MONROE: So the abortifacients are all well and good, but you really have got to pair them with the right helper herb or herbs. You got your dong quai, your black cohosh root, blue cohosh root, tansy, rue, juniper, and cotton root bark. Use these in combination with other herbs to create the perfect abortion cocktail for your body. Just keep in mind any of these could be self-poisoning. And you know, that very special combination is different for every goddamn body, and you should have a herbal understanding and knowledge before you jump into herbal remedies. But we don’t have that now do we? No. We used to. We used to have things like healers! Like midwives! You can’t even say that word anymore. And we’re just separated by— How many grandmas ago would have been able to handle this? Would know the answer? We are so close and we are forever away. Because how dare women know things. How dare women have control over themselves. Gotta do something about that, got to put them where they belong. So they called those women, the ones who knew, they labeled them witches, and took it away. No, they didn’t just take it away, they burned it, burned all that knowledge along with the poor women who were just trying to help. Our great great great grandmas. They burned them. Then they sanitized it, and put it under fluorescent lights, made it “safe.” And they thought, this is better, and hell, maybe it was. It probably was better, but then they took that away too, and left us with nothing. No apothecary, herbs, old-world remedies, or bright and shiny hospital approved, nothing. Now it’s just sex is wrong. Well wait, if you’re a man it’s fine, because that’s the way men operate. It’s the women! Women are wrong. And sluts. And evil. And shameful. And stupid. I am so stupid, how the fuck. The rhythm method is a lie. A total sham. I want my money back.
