melinda Gates Makes the Same Mistake as Margaret Sanger
  • Professional Women’s Basketball Team Takes a Stand for Women’s Reproductive Health
  • How to Lie without Lying
  • The New Face of Misogyny in the U.S.

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