{"id":22861,"date":"2022-06-28T12:07:43","date_gmt":"2022-06-28T19:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=22861"},"modified":"2022-06-28T12:07:45","modified_gmt":"2022-06-28T19:07:45","slug":"benjamin-franklin-gave-instructions-on-at-home-abortions-in-a-book-in-the-1700s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2022\/06\/28\/benjamin-franklin-gave-instructions-on-at-home-abortions-in-a-book-in-the-1700s\/","title":{"rendered":"BENJAMIN FRANKLIN GAVE INSTRUCTIONS ON AT-HOME ABORTIONS IN A BOOK IN THE 1700S"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 18, 20225:00 AM ET (npr.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Emily<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

EMILY FENG<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

MANUELA L\u00d3PEZ RESTREPO<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A portrait of American statesman, writer and scientist Benjamin Franklin, circa 1750.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hulton Archive\/Getty Images<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benjamin Franklin is revered in history for his fixation on inventing practical ways to make everyday life easier. He was a prolific inventor and author, and spent his life tinkering and writing to share his knowledge with the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the more surprising areas Franklin wanted to demystify for the average American? At-home abortions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Molly Farrell is an associate professor of English at the Ohio State University and studies early American literature. She authored a recent Slate article<\/a> that suggests Franklin\u2019s role in facilitating at-home abortions all started with a popular British math textbook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Titled The Instructor<\/em> and written by George Fisher, which Farrell said was a pseudonym, the textbook was a catch-all manual that included plenty of useful information for the average person. It had the alphabet, basic arithmetic, recipes, and farriery (which is hoof care for horses). At the time, books were very expensive, and a general manual like this one was a practical choice for many families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Franklin saw the value of this book, and decided to create an updated version for residents of the U.S, telling readers his goal was to make the text \u201cmore immediately useful to Americans.\u201d This included updating city names, adding Colonial history, and other minor tweaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as Farrell describes, the most significant change in the book was swapping out a section that included a medical textbook from London with a Virginia medical handbook from 1734 called Every Man His Own Doctor: The Poor Planter\u2019s Physician.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This medical handbook provided home remedies for a variety of ailments, allowing people to handle their more minor illnesses at home, like a fever or gout. One entry, however, was \u201cfor the suppression of the courses\u201d, which Farrell discovered meant a missed menstrual period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[The book] starts to prescribe basically all of the best-known herbal abortifacients and contraceptives that were circulating at the time,\u201d Farrell said. \u201cIt\u2019s just sort of a greatest hits of what 18th-century herbalists would have given a woman who wanted to end a pregnancy early.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very explicit, very detailed, [and] also very accurate for the time in terms of what was known \u2026 for how to end a pregnancy pretty early on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Including this information in a widely circulated guide for everyday life bears a significance to today\u2019s heated debate over access to abortion and contraception in the United States. In particular, the leaked Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade and states that \u201ca right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the nation\u2019s histories and traditions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farrell said the book was immensely popular, and she did not find any evidence of objections to the inclusion of the section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t really bother anybody that a typical instructional manual could include material like this,\u201d she said. \u201cIt just wasn\u2019t something to be remarked upon. It was just a part of everyday life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This interview was produced for radio by Megan Lim and edited by Sarah Handel. It was adapted for the web by Manuela Lopez Restrepo.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 18, 20225:00 AM ET (npr.org) EMILY FENG MANUELA L\u00d3PEZ RESTREPO A portrait of American statesman, writer and scientist Benjamin Franklin, circa 1750. Hulton Archive\/Getty Images Benjamin Franklin is revered in history for his fixation on inventing practical ways to make everyday life easier. He was a prolific inventor and… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22861"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22862,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22861\/revisions\/22862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}