It’s Labor Day, a day to think about pregnancy! (I know, it’s a stretch, but work with me.) We’re diving into the contentious issue of abortion. We’re diving into both the abortion allegations and methods of the infamous John C Bennett and the allegations in Nauvoo that he was performing abortions.
Changing Understandings of Pregnancy and Menstruation
When there is an abortion issue in the state of Utah, Dr Komoto often gets calls on Radio West with Doug Fabrizio. Amanda explains how women’s understanding of their bodies and pregnancy has changed over time, particularly regarding menstruation and nutrition. She discusses the historical context of menstruation and its relation to nutrition and physical exertion, using the example of women on the Mormon trail. Amanda shares a story about a graduate student researching menstruation on the Mormon trail, revealing that some leaders forced young girls to carry tampons the length of trek and/or asked the young women to use 19th century methods. This was horrifying to some of the young women.
Historical Methods and Misconceptions of Pregnancy
Amanda delves into the historical methods women used to determine pregnancy, including folk stories and the concept of quickening. She explains the significance of quickening as the moment when a woman can first feel a fetus move, which was a crucial indicator of pregnancy. It was also the sign that Brigham Young said was when the spirit entered the child. This ranges from 13-20 weeks of pregnancy, and comes earlier for each pregnancy a woman has. Women, doctors, and midwives often had very different concepts of when pregnancy began. Amanda discusses the historical use of herbs and teas to induce abortions, emphasizing that women did not consider these methods as abortions. Amanda highlights the changing understandings of pregnancy and abortion over time, influenced by medical and societal developments.
John C. Bennett and His Role in Mormon Communities
The conversation shifts to the role of male midwives in the 19th century and the societal perceptions of their profession. I asked Amanda about the allegations against John C. Bennett regarding abortion and his role in Mormon communities. Amanda noted that the allegations of abortions and sexual improprietes against John C Bennett were common allegations against male midwives in the 19th century. Amanda explains that Bennett could have used both medicinal mechanical methods of abortion that may have involved killing the fetus to save the life of a mother. This was not seen as untoward in the 19th century, but a medical necessity to save the life of the mother. Amanda emphasizes the importance of understanding historical context to avoid misunderstandings in modern discussions about abortion. This is often lacking in current day conversations about abortion.
Impact of Overturning Roe v. Wade on Women’s Health
She shares her concerns about the potential for new laws to restrict access to birth control and other reproductive health services. Northern Idaho is losing it’s maternity center due to doctors leaving the area over Idaho’s tough abortion laws. This leaves all women, not just those seeking abortion, with a harder time accessing prenatal care, and leads to deaths and injuries of women that could easily be prevented. Amanda lives in Bozeman, and some pro-life doctors are not available for routine health care for women. This can lead to Life Flight to other states. Salt Lake City is closer to Bozeman than Boise. If an emergency arose, a Montana woman where abortion is a state constitutional right might be subject to the whims of Utah legislators, forcing her to fly to Denver where reproductive health care might be necessary and more available. With BYU’s new medical school announcement, it will be interesting to see if they teach doctors how to handle miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and other things that might be considered too close to abortion for state law. Many states, including Utah & Idaho don’t make it clear to medical professionals whether health of the mother is legal or illegal to consider. Humane laws ought to take health of the mother into account for reproductive care.
Following the interview, Amanda was cited in the recent Utah Supreme Court decision in a stay of Utah’s abortion law. (See page 50.)
Part of Sorensen’s instruction discouraged the idea that it was acceptable to have an abortion before quickening. See Amanda Hendrix-Komoto, The Other Crime: Abortion and Contraception in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Utah, DIALOGUE:J.MORMON THOUGHT, Spring 2020, at 33, 40
Were you aware of how poor the knowledge of pregnancy was in the 19th century? Do you think that abortions up to 20 weeks ought to be allowed in most cases? Have legislators over-legislated at the expense of women’s lives?
Wheat & Tares 
‘Have legislators over-legislated at the expense of women’s lives?’
Ya think????
Utah legislators over-legislate woman issues, education, child care, books, and even the rights of people to pass referendums. “We learn by sad experience…..”
These are difficult intimate life and death health care decisions that can only be made in a timely way with full understanding of the details involved. The only people that have and can understand these details are the woman and her health care provider. These are the only people that should be involved in these decisions. Government regulation shouldn’t be part of it.
I agree with lws329 with two caveats. (1) I don’t think a physician should be compelled to perform abortions except in life-saving emergencies. (2) To the extent that states can regulate medical procedures, they should also regulate abortions in areas such as standards or care, cleanliness, etc. If a state may regulate tooth extractions and ingrown toenail repair, they may regulate other procedures. Also, I think requiring a physician performing outpatient abortions may be required to have admitting privileges at a local hospital, if this is required for other outpatient procedures. My colonoscopy was down outpatient in a clinic: was that physician (or the anesthesiologist) required to have admitting privileges? He does, but I don’t know if the state requires it.
In the 19th century, they miasmic theory of disease (spread by bad smells) was common. So it doesn’t surprise me that little was known about pregnancy.
Up to 20 weeks seems perfectly reasonable. A fetus is not viable until 21, and even then extremely few births at 21 weeks have survived. There should be broad exceptions for abortions beyond 20 weeks. If a 20-week ban were put into effect today, it would basically reinstate Roe. About 91% of abortions occur before 13 weeks, another 7-8% occur between 13 and 20, and a very small percentage occur after 20. Usually the ones occurring after 20 are due to health complications involving the mother or the fetus.
Legislation needs to protect doctors and patients from anti-abortion crazies. What amazes me is just how pro-choice most of the Republican politicians are on the question of abortion, particularly in private, but even in public. In 1999, Trump said he was “very pro-choice.” Tim Scott a couple of years said he would support a 20-week ban. Lindsay Graham recently proposed a nation-wide 15-week ban. And yet so many of the white Christian nationalist pro-lifers demand rape and incest victims to carry pregnancies to term, even if they are 10 years old. They demand that pregnant women whose fetus has no chance of living after birth continue the pregnancy until the fetus is completely dead, even if the woman experiences sepsis, life-threatening infections, and extreme damage to her reproductive system for continuing to carry a dying fetus. They believe that IVF clinics are guilty of murder for discarding embryos that women have no interest in using. Their grip on the Republican Party is truly scary.
@Georgis I strongly disagree with requiring physicians performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. To put it simply, this is a back-door way of banning/limiting/restricting abortion access. As an endoscopy RN at a hospital, I did pre-op, intra-op, and post-op for many routine Intermountain. However, we often handled more complex endoscopic procedures that required conscious sedation or intubation. The cost and complexity of getting an edoscopic procedure at a hospital is dramatically higher than many of the GI clinics in town where there is more efficiency, lower overhead, and a more nimble (read: less bureaucratic) operation. To my knowledge, many (most?) GI docs in private clinical settings do not have hospital admitting privileges in the state. They would typically not take a high-risk case or transfer emergent care to a physicial with admitting privileges.
Competent physicians can screen and accept abortion patients that are low risk and should be able to perform an abortion in their own private clinic.
My wife needed two abortions due to molar pregnancy in Utah in the past few years. She also met with a gynelogical oncologist for potential choriocarcinoma. This was right in the middle of Roe’s repeal. Anyone who doesn’t understand maternal medicine and the very real, dire ramifications of banning or severely limiting abortion needs to really educate yourself. Say it with me now, “We are not going back.”
No one asked for it, but here are my views on abortion:
Not every abortion is good, but neither is every abortion bad (obviously). I would restrict abortions to 16 weeks like France. Free access to plan B and contraception nationwide, including telemedicine for chemical abortion (mifepristone/misoprostol). After 16 weeks, any abortion would be allowable if deemed medically by a licensed medical provider to protect the life/health of the mother or if there is a severe fetal abnormality. Safe harbor and no second guessing of a medical providers approval on abortion exceptions after 16 weeks (e.g., the decision is between a women and her doctor, keep govt. out of this).
Societal goals is that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. This means focusing on anti-poverty measures and recognizing that Obamacare did more to reduce abortions than any modern measure by expanding healthcare access. And we need universal affordable childcare to support those women who will want to raise their children but we also need to a pro-housing supply framework since the largest barrier to raising a child in the US is housing costs at the moment.
Thank you Jacob L.,
In my opinion, increasing housing and healthcare portability and access is more Pro-Life than any other policy you could offer. I also liked the plan Mitt Romney offered to replace the child tax credit. Give pregnant women and families with children this money up front, monthly (no work required). With this as supportive funds many pregnant women may see a way to raise a child, and fund the child care needed (either as workers or with one of the parents or grandparents providing child care). These are family friendly policies that would make child bearing more feasible.
@lws329 Vice President Harris’s proposed $6000 tax credit for newborns is very pro-life/pro-natalist and could be used at a very crucial time for child development.
Jacob L, I think we’re at peace. If you noticed, my comments about regulating abortion were to ensure patient safety, something that is properly within the state’s bailiwick to regulate. If physicians in other disciplines perform outpatient procedures where the state requires admitting privileges (and I don’t know if they do), then I have no problem with the state taking steps to require reasonable protections for patient safety.
I also agree with you that some states may use admitting privileges are a backdoor way to ban abortion, and that is unfortunate. States sometimes do similar backdoor things, such as using traffic stops to harass minority drivers, but we don’t ban all traffic stops. Traffic stops serve a legitimate purpose that protects citizens. We should focus on eliminating the abuse, but not throw out the whole practice.
If a case can be made for legitimately regulating abortions to protect patient safety, then I’m probably OK. Abortion clinics should be clean, sterile, and safe, and I think that states are allowed to regulate in these areas, and they can inspect to ensure that hospitals and clinics conform. Maybe I’m wrong and maybe states don’t regulate any type of health care at all. I think abortions should be safe, and some regulation might make sense if the focus is patient safety.
There are two things that (to me) make no sense about some of the conservative stances on abortion, aside from the lack of policies that support mothers, and they are:
1) name one other supposed “crime” in which the punishment is to force the victim into the primary care of the perpetrator for the next 18+ years. Those on Twitter who screech that abortion is murder are literally proposing this as the punishment. It makes no sense if they really believe it’s murder. You don’t turn the would-be murder victim over to their antagonist as punishment for the antagonist.
2) if you believe in exceptions for rape & incest as the church does, then logic follows that you must be pro-choice because only the woman who was raped or suffered incest is able to say that it was rape or incest (only 8% of rapes are reported and women are at high risk of violence for reporting domestic abuse including rape), meaning that you must believe women and trust them. Additionally, it means that any minor should have full access to abortion because in their case it was statutory rape. The thing is, I suspect that the church doesn’t really trust women because they bill they proposed (oh, I mean the Utah legislature, which is essentially the same thing) was that a police officer would have to confirm the rape or incest. The church trusts cops more than women, even though 40% of police have a domestic disturbance complaint, and the church trusts incestuous fathers more than the daughters they victimize because they want parental notification. It’s almost like women are not only distrusted, but were not consulted in crafting these laws.
The simple fact is that men want sexual access to women, and for women to have no control over what happens as a result of that access. Women don’t seek abortions for wanted pregnancies, ergo the unwanted pregnancies were because they men don’t bear consequences and don’t care and only seek their own pleasure. P in V sex is not required for female pleasure, and only 30% of women can have an orgasm through P in V sex, so once again, we know who’s pushing for it, and it ain’t the women.
My personal opinion is that age of viability is the best cutoff point for abortions which have to be the woman’s decision (which is when nearly all of them occur anyway), and the only ones that occur late-term are when there is a serious disability or the health of the mother is at stake. I would also accept something around 15 weeks as a cutoff (and the age of viability will keep getting earlier, which is fine–the point is that the fetus can at that point survive outside the womb), but again, only women can make this call as they are the ones who deal with the pregnancy, birth, and all that follows.
in my state QLD we don’t have republicans so no culture wars. We are in the next few months having an election. Abortion is not an issue.
Abortion in Queensland, Australia, is available on request in the first 22 weeks of pregnancy, with the approval of two doctors usually required for later terminations of pregnancy.
“Amanda discusses the historical use of herbs and teas to induce abortions, emphasizing that women did not consider these methods as abortions”
I can’t view the video. Why were the women taking those herbs and teas, if not to cause abortion? Is it shifting the line between contraceptive and abortifacient?
I live in a blue state that shares a border with a red state, and the city I live in is close to that border. My city has a Planned Parenthood clinic that has seen a huge increase in demand for services since Dobbs. Notably, they are now seeing patients come from dozens of different U.S. states, traveling from much further away than the organization ever imagined would happen. Before, the majority of the clients were from the immediate neighboring red state. The idea of leaving the issue up to the individual states is preposterous, as if a person’s access to life-saving medical care should be determined by which side of an arbitrary manmade line they live on, and left to the whims of fickle state legislators. I feel bad for those who are compelled to make that difficult, unnecessarily long trip, and even worse for those who need to but are unable because of distance/time/money.
And if you pursue a career as an OB/GYN but feel that your conservative religious convictions are more important than the best interests of your patients and evidence-based treatment, you are in the wrong line of work to begin with. Go become a proctologist instead, a career field better suited to that personality type.
HokieKate,
Back then women’s menses were generally quite irregular because of overwork and poor nutrition. Additionally they were unaware of any pregnancy until they felt the baby move (they were unaware pregnancy was 9 months long and began months before the quickening, or baby moving). So if their periods stopped, they didn’t even consider they might be pregnant. They thought they were too unhealthy to menstruate. They wanted to be healthy (and likely they wanted babies sometimes) and they knew they couldn’t be healthy without menstruating. So they would take tansy, or something else to cause the uterus to contract to have some sort of period so they could feel healthy. However , sometimes this was in fact an inadvertent miscarriage.
I think this is related. I’m irritated at politicians mandating things like if her fetus dies, a woman must carry it until it self aborts, no concern about the major sepsis risk. Or, ectopic pregnancies can be “fixed”, by surgical shifting to the uterus. This last one is pure quackery. There’s also talk of what are basically Inquisitions of women who have had miscarriages, women will have to prove they didn’t do anything intentional to cause a miscarriage.
One realization about abortion that hit me some years ago: How many abortions are due to fear of abusive husbands? Both “You have an abortion, or I’m giving you a beating like never before!” from some husbands, or, women thinking “My husband beats me so much, I don’t want a child in this situation, it will be hurt by him!” Yes, there are plenty of caveman thinking men out there.
Hawkgrrl: It’s odd that so called “Tough on crime” types don’t want to eliminate the national Rape kit backlog, some on the shelf for years, but want to punish abortions done in another state, when those women return to their home state. Some states don’t even release data on their Rape kit backlog, and I doubt if it’s because there are no kits waiting processing.
Jacob L: Funny that the people claiming that newborn tax credits is socialism likely are also whining about the White demographic decline.
lws329: Your comments rock again.
Mike H: “One realization about abortion that hit me some years ago: How many abortions are due to fear of abusive husbands?” I wrote about a story like this in my mission memoir. We met a Catholic woman (I mean, basically, they were all Catholic) who was wracked with guilt for having had an abortion. She said she was terrified her husband was going to kill her, and her priest said she had committed the most grievous sin, so she was looking for absolution and to change religions (possibly). When I talked to the MP about her, he said nope, that having had an abortion disqualified her from being taught or baptized, which left me feeling pretty hopeless given that she was in a desperate situation. I honestly had so many conversations with women in abusive relationships, and there were literally no answers from the Church, no ways we had to actually help these women. It’s almost like women are not the target audience.
The only people who should be involved in the decision are the pregnant woman and her doctor.
Saying “no abortions past ## weeks” is based on the assumption that pregnant women would routinely get abortions at ## weeks unless it was illegal. I strongly disagree with that assumption. Most abortions are before 12 weeks, and all but a tiny minority of them are before 16 weeks. Late-pregnancy abortions are invariably due to a tragedy and someone’s heart is already breaking. Piling on possible criminal penalties is cruel.
There is no point where I would take the decision away from the pregnant woman and give it to a politician. I trust pregnant women to make hard and heart-breaking decisions. I trust ob-gyns to give them the facts and the options. I do not trust politicians who are performing for votes.
Hawkgrrrl: You bring up a very important thing in all your comments and particularly in your mission story and that is It’s a woman’s decision yet men seem to be at every turn telling her no.
I have four daughters. Number 3 was taking a college course on ethics during high school at the local university. One evening I picked her up after class (we lived about 35 miles from where the class was held) and she was crying. The topic for the evening was “abortion” and she made the same point as you, Hawkgrrrl, that it was a woman’s decision. The class was full of return missionaries and women going back to school after having their families. My daughter was heartbroken at all the names they called her with baby murderer being one of the calmer ones. I was appalled but honestly I had never really thought about if from her perspective before either but I knew in an instance that she was right. All the arguments for or against abortion pale in comparison to this argument. Men should just shut up but you know in Utah that’s not going to happen. Men here are going to feel a “responsibility” to weigh in, judge, and legislate if they can. I learned a great lesson that night from my daughter. She’s awesome.
Hawkgrrl: Your MP would not allow her to be baptized? That policy must have been changed. On my mission, if a woman wanting baptism had previously had an abortion, she would have to interview with the MP, but I know that some of these women were still baptized, one of the women we baptized was OKed by our MP.
The abusive husbands forcing an abortion came from the story of one rock performer. She was in an abusive marriage, thankfully she was able to get into a better relationship later on, and had several children.
@Georgis I appreciate your response. I think we are on the same page. I too want abortions to be safe. Most arguments that require hospital admitting privileges strike me as being a pretext to curtail access and not at all genuinely concerned about safety (just like I think “most” election-integrity arguments are really pushed under the guise of depressing turnout). But I do think your concern about safety is made in good faith, and so thanks for sharing your perspective.
Abortion should be left to women,their family and their physicians. Period. No way should these decisions be left to men serving in our govt.
In medical terminology, a miscarriage is called “spontaneous abortion.” That’s how my first pregnancy ended.
My second pregnancy also ended by “abortion” ie termination of the pregnancy. I was 26 wks and the baby died in utero. Cause unknown. Once it was determined that the baby I was carrying was dead my Dr. gave me the choice between inducing labor or allowing nature to take its course and just wait to see if I would go into labor on my own. I opted for induced labor-emotionally I would not be able to emotionally endure carrying a dead baby inside, waiting for labor to start.
My mother had an abortion back in the 1950’s because her Dr. said it was not “developing in the right place.” (perhaps a tubal pregnancy?)
Back in the early 1980’s, I was undergoing some training at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake. I witnessed a couple whose baby was born with Trisomy 18, say goodbye to their baby, rather than pursue medical intervention, because it was likely to not survive very long.
2 Georgis, If you are concerned about abortions being safe, look up the global gag rule. When a republican moves into the whitehouse invokes the global gag rule which ties aid to the third world to abortion. Trump increased the aid that was included. So health workers in an African country talking to a woman about family planning can not tell the woman to go to hospital if she wants an abortion. That would be seen as promoting abortion, and stop funding from America and so no birth control, and unsafe abortions by traditional means. Consequence 2 million extra abortions, most unsafe, over 20,000 maternal deaths, and 90,000 more children born with aids and no treatment.
Democrats do not impose the gag, but there would be lots of family health workers in the third world looking to see who wins the US election, because if Trump wins they will be unemployed and the women they help abandoned to traditional life/death.
Geoff – Aus, I said nothing about Trump, Republicans, or anything political, so no need to go on an anti-Trump rant to me. Someone said something to the effect that Government should in no way regulate abortions, and I simply posited that Government regulates medical care all the time, or at least I think they do, for patient safety, and I’m in favor of regulations that make abortion safe, as with other medical procedures. I wasn’t promoting any abortion or ant-abortion strategy for Africa. Trump is not the center of all of my thoughts, and I don’t bring everything back to him, pro or con.
In the current environment, might someone reasonably believe that something identified as “for patient safety” is actually a subterfuge [n., deceit used in order to achieve one’s goal]?
Isn’t it like website tracking “to enhance your user experience”?
Yeah, in the current environment re: abortion, I am not certain that that “for patient safety” really always means for patient safety. That said, yes, I would generally be supportive of regulations that really and honestly were actually for patient safety.
The MP-approval rule for baptizing women who have had abortions is not new. In 1978, I (a DL) interviewed a woman who had been in a long-term affair with a married man. It took me two hours before I felt good about signing off on that baptism. But I got so wrapped up in the affair aspect that I forgot to ask the abortion question. Worse, I was 90% certain that I would get the wrong answer, based on other comments she had made in my presence. So the next morning (the day of the scheduled baptism), I went back and asked the question. Sure enough, wrong answer. So I sprinted to the nearest phone, talked to the mission president, and got his approval to proceed with the baptism. He declined to interview her. (After he returned home, the MP introduced anti-abortion bills as a Utah state legislator, so there’s that.)
Georgis,I had the impression that rant was a very different beast. Or is that just a way to discredit someone, without addressing their facts. Do you dispute the facts?