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Promoting Intimacy and Other-Centered Sexuality
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RU-486 Pill Similar To Biblical Herbs
The RU-486 pill is in some ways nothing more than modern scientists equivalent to
the birth control agents since the days of the early Greeks and Romans, including
biblical times. The Washington Post of August 23, 1994 published detailed histories
that show some 450 plant species contain natural substances that prevent ovulation,
block fertilization, or reduce fertility in some other way. Hippocrates, an ancient
Greek physician, prescribed seeds of Queen Anne's Lace as both a contraceptive and
as a herbal "morning after pill".
Herbal birth control created much of the wealth of the Greek city-state of Cyrene.
Cyrenians collected and exported the sap of the silphion plant. An image of the
plant appears on the 5th century BC Cyrenian coins. Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder
mentions it. Silphion was so well known that Aristophanes discusses its high cost
in one of his plays.
According to the ancient physician Soranus, "Cyreniac Juice", as he called
it, when taken by mouth, would prevent conception or induce an abortion, whichever
was needed. Other ancient contraceptive remedies in prominent use were products
of pennyroyal, rue, willow, date palm, pomegranate, wormwood and myrrh.
Clearly in biblical times such contraception was common and of course its use or
any other prohibition of abortion is never discussed in the Bible. Biblically it
seems to be a non-issue since there is no soul till birth.
Dr. Etienne-Emile Baulieu, one of the prime developers of RU-486 in France, insists
that the effect not be called abortion but "contragestion" since it never
allows implantation. It removes the implantation at such as early stage that even
most moralists had to agree that it wasn't aborting anything. It seems to only reason
it is fought in the U.S. is the opposition from the religious right, which is afraid
of giving women back their rights and privacy over their reproductive lives. Doctors,
of course, would be against it since it mean less medical fees. Birth costs the
most followed by abortion and the pill the least costly to the women and least profitable
to medical facilities.
Women in France much preferred the pill over traditional abortions since it removed
the clinical atmosphere and is done in privacy. They don't have to worry about pain
and it is less expensive. They liked it since it can be used immediately and there
is no question about any screaming fetus since it never develops even into a fetus.
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