Abstinence. Remember purity rings?
Acacia juice was used as spermicide in 16th century BC Egypt.
Beaver testicles, rich in androgens, are still used by Native women in New Brunswick.
Beeswax disks.
Bone shards of black cats.
Bleach.
Bundling boards Puritans placed between fully-clothed, unmarried lovers.
Crocodile dung.
Cedar rosin by suggestion of the Greek physician Aetios.
Coat hangers.
Dilation and curettage.
Diaphragms, invented in Holland in 1882.
Elephant feces mixed with water.
Flax soaked in menstrual blood.
Falling down stairs.
Ghee, palasha seeds, and honey.
Hare anus hung round the neck.
Herb of grace.
Intrauterine device with copper or hormone releasing coils.
Infanticide.
John XXI, pope in 1276, supported contraception, advised a plaster of hemlock to the testicles.
Jewish Queen of Persia, Esther, bathed in myrrh, an abortifacient, for a year before meeting the King.
Kudzu-related plants are used in Thailand.
Lead was ingested by women in China.
Lysol douches in the 20th century. Hundreds died.
Lemon halves as cervical caps. Giacomo Casanova bragged about it.
Liver of cat.
Lactational Amenorrhea.
Male contraception—cheap, noninvasive, reversible—was invented in 1979. No drug company will trial it.
Mercury causing sterility, kidney failure, brain damage, death.
Magic.
Moss balls.
Myrrh, from Myrrha, the daughter of Cinyras who raped her until the gods turned her into a plant.
Mifepristone & Misoprostol.
Ndyuka women of New Guinea shaped leaves into chalices and inserted them vaginally.
Oiled paper disks stuck to the cervix.
Pomegranate seeds. Maybe Persephone ate them on purpose?
Papaya.
Pessaries of peppermint and sicklewort.
Pebbles.
Plan B.
Paying a man $150 to beat your pregnant belly.
Pennyroyal mentioned in Aristophones’ play Peace.
Pine.
Quinine suppositories sold in London from 1885 to 1960.
Queen Anne’s Lace is still used in Watauga County, North Carolina.
Rajasthani women take Queen Anne’s Lace seeds too.
Rock salt soaked in oil.
Ruta graveoloens of which Pliny the Elder wrote.
Rubber cervical caps modified then stamped with the word “Racial” by Dr. Stope, a eugenicist.
Seaweed.
Sponge soaked in spermicide.
Squirting cucumber, from the greek word ekballion, abortion. Favorite of Hippocrates and Linneaus.
Sharpened stick.
Shooting yourself in the stomach.
Suicide.
Tubal ligation.
The Puerto Rico pill trial.
Tear gas.
Uterine removal by hysterectomy.
Vitamin C tablets in the 70s. Some women experienced severe burns.
Vitex.
Vinegar.
Vacuum aspiration.
Walking where a pregnant wolf has urinated thrice.
Weasel testicles.
Willow.
Wormwood.
Xenophobic sterilization of Puerto Rican women without consent.
Title X funds (cut in 2019 from domestic and global clinics providing information on abortion).
Yam, used by the Aztecs, from which Dr. Pincus would extract progesterone for the birth control pill.
Z Tuss AC.®
Zygote implantation may have been prevented by silphium, a Libyan plant harvested into extinction.