Talk:Abortifacient

message: I'd like to put the first paragraph below at the beginning of the section (replacing the sentence with the cn note) and the rest at different places in more or less chronological order:
:The medical historian Edward Shorter has written that "since the dawn of time women have been able to get rid of unwanted pregnancies", mainly through "herbal concoctions", and that this "traditional pharmacopoeia" continued "through two thousand years of Western history" until the end of the nineteenth century.
:Carl Linnaeus, known as the "father of botany", listed five abortifacients in his 1749 Materia medica. According to the historian of science Londa Schiebinger, "These many sources taken together – herbals, midwifery manuals, trial records, Pharmacopoeia, and Materia medica – reveal that physicians, midwives, and women themselves had an extensive knowledge of herbs that could induce abortion." Schiebinger further writes that "European exploration in the West Indies yielded about a dozen known abortifacients."
:According to Virgil Vogel, a historian of the indigenous societies of North America, the Ojibwe used blue cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides) as an abortifacient, and the Quinault used thistle for the same purpose. The appendix to Vogel's book lists red cedar (Juniperus virginiana), American pennyroyal (Hedeoma pulegioides), tansy, Canada wild ginger (Asarum canadense), and several other herbs as abortifacients used by various North American Indian tribes. The anthropologist Daniel Moerman wrote that calamus (Acorus calamus), which was one of the ten most common medicinal drugs of Native American societies, was used as an abortifacient by the Lenape, Cree, Mohegan, Sioux, and other tribes; and he listed 102 substances used as abortifacients by Native Americans.
:The historian Angus McLaren, writing about Canadian women between 1870 and 1920, states that "A woman would first seek to 'put herself right' by drinking an infusion of one of the traditional abortifacients, such as tansy, quinine, pennyroyal, rue, black hellebore, ergot of rye, sabin, or cotton root."
I'd also like to add a sentence to the lead briefly summarizing the "History" section:  
Comments welcome. Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 20:44, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Since we have academic publications we should probably avoid trade press - so Shorter in insufficiently RS, especially for such a bold pronouncement. I think general discussions about how much herbs were used should be at History of birth control; here we should be focussed on abortifacients themselves. I am a little concerned over the word "used" as this implies successful use. Is there some way to avoid it? Alexbrn (talk) 06:25, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that we should not say or imply "successful" use. Successful means safe as well as effective, and we don't have RS for the safety of historical use. The proposed sentence for the lead could be reworded, for example as follows:  I'll drop Shorter, and instead I propose starting the "History" section by giving sources that describe very early writings about abortifacients (from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome). Would that address your concerns? NightHeron (talk) 12:55, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good. Alexbrn (talk) 13:15, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. NightHeron (talk) 13:23, 19 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed additions to History section