Shattering the Sacred Myths - Chapter 12

its only in the last 200 years that abortion was considered wrong, before then the church was ok with it. this site makes sense.

http://www.evolutionary-metaphysics.net/sexual_morality.html


Aristotle declared that an unborn baby was not alive until the woman could feel the first movement in her womb. Saint Augustine wrote that an unborn baby has no soul for the first 40 days of pregnancy for a boy and 80 days for a girl. Such opinions were written into church law and reinforced by a succession of popes, and for more than 1500 years, the Catholic Church did not consider abortion to be a serious sin, and society did not consider it to be a moral problem.

Abortion within the first few months of pregnancy was legal and acceptable in Europe and America until the 1800s. As growing numbers of people moved to the cities to work in factories and businesses, their outlook on life became increasingly materialistic. Couples wanted smaller families and religious morality was losing its influence. Abortion grew to become a popular form of birth control. This led the medical profession to become increasingly concerned about unsafe practices, and they pushed to have abortion outlawed, first in England and then later in the United States.

Reliable condoms and other birth control devices became available around the mid 1800s. The idea of ‘voluntary motherhood’ became popular and birth rates in industrialized nations began to fall. Some women believed that reliable birth control would finally give them the opportunity to participate more actively in society, rather than being tied down to the traditional roles of keeping the house and raising the children.

The most vocal opponents of women's rights in Europe and America were the Christian churches, whose misconceptions about male superiority came from both church tradition and from the Bible. In America, church leaders were joined by conservative politicians, who were concerned that birth control was an expense that could only be afforded by wealthy white women. They feared that if wealthy white American families had fewer children then they would eventually lose their dominance and be overrun by large families of poor immigrants and colored people.

Conservative political and religious forces spearheaded a cultural backlash against the women's rights movement by provoking widespread fear about women deserting their traditional roles as wives and mothers. They argued that it was selfish for women to avoid their maternal duties by using birth control.

In 1869, the Catholic Church condemned abortion as an immoral act. In 1873, a law was passed in the United States that not only banned the sale of birth control devices, but also prohibited the distribution of any information about birth control techniques. Speaking about birth control in public or even writing about it in a letter could get you thrown into jail.


Restricting the rights of women now has less to do with sexual morality and more to do with religious leaders scheming to increase the following of their particular religious sect by manipulating their believers into outbreeding the followers of other beliefs.

Traditional religious organizations operate like businesses that compete to exploit people's need for belonging and their anxiety about the unknown. They profit from our sentiment for ancient words of wisdom and they capitalize on our cultural investment in ancient myths and rituals.

Religious leaders sometimes think and act like ruthless businessmen who will seek any opportunity to increase their market share. In violent times, they often resort to violence, and in peacetime, they often use threats of damnation and other forms of coercion and bullying.

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

It is near impossible for me to even begin to imagine what it would have been like to have lived as a young woman in those time periods. Options for females were vastly limited and societal expectations and punishments for not following the lifescript were particularly harsh. Women couldn't even outright own property in most cases, so even if she inherited some land or money from her father, it generally had to be held in some sort of a trust by a male famblee member, a trusted male friend, or a lawyer, to be doled out as HE saw fit. Of course once she married, her property (and money) became her husband's assets to spend as he wished. I can read about it, but I can't really comprehend it. Marriage and having baybees was just about THE only option and it was certainly the only acceptable one, other than becoming a nun, Even school teachers weren't exempt because they were only working until they could snag a man, as was any other "career" woman. These women were "old maids" by age 25, "strange women" and even considered witches or "mannish" if they were not married by age 30, and by age 40, they were "old maid spinsters" to be pitied for their lonely life of emptiness. It was ALWAYS assumed that they just couldn't find a man to marry them. .




Unless the woman was from old famblee money, (and even then it usually wasn't really "hers") economic survival absolutely depended on getting married and dealing with the subsequent baybees. One of my favorite mothers in law (may she rest in peace) was DEFINATELY a closet CF. Having been born in 1916, she knew at a very early age that it was marriage and kyds, or she wouldn't eat basically. So, she managed to keep living at home with her ill father until she was in her late twenties as she went to college and worked at the PX (as a cashier and for pennies) on a nearby military base. She recalls how people looked upon her "situation" with pity. "Poor Dorothy, she will NEVER find a husband as long as she is a caregiver for her father". Well, "daddy" finally died and the whole estate was tied up for YEARS among the six kyds who were scattered all over the world. Dorothy absolutely refused to give in and marry a soldier, like she was being told to do by EVERYBODY. Even armed with a master's degree, the only job that she could find after her father's death was by accident, when she was passed over for an accountant job at a retailer (of course a man with NO degree/experience got the job) was as a "checkout girl". She BARELY survived and was forced to rent a room in a boarding house for women which is about as shitty as it sounds. Those were basically extended "homes" for young unmarried women with mandatory curfews, mandatory group meal times, and chores assigned, as if they were little girls.



By her mid 30s, she was watching 17 and 18 y/o women move into the "home" and had just about had all that she could take so she agreed to marry a soldier who she had been dating. She was about 35 or 36 by this point and her husband immediately insisted that she quit work after having said, "I do", which she did. Within 9 months and two weeks, she had a baybee. Less than two years later, she had twins at nearly age 40. She said that she was absolutely MISERABLE and told her husband that this, ".... having baybees nonsense would just have to stop!" So, since there were no other options in the south and at that time (early-mid 50's) they just stopped having sex. Her husband had numerous affairs but she said that while that hurt, that he was just being a man and it was better than , "Having another damned baybee to look after". Her father's estate settled a few years after that, and the husband later died, but she had plenty of money and land by that time to JUST SAY NO to remarriage and MORE baybees. I honestly believe that if Dorothy and women like her had economic options, anywhere NEAR decent pay back in the 40's and 50's, reliable and accessible birth control, and fewer societal pressures, there would have been a BOATLOAD of them who would have remained childfree,


These "SAHMoos" who want to revert back to the 1950's, when there were so many women who actually lived during that time who would have LOVED to have had just one of her options, make me sick.s

it was a little different in the north of england, we had that idea of women as chattels beaten out of us. many times in my family we had builders, now they worked during summer, but when winter came it was too cold, so what these builders did was build a pub they could run in winter, now these places were actually put in the womans name, my great great grandma was the unofficial doctor of the town and surround areas, because the male doctor was too busy, he knew and turned a blind eye.

we have always had a matriarchy in the north, women were the rulers of the house, even now. we didnt have much, we expected the women to deal with everything, while the men did the nasty jobs like mines, like in the mills. so while this revisionist idea of history from personal history, and family history, its not quite accurate.

my grandmas were the toughest, they ran the house with an iron rod. i am not saying it doesnt or didnt happen, but it wasnt always like that.

(hell we have had our rulers as females, we have had strong powerful women running an mighty empire. empress maud in the 1200's. lizzie 1, mary). so while it may have been true with the upper classes, the lower classes did what worked. and generally the north were working class.

just today they have more obvious power, where before, they werent in the limelight. the power behind the throne.. yes there was pressure to breed, just like today. but back then women were tougher. todays modern sahm are weak pathetic people.

*********************************************************************************************************************************
I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

Wow, merc... Very interesting, thanks for posting that. How horribly backwards.

No wonder fundies are our WORST foes.