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Ben Franklin Put an Abortion Recipe in His Math Textbook
Slate ^ | 5/5/22 | Molly Farrell

Posted on 07/06/2022 2:25:40 AM PDT by Callahan

e year was 1748, the place was Philadelphia, and the book was The Instructor, a popular British manual for everything from arithmetic to letter-writing to caring for horses’ hooves. Benjamin Franklin had set himself to adapting it for the American colonies.

Though Franklin already had a long and successful career by this point, he needed to find a way to convince colonial book-buyers—who for the most part didn’t even formally study arithmetic—that his version of George Fisher’s textbook was worth the investment. Franklin made all sorts of changes throughout the book, from place names to inserting colonial histories, but he made one really big change: adding John Tennent’s The Poor Planter’s Physician to the end. Tennent was a Virginia doctor whose medical pamphlet had first appeared in 1734.* By appending it to The Instructor (replacing a treatise on farriery) Franklin hoped to distinguish the book from its London ancestor. Franklin advertised that his edition was “the whole better adapted to these American Colonies, than any other book of the like kind.” In the preface he goes on to specifically mention his swapping out of sections, insisting that “in the British Edition of this Book, there were many Things of little or no Use in these Parts of the World: In this Edition those Things are omitted, and in their Room many other Matters inserted, more immediately useful to us Americans.” One of those useful “Matters” was a how-to on at-home abortion, made available to anyone who wanted a book that could teach the ABCs and 123s.

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Wisconsin
KEYWORDS: abortion; benjaminfranklin; fakenews; foundingfathers; ketanjibrownjackson; medialiar; mollyfarrell; paulryan; plannedparenthood; righttolife; roevswade; scotus; servantofmolech; servantofmoloch; servantsofmolech; slate; wisconsin
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To: Sacajaweau

This analyais just doesn’t “add up”. At least in Franklin’s book he accepts the reality that 1+1=2 ... a fact lost on many of today’s “educators”.


21 posted on 07/06/2022 7:22:17 AM PDT by glennaro (Live life unbullied and unafraid. Choose to ignore or fight the irrationality that surrounds you.)
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To: cornfedcowboy

He was the only President of the United States, who was never President of the United States.


22 posted on 07/06/2022 7:23:50 AM PDT by bwest
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To: pepsi_junkie; Callahan; fruser1

I had to read it a few times, but he uses the phrase “before you expect to be out of order” which I take to mean missing the period.

I agree with the sentiment that is the Left grasping at every straw they can, but this does seem to my eye like dealing with pregnancy...or...stopping it before it goes too far.

In Colonial America, an unmarried woman (or married, and the husband is away or in a position to NOT have had sex and cause a pregnancy) would be sure to know when her next period was due, they could count as well as today, and I don’t doubt if they knew they had sex, if they were due for their next period in seven days or more, at seven days before that date they should drink “Bellyache Root” or “Highland Flagg”, and then follow the course he prescribes.

If life begins at conception, that is termination of a conception that has already occurred, or abortion, as opposed to taking birth control pills, which prevent conception.


23 posted on 07/06/2022 7:23:51 AM PDT by rlmorel (Nolnah's Razor: Never attribute to incompetence that which is adequately explained by malice.)
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To: Callahan
Its a weak argument. So Franklin printed a combined British and Colonial American book of general education / an encyclepedia in which one page contained an abortion recipe?

That is how Franklin supposedly supports abortion???

I thought the advice to not get pregnant was more interesting

“nor must they long for pretty Fellows, or any other Trash whatsoever.” So: avoid sex.

24 posted on 07/06/2022 7:23:59 AM PDT by PGR88 (<i>)
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To: Romulus

Onan tried the pulling out method but it didn’t work in his favor.


25 posted on 07/06/2022 7:25:04 AM PDT by BipolarBob (Where is Biden leading us and what's with the hand basket?)
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To: Mount Athos
Pennyroyal tea is also a treatment for menstrual cramps.

Married women would not have taken it because you do take it before menstruation starts and they could be pregnant. They would not want to kill their babies.

However for unmarried women, who are not having sex and so are in no danger of being pregnant, it is quite safe.

26 posted on 07/06/2022 7:27:22 AM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (It is better to light a single flame thrower then curse the darkness. A bunch of them is better yet)
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To: fruser1; Callahan

It’s from Slate, thus propaganda.

They want to leave the impression that even our revered puritan conservative founding fathers were in favor of abortion.


27 posted on 07/06/2022 7:40:41 AM PDT by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how they control you. )
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To: rlmorel

The tendency is for menstrual problems to diminish over time, being most severe in adolescence, unless you have endometriosis.


28 posted on 07/06/2022 7:42:32 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: rlmorel

Birth control pills do not always prevent conception and sometimes they function like an abortifacient.


29 posted on 07/06/2022 7:44:15 AM PDT by viewfromthefrontier
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To: Sacajaweau

“What a discombobulated story.”

You ain’t kidding. Deep down in the article here’s a logic she uses to justify abortion.

“... ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health will render abortion effectively illegal for myself, my students, and my daughters here in central Ohio, where new Intel factories are about to require tens of thousands of workers with advanced quantitative skills.”

In other words kill your future “workers” because Intel requires future workers.


30 posted on 07/06/2022 7:46:05 AM PDT by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how they control you. )
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To: Opinionated Blowhard

“What’s it going to be Slate? Are the Founding Fathers out-of-touch, old, dead, rich white men whose opinions count for nothing? Or are they secret liberals who advocate for abortion?”

Whatever serves their immediate purpose.


31 posted on 07/06/2022 7:49:48 AM PDT by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how they control you. )
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To: Jonty30
Women pick who the 'man-slut' shall be.

Eighty percent of women desire twenty percent of men.

It's a burden one must bear.

32 posted on 07/06/2022 7:52:19 AM PDT by Aevery_Freeman (Beware the coming TRUMPster Fire!)
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To: rlmorel

Out of order refers to menstrual problems, comparable to “out of sorts” - on the rag.

Also, dealing with menstruation was several orders of magnitude more common than dealing with unwanted pregnancy so it would be odd to have an abortive recipie without menstrual accomodation.

As menstruation is monthly, it makes sense to refer to it as “courses” plural, as opposed to “course” which would be a singular event, like an unwanted pregnancy. It would be a “course” of pregnancy and not referring to multiple pregnancies, even if someone was getting knocked up on a regular basis - unless you want to believe Franklin thought his publications were being avidly read by prostitutes.

Unmarried women had much more interest in being out in society with the goal of attracting a husband. It didn’t matter so much if a married woman had to hang home because she was on the rag.


33 posted on 07/06/2022 7:54:33 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: Callahan

“Yet abortion was so “deeply rooted” in colonial America...”

For the sake of argument, and I don’t think it was abortion Franklin had in mind, let us say that abortion was in fact deeply rooted in colonial America (but it was never mentioned!!). Would that make it Constitutional? Slavery existed in colonial America. Does that make slavery inherently Constitutional, and obviously the Founders were headed in the direction of getting rid of it.


34 posted on 07/06/2022 7:59:36 AM PDT by odawg ( )
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To: rlmorel
If life begins at conception, that is termination of a conception that has already occurred, or abortion, as opposed to taking birth control pills, which prevent conception.

You have a misconception of how birth control pills work (the most common misconception)

Birth control pills work by fooling the uterus into believing it is already pregnant, thus preventing implantation of a fertilized egg.

Conception is the joining of the sperm and the egg.

When the pill works as intended it is causing an abortion.

35 posted on 07/06/2022 8:15:44 AM PDT by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit)
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To: bwest

He was President of Pennsylvania.


36 posted on 07/06/2022 8:19:05 AM PDT by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: Callahan

What did he put in his almanac?


37 posted on 07/06/2022 8:32:16 AM PDT by Lisbon1940 (I don’t see why they would)
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To: rlmorel

Franklin succeeded in getting Funding for the American Revolution from the French.

Yes, he was very popular with the ladies in France.

Dr. Franklin had a reputation about science and some “other things”.


38 posted on 07/06/2022 8:34:18 AM PDT by Texas Fossil ((Texas is not where you were born, but a Free State of Heart, Mind & Attitude!))
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To: bwest

Of course Ben Franklin was President. He is literally on currency.


39 posted on 07/06/2022 8:45:20 AM PDT by cornfedcowboy ( )
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To: Tell It Right

Ben Franklin also invented kites…..and electricity.


40 posted on 07/06/2022 8:47:07 AM PDT by cornfedcowboy ( )
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