One of the most contentious and emotionally charged issues in American politics today is the issue of abortion and a woman’s right to choose. Forgotten in the increasingly divisive crusade to deny women the right to make decisions over the autonomy of their own bodies and their right to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term is the fact that abortion is as old as pregnancy itself.

Contemporary discussions about abortion often seem to begin and end with 1973 – the year of the ruling in Roe v. Wade, in which the Supreme Court handed down one of the most life-altering decisions for women in the court’s history. That decision has rippled through American culture – and, indeed, across the world – in multiple ways that continue to profoundly impact women, their life choices, their financial well-being, and their expectations of fulfilling the promise of their lives.

As the debate rages on, and as countless numbers of women’s lives and the lives of their families are impacted by the narrowing of abortion access in states across the country, it’s important to remember that the undeniable fact of women seeking to control the destinies of their bodies predates by centuries that decision in 1973. It’s also important to remember that the history of abortion cannot be recalled without acknowledging the fears and sheer desperation that led our female forebears to tolerate the dangers, the pain, and the risk of remedies and procedures they hoped would end an unwanted pregnancy but often led instead to permanent bodily harm or death.

Abortion in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries

Let’s acknowledge as well that, contrary to popular belief, abortion restrictions and the outright denial of abortion access is a relatively new development in America’s history. In her definitive history of abortion in America, “When Abortion Was a Crime,” historian Leslie Reagan recounts how abortion used to be a part of everyday American life. In the eighteenth century until the late nineteenth century, abortions were commonly performed and were permitted under common law until “quickening” – a term that describes the stage when fetal movement in the womb may be felt by the mother. Prior to 1880, even the Catholic Church tolerated the reality of abortion. As Reagan explains, “the Catholic Church implicitly accepted early abortions prior to ensoulment. Not until 1869, at about the same time that abortion became politicized in this country, did the church condemn abortion; in 1895 it condemned therapeutic abortion [procedures performed to save the life of the mother].”

In 1857, the newly constituted American Medical Association undertook what could be considered one of the first large-scale lobbying efforts to criminalize abortion. Due to concerns about poisonings, but also reflecting a growing backlash to women’s emerging role in American public life and the desire of member physicians to professionalize the practice of medicine and limit the competition of midwives and homeopaths, the AMA pushed for state laws restricting abortion. In 1873, Congress passed the Comstock Law, banning abortion drugs. By 1880, the AMA’s efforts lobbying for state laws restricting abortion bore their bitter fruit.

Abortions in ancient times

Even earlier historic accounts provide a glimpse into the common practice of women seeking to abort unwanted pregnancies. These accounts not only comment on procedures but also recount a long list of recipes for pastes, pessaries, ingestions, salves, suppositories, and ingested herbal toxins. Folk cultures across the world and across time abound with an almost limitless variety of abortifacients and methods for their use passed on from one generation to the next. The acknowledgment of abortion as a fact of women’s reproductive lives was not limited to folk culture and the ministrations of shamans, herbalists, and midwives. The most influential philosophers, scientists, and physicians of ancient times wrote about and often provided advice about the most effective abortion techniques.

In the Kahun Gynecological Papyrus, one of the earliest known medical texts from ancient Egypt, the use of crocodile dung made into a pessary to be inserted into the vagina was the recommended method to induce abortion.

In ancient Greece, the musings of Aristotle in his work “Politics” foreshadow some of the thorniest terms of the debate raging through to our own time.

Aristotle wrote:

 “. . . when couples have children in excess, let abortion be procured before sense and life have begun; what may or may not be lawfully done in these cases depends on the question of life and sensation.”

The Greek physician Hippocrates, although mostly opposed to abortion, counseled that a woman seeking to end a pregnancy could “jump up and down, touching her buttocks with her heels at each leap” – causing the embryo to come “loose” and fall out. This was a technique that later became known as the Lacedaemonian Leap. Other Greek physicians recommended the ingestion of myrrh, rue, and juniper.

In the days of the Roman Empire, Pliny the Elder’s “Natural History” provided evidence that women of his time sought to limit the number of pregnancies. His practical–-if ineffective—advice confirmed that “if a pregnant woman steps over a viper, she will be sure to miscarry.”

An eighth-century Sanskrit manuscript recommended sitting over a pot of boiling water or steamed onions –a questionable pregnancy-ending technique used by Jewish women on New York’s Lower East Side well into the twentieth century.

Here are some of the methods women have used, throughout history, to try to induce abortions

• Ingesting a meal of toxic lupines with ox bile and absinthium
• Smearing the mouth of the uterus with olive oil, honey, cedar resin, and the juice of the balsam tree
• Myrtle oil gums
• Sitting in a bath of linseed, fenugreek, mallow, marshmallow, and wormwood
• Creating a paste of ants, foam from camel’s mouths, and tail hairs of black-tail deer dissolved in bear fat
• Ingesting pennyroyal or drinking of pennyroyal tea (5 grams of which is toxic and may lead to death)
• Fumigating the womb with various poisons
• Opium ingested with mandrake root, Queen Anne’s lace, gum resin, and various types of peppers (in 2011 it was reported that women in Pakistan are still using opium bombs in the uterus to end unwanted pregnancies)
• Inducing abortion by riding horses or carrying heavy objects
• Inserting a uterine suppository of mouse dung, honey, Egyptian salt, wild colocynth, and resin

Today in America, one in four women will have an abortion by the age of forty-five. Tellingly, 59 percent of women seeking abortions are mothers. Many of us believed that the Roe v. Wade decision was settled law and that the decision would forever protect a woman’s right to choose. We also believed that access to safe, legal abortions would relegate to the ash heap of history the home-induced abortions using toxic, poisonous chemicals or the back-alley horrors of knitting needles and coat hangers. Will we be proven wrong? And will women be returned once again to the uncertainties and dangers that women who came before us were forced to face?

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Last week, Concerned Health Professionals of New York released a major new compilation – a compendium – of the scientific, medical and media findings demonstrating the risks and harms of fracking (read it online at ConcernedHealthNY.org/Compendium).

Based on the results of hundreds of studies nationwide where fracking already exists, it’s clear that permitting fracking in New York could harm the air, water, health and safety of residents statewide.

In January, for instance, an Associated Press investigation analyzed state records from Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Texas that documented many cases where fracking activities are linked to water contamination. Such records build on multiple studies from Duke University finding risks of nearby groundwater contamination from fracking and a University of Missouri School of Medicine study documenting dangerous hormone-disrupting chemicals in ground and surface water near fracking sites.

The fracking process also has given rise to concerns about increased air pollution. A Colorado School of Public Health study found air pollutants near fracking sites at levels that can raise risks for cancer, neurological deficits and respiratory problems. It’s noteworthy that the American Lung Association in New York also supports a moratorium on fracking in New York. In Utah, fracking has grown rapidly in the past few years, and the once immaculately clean Uintah Basin now ranks as one of the 25 most-polluted counties in the country. There is a continuing investigation into the cause of elevated rates of stillbirth and infant death in that region.

The significant body of compelling findings is why I recently joined more than 250 medical organizations and health professionals in urging Gov. Andrew Cuomo and acting Department of Health Commissioner Howard Zucker to enact at least a three- to five-year moratorium on fracking in New York to allow time for the results of continuing scientific and medical research to emerge. New Yorkers should not be placed in the crosshairs of these public health threats. We need to prioritize the health of all of our residents. It’s inexcusable to consider a pilot project that brings fracking into any part of our state, putting some of our residents immediately in harm’s way and releasing contaminants that do not stop at municipal boundaries drawn on a map.

The Assembly listened to scientists and medical experts June 16 by overwhelmingly passing a three-year moratorium on fracking in New York. Unfortunately, the state Senate refused to schedule a vote. Ultimately, however, the responsibility rests with Gov. Cuomo, who can – and must – protect New Yorkers by implementing a three- to five-year moratorium.
Though a growing number of studies point to serious potential health risks related to fracking, there is quite a lot we still don’t know. The U.S. Government Accountability Office reports that drilling and fracking clearly pose “inherent environmental and public health risks” and that the full extent of those risks is not yet known. Countless prominent researchers have called for more studies, especially of the cumulative, long-term health impacts.

The gas industry has been secretive with information – limiting disclosure and keeping crucial data out of researchers’ hands. As a result, the pace of scientific research has been impeded. Yet, results of a number of important studies tracking short- and long-term health effects of fracking are due to come out in the next few years.

That is why my colleagues and I think a three- to five-year moratorium – at minimum – is prudent.

Clean water, clean air and a safe home and community are not privileges; they are rights. It’s up to Gov. Cuomo to ensure the health of all New Yorkers and enact a statewide moratorium on fracking.

[Editor’s note: This article first appeared on 8/02/2014 in the Poughkeepsie Journal. It is reposted by permission of the author.]

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Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you are familiar with first lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move program to combat childhood obesity. You are probably also aware of the flak she has received from conservative pundits, who claim that the program is an effort by the government to tell Americans what to eat. With an epidemic of obesity in the U.S., it is difficult for most of us to believe that low-income people often suffer from malnutrition despite the relative low cost of food compared to other countries.

I’ll use the St. Louis area, where I live, as an example. But what I’m describing could probably apply to many American urban areas.

Anyone who has driven through parts of the city of St. Louis has noticed the neglected and dilapidated homes; the abundance of fast food restaurants, chop suey joints, and liquor stores; and the lack of full-service grocery stores within walking distance of residential neighborhoods.  Even with this reminder of class and social status, many St. Louisans have difficulty understanding that in our community, people suffer from hunger and malnutrition.

Cynthia Davis (R), former state representative from St. Charles, Missouri says, “People who are struggling with lack of food usually do not have an obesity problem.” An informal poll taken by this author recently showed that ten out of eleven respondents have heard the following statement spoken by acquaintances: “I don’t believe that poor people are really malnourished, because so many of them are overweight.”  This attitude seems to be a pervasive myth particularly among political conservatives.

 Myths

Most people, when they hear the word “hunger,” form a mental picture of a skin-and-bones person living in Sudan or India. Perhaps a more precise term to use would be “malnutrition.” As defined by Merriam-Webster, malnutrition means “faulty nutrition due to inadequate or unbalanced intake of nutrients or their impaired assimilation or utilization.”  By this criteria, a person can be well-fed calorically, yet suffer from malnutrition because of what he eats, rather than how much he eats.

Research has shown that malnourishment causes a host of physical ailments, and can predispose one to infections like tuberculosis.   A common form of malnutrition, called “overnutrition,” is often seen in countries where there is an abundance of rich, fatty foods — like those found on a typical American fast food menu.  Metabolic syndrome, the increasing inability to process glucose, leads to the onset of Type II (adult-onset) diabetes and is closely associated with the consumption of sugars such as corn syrup, the largest ingredient in soft drinks like Coke.  Such a diet can lead to hypertension, coronary artery disease, and stroke. Overnutrition frequently causes obesity.

Stats

According to a 2010 report, Missouri is  the 12th most obese state in the country. The state’s adult obesity rate is 29.3 percent, and in Missouri. men are more obese than women, at 29.9 percent. More than two-thirds of states have adult obesity rates above 25 percent.

The same report states that Mississippi leads the nation in obesity, at 33.8%.  Mississippi also has the highest poverty rate in the United States at 21.3%, according to U.S. Census data.

In contrast, St. Louis City has a 26% poverty rate, per the most recent available data from 2010.  Obesity, poor nutrition, and the resulting diseases carry a high cost both to the individual and to the individual’s society as a whole, in increased utilization of scarce medical resources, morbidity, and mortality.

A dangerous combination

How can obesity, malnutrition/over-nutrition, and poverty possibly be related? The answers are many.  It begins with education and knowledge of nutrition. Children in the St. Louis City school district have only a 60% graduation rate (2011 statistics). High school is typically when students take health classes and learn about nutrition. A lack of knowledge about nutrition often leads to poor dietary choices. Parents of these children often do not understand nutritional labels on foods and thus are unable to teach them how to choose between a high-calorie, low-value food and one that provides essential vitamins and minerals at a lower calorie cost. Recent data shows that the rate of diabetes in the U.S. is directly proportional to both the educational and income level of the population.

Access to affordable food supermarkets offering healthy food choices is essential. There are few large chain grocery stores in low-income city areas. These stores offer a wide variety of healthy food selections such as fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products and meats, and alternatives to high-sodium and high-fat snacks.  Most grocery stores available to residents in these regions carry few perishables and instead rely upon prepared and frozen foods with low nutritional value.  Most of these stores accept food stamps for what is considered by health experts to be “junk food.”

The few restaurants in these areas typically tend to be of the fast-food type, which feature high-fat and high-calorie choices.  Even the ubiquitous Chinese take-out places feature breaded and fried meats with heavy sauces and high sodium content – rather than the vegetables and plain rice that the Asians themselves eat—because this is what Americans demand.

St. Louis has many fine food pantries that distribute, for free, canned and packaged goods to low-income citizens. Unfortunately, the food pantries often have limited storage space for perishables such as fresh produce and meats, so are unable to offer them to their clients.

Breaking the cycle

All of society has a stake in providing every one of its citizens with the tools to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It does no good to provide food vouchers and food stamps if the low-income residents have no access to quality food sources.  Politicians must find ways to provide incentives, perhaps in the form of lowered taxes, to induce large chain grocery stores like Schnucks or Shop-and-Save to locate more facilities in low-income residential neighborhoods.

Further, education on nutrition must be provided to both younger children and to their parents.  Schools can play an important part both by offering nutritious meals on campus, and by teaching students how to make wise choices.  These measures are far less expensive, in the long run, than treating the diseases caused by modern malnutrition. Closing the national dialogue on the topic by stating nonsense such as, “What she is telling us is she cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat…” (Sarah Palin, 2010) does no one a favor.

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