Freeper Commentary on "Planned parenthood recommends changes in RU-486 procedures"

Hippocratic Oath -- Classical Version Translation of Hippocratic Oath "I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant: I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art." This is the article Planned Parenthood officials said today there will be changes in how its clinics prescribe the two-drug RU-486 abortion pill regimen, following news that two more women have died after taking it. But Planned Parenthood, one of nation's largest abortion providers, said today that effective immediately, its health centers will no longer prescribe vaginal insertion of misoprostol, and that patients will now receive it by mouth. Dr. Vanessa Cullins, vice president of medical affairs for Planned Parenthood, said the change is more "precautionary" than based on a determination that the vaginal method is unsafe. "We do not have data to implicate the vaginal route," she said. "However, when we looked at the total body of evidence available to us, we felt the most prudent thing to do, to protect the health, safety of clients, was to move to the oral route." Monty Patterson, however, noted that some researchers believe that it's the first drug, the RU-486 itself, that impairs the immune system and makes women more suspectible to deadly infection. "They're trying to deflect this onto misoprostol ... instead of looking at the real issue, which is mifepristone and its ability to impair the immune response," Patterson said.

Found this in multiple places:

I SWEAR by Apollo the physician and AEsculapius, and Hygiea, and Panacea, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation-- to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others.

I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art.

I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, (NO SURJERY FOR KIDNEY STONE) but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further, from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves.

Whatever, in connection with my professional service, or not in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times. But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot.

First What Hippocrates talks specifically about a "pessary", which was a stone or device used to induce an abortion by opening the cervix. This wasn't entirely effective and could be dangerous. There were also plenty of herbal remedies (some people suggest that the extinct silphion plant of the Roman era, a form of giant fennel, was a birth control method) but it's important to remember that most abortion-producing herbs can be dangerous and not always effective by modern standards. Infanticide was also an alternative practiced by many peoples throughout human history.

As an aside, contrary to the assertion found in Roe v. Wade that Hippocrates was concerned only with the woman's safety (a pessary could be dangerous), there is evidence that the Pythagorean school of thought and so forth that there were also moral concerns about the child killed by the abortion.

Several methods of abortion which rely upon herbs are evident in the texts provided by Soranus and Dioscorides.

In order to abort the fetus during the early months of pregnancies, Soranus and Dioscorides suggest dietary diuretics, laxatives with pungent clyster, and lupine beans, which are poisonous unless properly prepared.

(Also, several recipes including the plant silphium are prescribed. Unfortunately, this plant is now extinct and its effectiveness can only be estimated through a distant relative of the species (Riddle).

This relative seems to provide evidence for an effective abortifacient.)

Abortifacients (link to glossary) can cause abortion before the middle of the second trimester of pregnancy. Any form of abortion after the second trimester was highly dangerous for the mother.

Other drugs such as the squirting cucumber, black hellebore, pellitory, and panax balm are recommended for oral intake in order to abort the fetus. But exactly how does one go about orally or herbally aborting a fetus?

Soranus, great gynecologist of the second century CE, bears witness to a debate among ancient physicians on the question of abortion:

But a controversy has arisen. For one party banishes abortive, citing the testimony of Hippocrates who says: "I will not give an abortive"; moreover, because it is the specific task of medicine to guard and protect what has been engendered by nature. The other party prescribes abortives, but with discrimination, that is, they do not prescribe them when a person wishes to destroy the embryo because of adultery or out of consideration for youthful beauty; but only to prevent subsequent danger in parturition if the uterus is small... (or other such reasons)30

There are several important points to note about this passage.

First Soranus clearly says that there were physicians in the ancient world who would not prescribe abortives, citing the authority of Hippocrates.

Second, those who refuse to do abortions refuse because abortion contradicts a fundamental aim of medicine: "because it is the specific task of medicine to guard and protect what has been engendered by nature". The focus here is not on human or foetal rights, homicide or the moment of personhood, but is on the role of the physician to assist nature and foster health. Deliberately causing a miscarriage would radically contradict the aim of assisting a healthy pregnancy. Clearly this position is compatible with the Pythagorean and Early Christian belief that human life begins at conception, but it does not seem to require or to presuppose that belief.

It is interesting to compare this reasoning with that of Philo, a first century CE Jewish philosopher living in Alexandria about 100 years before Soranus. Philo thought that late abortion, after the human image was formed in the child, was straightforward homicide. Early abortion was not homicide, but it was gravely wrong "both as an outrage and for obstructing the artist nature in her creative role of bringing into life the fairest of living creatures31 The wrong lay not in homicide strictly speaking, but in acting against nature while she was at work in the development of the child. A similar point is made by Kass in his commentary on the Hippocratic Oath. He also stresses the way that abortion contradicts the role of the physician of assisting nature so as to care for the health of a pregnant woman.32

In this context, those, like Soranus, who allow abortion "with discrimination", can be seen as at least seeking to remain within the tradition of the Oath. For the reasons given for abortion relate specifically to the physical health of the pregnant woman and explicitly exclude certain personal or social reasons. This is not to say that Soranus is right to think that one may sacrifice the unborn child for the sake of the mother’s health, only that in doing so he aims to remain within the Hippocratic understanding of medicine. A similar point could be made about much later debates concerning therapeutic abortion in the Catholic tradition.33 Some contributors to these debates were confused, others went too far, but all understood that the aim of medicine was to assist nature and to support life and health.

What is wholly alien to this tradition is the twentieth century attempt to justify abortion by appeal to privacy, free choice or autonomy, in such a way that it isolated such a choice from what is beneficial to life and health for mother and child.

http://www.catholicdoctors.org.uk/CMQ/Aug_2002/hippocratic_oath.htm

The Ancient World's "Birth Control Pill"
Silphion
Ferula species
The Giant Fennel Family

Silphium, a member of the giant fennel family, was used by ancient women during the seventh century B.C.E. for contraception. A rare plant growing in a narrow 30 mile band along the dry mountain sides facing the Mediterranean Sea in northern Africa near the city of Cyrene, in what is now Libya.

The plants usage as a birth control agent was so effective it was commonly known and very widespread. Some became very wealthy exporting large quantities of Silphium to ancient Greece. So important was silphium's role in Cyrene's way of life that its image and usage was immortalized on the city's coins, one such coin depicted a woman touching the plant and pointing to her reproductive area, making its use quite clear.

Ancient texts recorded its usage as a contraceptive agent, Soranus wrote, women should drink the juice from a small amount of silphium about the size of a chick pea with water once a month. He added that it "not only prevents conception but also destroys anything existing". Another ancient herbalist/physician, Dioscorides, too, gave it for contraceptive and abortive purposes.

http://www.sisterzeus.com/Silphio.htm

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