Many of the cures for these “ailments” were nothing but sugar and dust. But some of them were nonetheless quite effective. Those were the dangerous ones, containing as they commonly did, turpentine, opium, pennyroyal, aloes, snakeroot, myrrh or oil of rue. One of the most common ingredients was ergot, or claviceps purpurea, a fungus found on the stalks of grain. Women as early as the 16th century had observed that cows that consumed ergot miscarried their calves. The fungus, however, had disastrous side effects, called ergotism, also known as St. Anthony’s fire. Symptoms included a burning sensation in the limbs because of blood constriction, which led to gangrene. The poison could also cause seizures, itching, psychosis, vomiting, contractions, diarrhea and death.

Oil of tansy was another common abortifacient. Here is John Irving’s unforgettable description, from his scrupulously researched novel “The Cider House Rules,” of a doctor trying to save a woman after too many tansy-oil miscarriages: “Her abdomen was full of blood...but when he tried to sew up [the] uterus, his stitches simply pulled through the tissue, which he noticed was the texture of a soft cheese...his finger passed as easily through the intestine as through gelatin.” Tansy oil rots internal organs.

Notwithstanding such ghastly scenarios, abortion did not always — or even usually — result in death. Many women survived it, which is why for most of history it was one of the main forms of birth control. If they did choose to enlist help, they most often called upon another woman, usually a skilled midwife. But by the 1850s, male doctors began to take over all aspects of women’s reproductive care, sidelining midwives and leading the movement to outlaw the practice of abortion. Did they save some women’s lives by unmasking the dangers of “medicines” to cause miscarriage? Undoubtedly. But by withholding midwives’ knowledge of how to provide a relatively safe abortion in the early stage of pregnancy, they drove other women to undergo the procedure at the hands of the unskilled, until the United States Supreme Court made abortion legal on Jan. 22, 1973.

Women’s historical willingness to endure horrible dangers, to submit to extreme and prolonged pain, to risk grave injury and death rather than remain pregnant, tells us something important about female desperation and determination, and the price women were — and still are — willing to pay to control their own bodies. What it tells us is that women will always find ways to end an unwanted pregnancy, no matter what the law says, no matter the risks to themselves.

If the Supreme Court were ever to overturn Roe v. Wade, or if anti-abortion forces continue to successfully chisel away at a woman’s access to safe abortion, many women will still choose abortion — by their own hands. Leeches, lye and Spanish fly are still among the many tools available to the self-abortionist. So are knitting needles, with predictable, disastrous consequences. There is no law that will end the practice of abortion, only laws that can protect a woman’s right to choose it, or not, and to keep it the safe and private procedure still available to us in 2013, 40 years after the Supreme Court made it legal.