The terrifying history of herbal abortion medicines  As long as
people have been getting pregnant, they've been looking for ways
to end their pregnancies. Sometimes these ways have worked.
Sometimes they haven't. We're going to take a quick look at the
history of abortifacient herbs, and be very, very happy we live
in the present.  One of the best parts of modern chemical birth
control is the fact that it prevents pregnancy in the first
place. It was not always so. Chemical birth control used to be
something that people turned to after conception. And like most
types of birth control before the twentieth century, it was a
nasty business. It was not, however, always an illegal business
- at least until four months into the pregnancy. There were
always drugs, either grown in the garden or sold for other
purposes, that at the least made spontaneous chemical abortions
more likely. The chemicals meant to 'bring on the monthly
waters' were not generally acknowledged, but they were also not
illegal, either to grow o