I'll start with an anecdote. I once went to a nearby nursery with my partner, to pick up a few native grasses and trees. While I was there we found a native peppermint that had amazing white flowers, and we grabbed it. At the counter, the owner scanned everything and when he got to this peppermint - mentha australis - paused. He gave us two warnings. He asked if my partner was trying to get pregnant, and said that Aboriginal Tasmanian's used it for birth control. Secondly, he said it can grow out of control. I really can't speak to the accuracy of the first statement; but found the second to be accurate.

 

The image of a tea immediately after sexual intercourse is an exaggeration of what we see in historical records and archaeology, but there is a bit of truth that pre-industrial society had some capacity for inducing abortion. There was certainly not a weekly dose of mentha australis or the like in the same way as the pill. The right botanics were instead, more likely a dangerous version of RU486, and the average botanist would probably be skeptical of the success rate or safety.

 

Historically, it is true that there were brews/teas used to induce or attempt to induce abortion. Aboriginal Australians across different tribes used a variety of plants brewed into teas, as did the Maori in New Zealand. The Maori, however, believed that if a fetus died in utero, this would create 'an evil spirit of the greatest possible malevolence' (Gluckman, 1973, Maori Attitudes Toward Abortion, in The Linacre Quarterly: 40:1); which is believed to have led to favouring infanticide among some Maori groups.

 

Archaeologists give us a picture of abortion in Europe, and we know of a variety of plants that were used- I'm not familiar with the specific plants, or combinations and in terms of Europe, I'm sure someone else is better placed to discuss further how common induced abortions were. My reading of this some time ago is that these were very sickening, and could cause permanent damage.

 

For Australia, pre-European contact, there appears to have not been any strong taboos against induced abortions or infanticide, with favouritism to the latter. Blainey writes that 'the relative ease with which [Aboriginal women] bore children may partly account for the frequency with which they delayed the destruction of an unwanted baby until after it was born' (Blainey, Triumph of the Nomads, p.96.). Essentially, he argues that infanticide was an accepted practice in Indigenous Australia (as it is believed to have been in most nomadic societies), and that the archaeology and later accounts shows us that it was actually not common for women to die during childbirth.

 

Still, abortions were used to control numbers, as well as to allow some sexual freedom for women. In regards to the former, the number of children a women could have was partly a result of logistics- they could only physically carry a limited number of infants in a nomadic society. We know the latter to be the case in Australia based on interviews of Indigenous women in 1948, which would have included stories and lore passed down from woman to woman.

 

Rather than just using brews/teas, however, it was common to 'press the hands heavily upon the stomach of pregnant women'; and we known this method with minor variations was common in several different cultures, in Europe and Australasia.

 

In Indigenous culture, the concept of men's business and women's business meant that it was certainly not common for knowledge over certain plants and their intent to be distributed to everyone. Young women would have learnt from the females in their tribes the importance of certain totems, plants, and foods; basically an oral education on spirituality, medicines and acceptable food. It is unlikely males would have been aware of much, if any, of what these women would discuss and what stories and histories were shared around plants, including those meant to induce abortion; not out of taboo for the practice, but because this was a part of Aboriginal culture around men and women's secret business.