used cotton root—part of the medicinal knowledge they brought to North America from Africa—to end unwanted pregnancies.
I like to picture these women growing or foraging these herbs. I like to see them with their hands in the dirt, their noses in the leaves, their copper pots on the fire, managing another bodily need without fanfare. There’s chamomile for upset stomachs, comfrey for aching bones, and tansy to bring on a period.
A hundred years after Ben Franklin mansplained pennyroyal to a generation of women who likely already knew what herbs to take , the late 1800s brought about the entrenchment of modern gynecology, rooted inat least 40 distinct anti-abortion laws had been enacted in the U.S. We all know where it went from there. With the dispensing of modern medicine to the elite and abortion made illegal in a chunk of the country so big you could drive for nine hours straight from El Paso, Texas, to Hedgesville, W.V., without having access to safe and legal abortion.