Age-old prescriptions

Arabic erotica through the ages is full of practical advice on unwanted pregnancy. “There are countless ways to lead to abortion and the expulsion of a fetus from a mother’s belly,” wrote Shaykh Nafzawi in Al Rawd Al ‘Atir fi Nuzhat Al Khatir, The Perfumed Garden of Sensual Delight in the 15^th century. Among his suggestions were fumigating the vagina with burnt cabbage or drinking a mixture of cinnamon and red myrrh, which, when combined with a vaginal suppository of the same, “kills the fetus and provokes expulsion, with the permission of God, the Greatest.”