76: The Insurmountable Problem of No Children Pt. 1 - Contraception in America

Accusers of Joseph try desperately to write off the inconvenient fact that he had no children with any supposed polygamist wife, even to the point of making truly ludicrous arguments. This episode will once and for all lay to rest the ridiculous claims that Joseph or his supposed wives practiced any form of birth control, or worse, any form of abortion.
Tracing the timeline of contraceptive technology in America as compared to the timeline of Joseph’s supposed polygamy is research that should have been done before these claims were ever made.
This episode, responding directly to the claims made by Lindsay Hansen Park, Radio Free Mormon, and Bill Reel, will clearly reveal that it would be far more plausible to claim that Joseph and his wives had access to electric lighting, telephones, and automobiles, than the claims they make to try to explain away his lack of children in polygamy.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to 132 problems revisiting Mormon polygamy where we explore the scriptural and theological and historical case for plural marriage. I am so excited for this episode. I have been working on this one for weeks and I have been so anxious to get it out. I think it is critical information that I am so excited to add to the discussion of these topics. Um I really hope that you will listen to it all the way through. I think as I said, it is critical information. I hope that you will share it broadly. Um especially with people who think that the case is closed and who tend to want to accuse Joseph Smith of many things. I think that this is information they really need to be aware of and really need to consider and deal with. And so with that being said, I again think anyone who has contributed to this podcast, this is taking a lot of time. So I so much appreciate any help to be able to do it. And I would like to ask if anyone else is able to help. Please do, please do be willing to do that because it means a lot and makes it a lot easier to do this. So with all of that said, thank you for joining us as we take this deep dive into the murky waters of Joseph’s polygamy and the history of contraception in America. I need to start with a little bit of housekeeping. First. I need to let everyone know that for now, the Mormonism live discussion has been either canceled or postponed. There are many reasons for it. Um Cliff note’s version, they didn’t feel that they could do it without a 3 to 4 hour discussion in advance and on the um, agreed date of August 2nd, I didn’t, I had so many topics like this one that I was working on and excited to get out. I wanted to present the information. I’ve worked so hard to research to my audience on my podcast rather than in their discussion that I didn’t understand. And so I wanted to work on my things and we just couldn’t get that worked through. So maybe at some time after I’ve been able to catch up on the episodes that I’ve really been wanting to do and get the information to you that I’ve really wanted to get to you. And hopefully they’ll have watched some of these. I really hope that people who support that perspective and those who are arguing, it will watch this episode and seriously consider the information presented. So maybe it will happen at some point in the future that would, I think all of us hope for that. So we’ll see where it goes. But, um, anyway, I do very much while we, I, we do have kind of, I asked if we could just call a truce and not make videos about each other. It’s just been unpleasant and difficult and I wanted to step away, but I do need to respond to several of the claims they have made because that’s what the discussion really is. So that’s what this episode and the next episode will be doing is responding to some of the claims I want to clarify that. Um, this is in no way trying to pick a fight again or make any personal attacks. My first episode wasn’t intended to do that either. I was surprised by where it went. I just think it’s important to respond to the claims to have ideas presented and to respond to them. That’s all I’m trying to do. I’m going to use the Mormonism live and, um RFM video clips because it’s a really condensed compact statement of several, the arguments. I’ll add some of the others in as well that they didn’t cover of specifically why Joseph Smith doesn’t, didn’t have any Children with any of his polygamous wives. This is an extremely important topic. So that’s why I’m quoting them is just to respond to the claims in that condensed form which I appreciate. So nothing else intended no personal attacks, nothing like that. But, um, I also need to let you know, I need to issue a bit of a par parental advisory warning on the outset. There shouldn’t be anything too scandalous, but I am going to be using some words and talking about some topics that some parents might not be comfortable having their Children here. It’s up to you. But, um, I just wanted to let you know from the beginning we are going to be discussing reproductive topic, birth control topics. Um Some specific words of anatomy occasionally. So there you go. That’s what’s gonna be in this episode. So OK, let’s, let’s get into it. I’ve got to set a little bit of the stage first, the lack of Children while people want to write it off. Now, it has always been the biggest problem for the claim that Joseph was the originator of polygamy. Um It’s certainly not the only problem, but I think it is fair to say that it’s the biggest problem and I want to clarify because this is sometimes misunderstood. I am not claiming that the lack of Children is proof that Joseph was a, was a, was not a polygamist. What I am claiming is those who insist that Joseph was a polygamist despite all of his and all of his family’s constant record of disavowing it, fighting against it, trying to put it down. There’s more that will be said, can be said and has been said about that. But basically, they are saying that despite all of that, they still insist that Joseph was a polygamist. And so really, Children is the burden of proof that they need to deal with.

[00:05:18] If the things they say about Joseph are true, then there should be Children. That’s just a fact that’s been accepted from the very beginning. And so it is the responsibility of those who want to claim and insist that Joseph was a polygamist to explain adequately the lack of Children. And I will show in this episode that that absolutely has not been done. And so that’s, that’s what we’re going to dive into. So again, from the very beginning of the assertions that Joseph was a polygamist, which really started in 1869 25 years after his death when the battle between the R LDS and the LDS started, started to heat up. That was one of the central points of inquiry. It was universally recognized that was critical to the question. Where are Joseph’s Children? In his several trips to Utah, Joseph Smith, the third repeatedly asked the women claiming to be wives where their Children were. He wanted to meet all of his cousins. They were actually would have been his half siblings, but it was apparently too foreign and he just called them his cousins. Um the lawyers and judges in the temple lot trial, all recognized and agreed that the lack of posterity was damning to the polygamous story. The women who testified claiming to be Joseph’s wives were asked on the stand why they had no Children with Joseph and they did their best to give plausible answers. The judge did not find the answers plausible. So, but, but what we can take from that is that both sides recognize that the question was Essen essential. It was central to the claim of Joseph’s polygamy um in the efforts to find and gather affidavits of Joseph’s polygamy done started by Joseph F Smith and then others. Um one of the main things they were looking for were any claims of his Children, they were working hard to try to find them, right? Which is why despite there being no actual, no actual Children, many claims were repeatedly made. And then Fon Brodie who was first to write the um biography of Joseph Smith, the a a more um scholarly biography of Joseph Smith. She, she knew that she couldn’t accuse him of polygamy without providing the necessary evidence. So she provided many claims of Children, all of which have been completely debunked. In fact, several of them were not even consider until over a year after Joseph died. So she, she recognized the need for Children so much that she included any possible claims that she could find even without doing the necessary research to conform if it was even possible. So all of these people absolutely understood the implications of the existence of or lack of Children from Joseph’s polygamous marriages. So um this, this issue continues. Brian Hall admits in the 18 sixties and 18 seventies when R LDS missionaries in Utah emphasized lineal succession in the church presidency. LDS. Church leaders would have been motivated to produce Joseph’s offspring. Not only to establish his role in Nauvoo polygamy, but also to dilute the succession claims of the three surviving sons of Joseph and Emma. The church leaders never took such a step again because they couldn’t, they never provided any offspring because they couldn’t because there wasn’t any which I think they at least knew. Um Fair Latter day saint admits. Thus, the absence of Children was something of an embarrassment to the Utah church, which members felt a need to explain. It would have been greatly their advantage to produce Joseph’s offspring. But they could not, they could not produce Joseph’s offspring no matter how desperate they were to do. So. He, it adds in the footnote, they acknowledge that this embarrassment remains to the present become because members, some members remain unconvinced of Joseph’s polygamy. They’re right. And the church has no good way to refute the claims of people like Richard and Pamela Price. Who they quote, saying the truth that Joseph fought polygamy is found in Joseph’s denials and the fact that he had no Children by any woman but his wife Emma. So that’s a good summation. I think there is a lot more proof, including the things we’ve been covering that those who claim Joseph was a polygamist are now proven in their own journals and letters that they were practicing it years before they claim he ever taught it to them. And so much more information that is continually coming out. So that’s, that’s just an understatement of what the evidence is. So until recently, while there was no proof that Joseph had Children in polygamy, there were all of these various claims which many people chose to believe. But now the best of these claims have all been completely debunked, which should leave anyone willing to honestly look at it to have to conclude that Joseph did not have Children with anyone but Emma, it’s really kind of silly to rule out all of these which

[00:10:22] were by far the strongest claims and say well, but there could be some others. Yeah, that’s really not helpful to the discussion. I would say it’s wishful thinking, not evidence based or critical thinking at all. So, um unfortunately, while the existence of one single child would prove at the very least infidelity, if not full blown blown polygamy, the proof that all claims of Joseph’s Children were falsehoods doesn’t seem to have the same degree of impact that I think it absolutely should have so many people, including historians and scholars have refused to accept the clear implications of this evidence that people lied about Joseph’s polygamy that that body of evidence is growing enormously and we just keep ignoring it every single time. There’s a debate about whether or not someone was actually a wife. We have to acknowledge that people were lying because the only reason we believe anyone was his wife was because people accused him and claimed that without any evidence for it. So anyway, instead of, instead of just acknowledging that people struggle to rewrite the narrative to fit the fit it into the new information or fit the new information into it. And as a result, an interesting collection of very bad ideas based on very bad scholarship and lacking basic historical understanding or, and just a little bit of research has emerged. And so to restate this 100% of the claims of Children must be removed from the pile of evidence of Joseph’s polygamy and added to the large and growing pile of false claims of evidence that people were lying about Jelo polygamy were exaggerating, lying, telling falsehoods, making things up. And we’ll get into that in other episodes. We’ve talked about it before. I’m not saying that to be accusatory just to explain the situation, they have their reasons, right? And so um i it’s hard for me to understand why this doesn’t influence our conclusions. I really think it should. And so at the same time, 100% of the excuses for why there are no Children must be added to the large and apparently growing list of bad scholarship and bad history. That’s what we’re going to talk about now. So this is a major problem for all of the Joseph accusers no matter how much they want to minimize it. It is a massive, I would say insurmountable problem. Both the LDS and the anti LDS anti Joseph accusers, they have to deal with it adequately. And honestly, in most areas of this discussion, I have repeatedly said that I believe the weakest position, the one I would least like to try to defend is the standard LDS narrative set mainly by Brian Halls. I think that’s the least tenable position to be on this. In this whole discussion. I think that the actual polygamists have the funding mentalists have a better position and the anti Mormons have a better position. But this is the one area where I think that is completely switched. The one area where the exact opposite is true where the anti Mormon anti Joseph people have the weakest position. One that is the least defensible is in the discussion about Joseph’s lack of Children. So Brian Hales, this is how he explains it away. He says, basically, I’m summing up, I’ll, I’ll put the links below, but he basically says Joseph was a busy guy, right? He had a lot to do. Apparently he didn’t have time to spend in bed except with Emma. Um He had to keep everything on the down low. So, you know, it was secret and apparently he would have been having sex publicly. I, I don’t know. Um, Emma was basically babysitting him, having him tailed and followed. So, cheating on her was hard. And, um, then he says that there were diminishing returns with additional wives. So apparently according to him, adding more wives lessened the chances of any of them getting pregnant. I’m, I, I, I’m not sure he’s a math guy when I hear this claim. So I, if you have 33 wives, you have a greater likelihood of impregnating, at least some of your wives than if you have one wife. Or even if you have 10 wives, when a wife is, is pregnant, she can’t get pregnant again. But when you have a lot of wives, all of them can get pregnant. Right. So, anyway, that’s, that’s, I think, you know, pretty bad explanations. But it, I, and I want to do a future episode on the LDS perspective, reading all of Brian’s um episodes. Uh I mean, all of his, um, what do you call it? Evidences of sexuality? I would like to do a third part on this topic if I can at some point. Um For now we’re just gonna do these two. But anyway, I think that that is pretty bad, but it is practically respectable when compared to the explanations of the anti Joseph cohort who insists that Joseph was a sexual predator who abused his position of power to seduce and control the sexuality of dozens of women. So today we will look at their claims and explanations. Again, I want to state, I would prefer to not respond directly to these videos,

[00:15:40] but I don’t know how else to demonstrate the problem or at least how better to demonstrate the problem and to make the point of what uh what the arguments are that need to be dealt with. So, again, not intended as any sort of an attack, just a necessary response. So please don’t attack them or be unkind in any comments to them. And I would ask their listeners to please do the same, had more than enough of that. Let’s just respond to the arguments and the points at hand. That would be great. So, OK, in the presentation on the evidence of Joseph’s polygamy, the question of Children in the, in the Mormonism live discussion, the chil the question of Children was not addressed until the very end. The very last question was somebody asking about this. So it’s something that they really prefer not to talk about. Um They did allow the question because I think they had to at least acknowledge it, but it, it was not very, it was, it was the very last part of their discussion, right? And so there were several responses they repeated, they represent an interesting list of the claims and justifications offered and relied upon most of their discuss most of their points I have heard in from other people. And in discussions and in comments, there were a few new ones. So we’ll get to those. But um anyway, I want to point out on the outset that every single one of their explanations and justifications only exists at all because then the evidence has changed. So they are needing to shift and move and pivot without any um support, no historical support or evidence. Just additional speculation to try to explain, to try to make their beliefs fit in with the new evidence that doesn’t match their belief so that this happens throughout the discussion. And I want to point out like, I hope Bill Rio will recognize this is exactly what he describes as the opposite of critical thinking. And so I hope that those who think this way or who advocate these positions will gen genuinely consider that and be a little less to accuse others and a little quicker to introspect about themselves. So I’m going to first quickly play and respond to sort of the side claims that are made this conversation. Um Honestly, this is by far not the most important part of this discussion and this episode. So if you’re not going to be able to listen to the entire episode at some point, just skip like the next 10 minutes and come through and listen to the rest because the, the one central repeated claim that this entire episode is dedicated to really makes the rest of these somewhat irrelevant. But I want to respond to them first before we move on to the rest. Again, I am playing the clips from these people, but it’s only to respond to the ideas. I do not want to pick any battles and I don’t, this is nothing personal. So I think that um people who have spoken out sort of as experts on these topics have to support their ideas. So that’s, I’m, I’m just trying to make us all think. So, let’s play the first clip here. It is. Well, I have a lot to say on this. I mean, it’s Hugo Perego has done a lot of work on the DNA and he’s published a few essays that are really important. He’s, and he’s followed it and up until this point, uh they have not been able to track, you know, the, the DNA in any of the descendants that said, uh if you talk to any forensic genealogists, we are still developing new technology. So I wouldn’t say the case is closed on that. So let’s put the DNA thing away for a minute. OK. This claim I have heard many times. It has come to me in many comments. I’ve seen it in discussions, I’ve heard it said by other people and I find it absolutely fascinating, especially since it comes from this cohort, the cohort that have in many, many cases, rejected the book of Mormon based in large part on DNA. And many have rejected God and claim to instead believe in things like science. And so it’s really fascinating to hear people who accuse me and people who believe like me of being science deniers literally deny science. This was cutting edge research by a leader in the field who showed all of his work. There is no argument against his conclusions based on anything other than motivated reasoning. And so I’m pointing this out also because their side claims that they don’t suffer from confirmation bias or motivated reasoning that only our side does. And I think this is a really good demonstration of how much motivated reasoning and confirmation bias bias. There actually is on that side. Ok. I’m going to jump forward to another claim that we hear Joseph Smith had a lot to lose. If babies came out from his, his unions, they would have been direct evidence. And I and I don’t just mean indictments of his sexual morality. It would have become a legal issue, a property issue. OK. So I’m going to play another clip that goes along to some extent with that one. So in N VU during Joseph Smith’s lifetime, the practice of polygamy was obviously done with an eye toward not having any Children. And every effort would be made in order to avoid that happening, efforts would be made to avoid conception efforts would be made

[00:21:19] even if a baby were accidentally conceived to abort the baby. OK. So that’s that claim, right? That of course, obviously, Joseph was intentionally trying not to have Children. I want to again point out that these are complete, completely speculative unsupported claims. There is no evidence anywhere to support that Joseph was in any way trying to not have Children. It’s just the excuse that has been come up with to explain the fact that Joseph Smith did not have any Children. So also it’s based on very fuzzy if any actual scholarship and again, huge historical ignorance, which we will demonstrate very clearly in this episode. So first please explain what exact exactly what property issues and legal issues Joseph would face by having additional Children that would deter him from having Children, that wouldn’t deter him from having additional wives, right? That taking additional wives is ok even with property and legal issues, but having Children is where he would draw the line. I I want that to be explained more in detail exactly what were those issues and how would they affected him and why did they apply only to him and not to any of the other polygamist men who had Children in Nauvoo? And so anyway, I’m I’m going to jump ahead to speaking of that claim to play this next clip right here. But another point I think that can be made here is that polygamy deniers such as Miss Stone, believe that Joseph Smith did not practice polygamy but these Neer do Wells Brigham Young Heber C kimball. Other people were indeed practicing polygamy during those nau years while Joseph Smith was alive. So if that is the case that Joseph Smith was not practicing polygamy, but Brigham Young and Hebrew C. Kimball and a number of other high ranking church officials were practicing polygamy during this time period. Where are their Children that were produced from their polygamous marriages? Ok. I am going to have to save a couple of these, these claims for next week. This one, I’m going to address in depth with Peter Brown next week and I’m really excited to get into it. I’m actually really these two episodes I have been looking forward to for a long time because I think they are so absolutely necessary. So we will ask absolutely get into that and answer this claim. I also want to point out that along with all of these things, it’s important to compare Joseph’s supposed polygamy with the polygamy of these other men, things like journal entries and letters and Children and other things. I think that um really the, the, the, the point it needs to be really understood here is that the claim that the reason there are no Children from Joseph’s polygamy and no other evidence either is because it was so super secret, he had to keep it so secret, but that only applies to Joseph, not any of the others who were practicing polygamy and who did leave mounds of evidence at the same time in their journals. And letters and their Children and other things. So that, that really needs to be critically thought about. It needs to be critically evaluated rather than just knee jerk accepted as true, just because people want it to be true. That’s not, that’s not a good way to find truth. The other point that needs to be made here that will, I will go into more in a future episode that I’m also eager to get to is that it’s not like Joseph’s secret, polygamy was actually secret, right? John Bennett’s books had been out for quite a while and were very widely read and um for those who are objecting in their minds to other witnesses. Yes, I am planning to do a future episode on the Novo Expositor and the Revelation and all of that topic. That’s the other topic I, one of the other topics I’m really looking forward to. So if it would have been utterly impossible for Joseph to have Children, then why did all of the Utah Mormons continually claim that he did have Children? And why did they so desperately try to make that be true? It’s, it’s really these are things that people need to acknowledge and accept. And so please watch next week as we will compare the polygamy of these various people. It’s important. OK. I’m going to play another, I think unfortunate clip and Joseph Smith had a terrible rate of fertility. You look at his own uh Children, his two twins were adopted because his first two died. Emma lost her Children. They didn’t have a lot of, uh, you know, strength in his, in his, uh, line, his line, his line of seed, whatever you want to call it. So, ok, this unfortunate claim will also be addressed more next week. That was a new one I hadn’t heard before. And I think it’s unfortunate and I’ll save the rest of the response for next week. Ok.

[00:26:36] Here’s the next part of that. There are so many reasons. I, I actually think this is such a weak argument. It’s a very Mormon argument, right? Because we’re like, we want the kids and we want the DNA and we want the Joseph Smith. Uh If OK, so I, I have to say here again, insulting people who make this Mormon argument is not evidence that the argument is flawed. It is evidence instead that there aren’t good responses to the argument because you’re resulting to belittling the argument and the people who make it rather than providing good evidence to respond to it. Continuing again, Joseph Smith. Uh If you know, Grant Palmer’s work is to be believed early on. He was not unfamiliar with sex. Uh If his early journals about his own virtue were to be believed, he spent some time with uh oh women of ill repute. He was not unfamiliar with uh this and neither were women. OK. So let’s just respond to this quickly. To say um no, Grant Palmer is not to be believed in this. If you can show me the early journals where Joseph talked about visiting women of ill repute, then let’s have that conversation. Um I think this is extremely weak evidence and also it ends with the claim we’re going to address more in depth that um basically, you’ll go on to hear that these weren’t stupid, aimless yokels as they would be called if they didn’t control their fertility. So, ok, let’s go on to the last clip. I’m going to play right now. Yeah. Again, we only use that question if only the sexual dynamic part of it matters like you still have to own that. Joseph Smith used predatory behavior and manipulation across the board with on the record most of these women that if you were to make a, uh, a study of what child predators do to manipulate Children. For instance, one of the things they do is they give gifts and in the paper I read the gift they named was they give people watches by the way. And then I go and read Mormon History where Joseph Smith had a pattern of giving these women watches in including the 16 year old Flora Woodworth who got a land deed. OK. I just have to pause here to say, I really hope people have watched my episode on Chat GP T that addresses this claim about watches and Flora Woodworth. I think that, that is important. Let’s see if I want to continue on with this. You have to deal with the manipulation and abuse of tactics in the predatory behaviors. And if you can explain those away, then maybe we can move on to whether there was sex is sex or not. Ok. I’m going to pause out there. He goes on, he goes on to make the same claim that they had ways to deal with not getting pregnant, which is the claim we’re going to address. But this one was so bizarre to me because it was twisted thinking that that I don’t know how they get to other than so desperately wanting to get there. So the claim basically is that Joseph was a sexual predator who didn’t necessarily have sex with his victims, right? Like the entire question about Joseph’s Children is not trying to justify his predatory behavior in the absence of sex. It is claiming that all of these stories that were told decades later about Joseph Smith, which is the only place we get any evidence of this predatory behavior from. It is claiming that those are not true. And one of the huge evidences of that that has not been overcome by those who claim that he was a predator is the fact that he has no Children. So it’s so weird to me to have in the same sentence compare Joseph Smith to these sexual predators and pedophiles who give watches while at the same time saying he didn’t have sex with his victims. I, I can’t understand that at all. So if, if you’re a sexual predator and a pedophile who doesn’t sexually abuse any of your victims, then by definition, you’re not a sexual predator or pedophile, right? And so I think that this is a really important thing to think through and understand that is completely missing the argument. I am saying the fact that that Joseph didn’t do any of these predatory behaviors. I also want to point out quickly that the women who later told these stories that we now see as absent, absolutely predatory. They were not at all trying to paint Joseph as a predator. They were um telling stories trying to emphasize the, the um like the amount of revelation and inspiration they had and the huge degree of their sacrifice, they were maxi maximizing their own sacrifice to this principle in a context, a culture where sacrifice was exalted, where the greatest thing you could do sacrifice as a woman in particular was sacrificed for the sake of plural marriage. I think that explains why these stories come out the way they do. So anyway, II, I just would challenge anyone to explain to me how you can be a sexual predator and a pedophile who never has sex with any of your victims,

[00:32:09] like, you know, and the story about it was about controlling their sexuality. Again, what does that mean? We know so many of Joseph’s supposed wives did marry other men either right before or right after he supposedly married them again. Watch the episode on Chat G BT where I talked about Flora Woodworth. That’s, that’s a good one to start with. So, ok, a few. That’s, that, those are all of the points that they talked about that are not the central point. A few that they left out that I’ve heard again that we’ll cover next week. Um, Demic Quinn made some very strange claim that they haven’t fully figured out. Yeah, but it was basically something about Joseph’s astrological power and he was guided by Saturn and Jupiter. And so he timed, he was able to control and only had conceptions in certain months. So something along those lines will get into it more. There are some weird claims, I think this is one of those and then the other claim that I’ve heard often is that these women were under a lot of pressure. That’s kind of the excuse the women themselves give often. And, and so, you know, apparently women can’t conceive if they’re stressed. I just want to point out that women can conceive in all kinds of extremely stressful situations including rape, which is about as stressful as it gets. So that also just doesn’t, doesn’t cut it. So, ok, those are the side claims. Now we’re going to get into the most important claim. The one that I want to respond to in depth in this discussion. So let me get this cued up and I will play this first clip for you. I’m sorry. But has anyone ever been on Tinder or like Ashley Madison is everyone, is every man that’s ever been married having babies every time he steps out of his marriage. I don’t think so. Ok, I’m going to pause there because something you’ll hear a couple of times is comparing modern conception rates and ability to modern birth control methods that we have right now to 18 forties, birth control methods. That something there’s this weird presents throughout this. That’s like, no, we can do it. They could do it too. You know, we’ve here, this is for our FM, we’ve sent a man to the moon. Of course, they could have sent a man to the moon too. It’s really a strange way to start this discussion is every Republican that’s busted for having an affair, having babies as evidence. We, we treat the 19th century like it’s that separated from us. They had technology, abortions have always existed and we know from patty sessions and other midwives and John C Bennett that they had the medicine to allow women to have abortions. They didn’t have the morality around it. That is so fraught in American politics. So sometimes it had to do with women’s lives. Other times it had to do with secrecy and there was contraceptives in the 19th century and men that stepped out were very familiar with those. So then we have to look at this. If we know that abortions and contraceptives were happening, women did know how to control their pregnancies. It’s not like they were cattle back then and just didn’t know all the time. The reason why people had so many babies is because they needed them. There was a necessity for it. Not all women were just stupid, aimless women who just whatever happens happens, people were strategic about family planning even more so because they had to feed these mouths. So we gotta stop treating 19th century people like stupid yokels who didn’t know what the consequences of sex were. They knew and they paid very close attention to it. And so, ok, there is a ton there, so many things to address. So um we we are going to spend this entire episode responding to it. Um Anyway, there’s a lot more, let me play just a couple more clips in this next clip. RFM has just told a story about learning um as an adult that his mother had been married before she was married to his father and this is what he says about it. And then after taking this in, I said, uh so are do I have any brothers or sisters running around out there that I don’t know about? And she said no, well, uh we practiced contraception and I said contraception in the 19 thirties and she laughed and said, well, it wasn’t the dark ages that opened my eyes a little bit. Ok. So again, this, there was no technological difference in society between the 18 forties and almost 100 years later to the 19 thirties. Like these very uninvestigated claims that are just made and accepted. It’s really interesting. Here is the next clip to think that women are stupid enough to not care for the consequences if I’m in the 19th century and I’m a woman. I have to worry about sexual assault. I have to worry about pregnancy and guess what happens if I’m assaulted or I get pregnant, I get blamed for it. I get shunned. I, I have to live in a life of uh sacrifice prostitution. Who knows? So I’m gonna be really careful about what happens to me. Now. We’re all women. No, because there are a lot of set of circumstances but to act like these women, uh

[00:37:40] who some of who were already married weren’t smart and careful about. This is naive and sexist, I think. Ok, so, um, I think that might be, oh, that’s just about our last clip. But again, um, the language used and the attitude is shocking to me, the accusations of women being stupid, cattle aimless yokels and not smart. And like this is really weird when it said in conjunction with the accusation that it’s sexist to say otherwise. I, I just, I am really surprised and baffled by, I have been very baffled by what I’ve heard in this episode while recording, I forgot to make a very important point. It is absolutely true that women have always been extremely vulnerable and have had to be the ones to pay the highest price for sex because yes, women are the ones who can become pregnant. So they were extremely careful. That’s true. But that is exactly why society and women in particular set such rigid standards around sex and expected and even insisted that sex only occur within marriage where women and their Children would not be left alone and vulnerable, but would have the best chance of being protected, provided for and care for. Also, I want to point out any man who was known to have impregnated and deserted a woman would not have been acknowledged or welcomed in society. There was no intentional double standard whatsoever men who did that were held in far lower regard than the women who were viewed as their victims. Back to the program. Ok. Next for this next one, I need to play two clips. Here’s the first one I did mention the bill earlier today when we were talking about this very issue. Simply the possibility that if you have access to 30 or 33 women sexually, then you can arrange things such that the woman you’re having sex with is not ovulating. Ok. So there’s the first claim, I mean, the first um statement of this claim And here is the second one and we can only approximate the number because once again, it was a secret practice. But if Joseph Smith had, as most historians agree in the neighborhood of 33 wives, it would make it easier to have sex with a wife who is not able to conceive at that particular point in her cycle. And if you’ve got 33 women and they’re not living together, then they’re going to have different cycles. And a person such as Joseph Smith could certainly take advantage of those cycles in order to avoid having any Children conceived. But another point I think, ok, so there is that claim that um basically Joseph Smith was implement, implementing the rhythm method with his many wives. So please remember that one. We won’t be able to, we’re going to address that one at the very end of this episode. So it’s important to remember it because it’s a very important one. And so now one last clip to play and contraception and abortions are things that have been going on in this world for thousands of years. It would be a mistake to look back to the 18 forties and the 18 thirties in the United States of America. And just think that because that’s a long time ago, they had no practices of contraception and they had no ways of aborting Children who were conceived. I had also. Ok. So there, there is the list of claims on this topic, right. Like we’ve heard in very strong language that 19th century 18 forties women were as sophisticated as could be. And that it is, it is an insult to them to claim that they did not have knowledge of how to prevent conception and how to have abortions, that they absolutely would have been willing to do those things and they would have been able to. So, ok, there is so much here. I have to say that this episode is the culmination of a massive amount of study, several books, dozens of scientific journal articles and countless websites and other sources have gone into this. So you are going to get a serious education on the history of contraceptives in America. I find this information to be extremely interesting. It has been a fascinating study. It’s been an incredible amount of work to try to format this and put it together and to make sure I had all of the sources which I really think I do. I, I welcome anyone to add to this, but I was as absolutely comprehensive as I knew how to be. So, ok, let’s let’s get on to this. And um please, as I said before, make sure you get all the way to the end of this one. If you need to take it in chunks, that’s great. Go ahead and do it. But please remember to come back because the discussion of Joseph’s polygamy should not continue without this information being on the table and being accepted, considered and addressed. So, ok, a few first, a few initial points before we really dive into it. One problem with every single claim they listed, including the ones I’ll address at the end is that there is zero evidence for any of these claims. In fact, they oppose these claims, oppose the evidence that we do have here. Let me give you one example among the various excuses.

[00:43:21] Every woman who was ever asked about why she didn’t have Children with Joseph made guess what none of them ever said that they were in any way intentionally preventing conception or worse, that they intentionally destroyed a conception. You will see going forward from the vast amount of sources I have read over the past several weeks. It is as close to certain as possible that not only would none of them have known about such things, they would have been completely repulsed, discussed and appalled by the very idea and they would be absolutely furious. They would be positively incensed that anybody would ever claim they did such things that needs to be considered and acknowledged because it is true. Ok. And then claiming Joseph Smith’s wives used birth control. I’m going to give you a little bit of a spoiler alert here the that they use birth control, which was a term that did not even exist in the English language until Margaret Sanger first coined it in 1914. And as a result had to flee to England to avoid prosecution and jail time or that they had abortions. Another term that would not gain its current defini definition of intentional termination until the late 19 nineties. Before that, it was synonymous with miscarriage. An induced abortion would be the same as an induced miscarriage. Those words were perfect synonyms. And so that all of that is just completely historically unsubstantiated and actually in direct opposition to every historical source and fact, and it doesn’t take all that much work to figure this out. So even the word contraception, which was a kind of clever mingling of the Latin contra, which means against and conception. So they shortened it down to contraception that wasn’t coined until 1886 which was 42 years after Joseph’s death. So the reason I’m pointing this out for those who might be saying that doesn’t matter. I point this out because it’s important to realize that as language speaking humans, we develop words for concepts because that’s how we think about things and it’s absolutely how we communicate things. If we have a concept, we very quickly develop a word for it. Some examples that I mean, there are infinite examples. But let’s think about internet artificial intelligence, social media, we could go on and on and on. None of those words exist just a few decades ago. Like an example of this we can look at is Adam, right? He named all of the animals. Things don’t really exist until they have a name. As soon as someone invents something. The first thing they do is name it right. You give it a name when you have a child, you name that child. That is how we work. That is what humans do when they have something, they develop a name for it. And so the fact that they didn’t have any of these words is actually evidence in and of itself that the concepts did not exist. Generally, words are developed well before concepts are known by the general public, right? The people who first come up with the concept or development or technology or invention and tool, they name it and then they try to introduce it to the rest of society. So names come first, right? They come along with the concept in society. So I am not using this as the evidence to say that these things didn’t exist. I’m just using it as a demonstration. What we’re going to go into now is the proof of that these things did not exist. So, and I want to also clarify, I’m talking about America, right? 19th century America. So it doesn’t matter. I hope nobody goes and looks up ancient Greek or Ancient Egyptian or ancient Roman civilization says, look what they were doing. What they knew about whatever claims we want to make about ancient society, has nothing to do with the current discussion. What we are talking about is 19th century America. That’s what we are looking at, right. That’s where our discussion needs to be centered. So, um I think that you are going to find this illuminating. I also just have to say on the outside, this is a little bit of a complex topic for me talking about birth control because as the mother of a very large family, I don’t want people to assume that I oppose birth control. I actually don’t, I have used it. I would never tell my Children not to use it. I don’t think that the world would necessarily be a better place if every single person had a really big family. And if people were generally forced to have Children that they didn’t want and wouldn’t dedicate their lives to raising well, so don’t take any of this to say that I’m opposed to birth control. However, learning the history of it has been complicated for me, but I don’t necessarily think that just because something has a bad history means that everything about it is bad now. So, ok, let’s, let’s get on with it right? To discuss the development of contraception in America. I’m going to use the words, birth control, contraception, abortion, all of those words, even though please remember they did not exist in the context that I’m talking about, right? So we are actually to start this discussion in England, in England with Thomas Malthus who was actually

[00:48:50] a compare uh contemporary of Joseph Smith. He died in 1834. So he wrote his first pamphlet called an essay on the Principle of population. In 1798 it was just a pamphlet. It was republished in greater and greater numbers over the next 30 years and in increasingly expanded form, he kept adding and adding to it. So here here is, are some of the things he said, the the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce substance for man. Um He basically his claim, the central claim was that population grows geometrically, meaning it multiplies while food supply grows arithmetically, meaning it just adds. So mankind is destined for perpetual suffering and eventual destruction and um population growth he claims leads to poverty and when poverty is alleviated. So this is the terrible cycle, right? Population growth grows way too fast, it causes poverty. But as soon as poverty is alleviated, all people do is have more Children. So alleviating poverty just perpetuates the problem. So there’s no way out of this terrible cycle of humankind. He claimed the only ways this destructive growth could be checked were things like war, famine, plague, and disease or moral restraint, abstinence. So those were, I guess the only hope that the human civilization had war and plague and famine anyway. So OK, it’s really cheerful stuff. It is I I would argue vehemently that on the entire list of bad ideas Malthusianism is very near the top. Um All those in all of those printings and future editions, he never adequately set out his premise. I’m quoting from um actually the encyclopedia Britannica right now, never adequately set out his premises or examined their logical status. Nor did he handle the factual and statistical materials with much critical or statistical rigor, even though statisticians in Europe and Great Britain had developed increasingly sophisticated techniques during Malthus’s lifetime. So he should have been able to be more scientific than he was. It was just purely theoretical and again, just like what we’re talking about, not grounded in any actual scientific thought or critical thought. So nevertheless, unfortunately, his ideas were accepted and incorporated into public and economic policy um with, with very bad results, it put an end to economic optimism and it inspired the horrible treatment of the poor that continued throughout, throughout the 19th century in England. The um a couple of examples, the theory of wages came into being, which is demonstrated by Ebenezer Screw Scrooge. And it advocated paying workers just barely enough for the absolute minimum cost of subs subsistence because if you paid them more, they would just have Children. And so, um it discouraged traditional forms of charity and instead led to the awful horrific 1834 poor laws. And um that those those basically regi legislated that relief would only be given in workhouses and conditions in workhouses would be such as to deter any but the truly destitute for applying from applying for relief. So, people were kept intentionally as poor as possible and as miserable as possible. And poor house conditions were intentionally made as miserable as possible with the understanding that the best thing that could happen for these people and for humanity was for them to suffer and die. It’s, it’s pretty dark, it’s pretty dire in the poor houses. I’ve done an episode on this before, but mothers and Children were intentionally separated and never allowed to see each other. Ah, sorry, they were treated very harshly as prison inmates. They were not allowed to leave, they were not free to leave and they were not free to see their Children. Um, there was no love or connection allowed and there was an extreme lack of all provisions. Children died by the thousands of starvation, exposure sickness, harsh treatment disease. They were horrible. So, but it was seen under the theory of malthusianism as part of the necessary solution. So, if the poor were helped out of their misery, they would just have more Children which would contribute to the eventual demise of mankind. It’s interesting as I’m reading through this now, I’m seeing the, you know, the eugenics that were present in so many places, not just Hitler’s Germany. These are things humankind has to grapple with and acknowledge and decide if we want to still hold any of these ideas. So malthusianism also contributed to Darwinism but more especially social Darwinism, which is eugenics, right? Eugenics, social Darwinism grew directly out of Malthusianism. So I have to say I have yet to see any good fruits of Thomas Malthus’s ideas. Um sadly, and inexplicably, those ideas have been accepted as valid for over 200 years, despite the fact that none of the many dire from various malthusian thinkers and writers throughout

[00:54:25] time have ever come to fruition. Instead the exact opposite has occurred. So I’m going to link below that. I hope some of you will watch if you’re interested, a great video about Thomas Malthus and one of the most famous recent proponents of his ideas, Paul Erlich, who wrote the Population Bomb. And it talks about the famous 1980 wager between Paul Ehrlich and the great pre eminent econo economist Julian Simon, who wrote the book, The Greatest Resource, which meant Humans, our Children ourselves, right? And they made a very famous wager to prove which of these ideas was valid. So I hope you’ll watch that video. It will be linked below. So anyway, Malthus was responsible for inspiring the first efforts at population control and family planning. Again, terms that would not exist for 100/100 and 50 years. So it was a devout Malthusian who wrote and published the first ever tract in the English language that contraception. So that’s why we’re starting here. Malthus first published his pamphlet in 1898 his sixth edition was published in 1826 his sixth and final huge edition. And just a few years later, we get this first book. It’s called Every Woman’s Book or what is love, containing most important instructions for the prudent relation of the principle of love and the number of a family. It was written and printed in London in 1828. So you can see just a few years later. Maths last book was 1826. This came in 1828 right? On the heels of it, it was written and published by Richard Car Carlisle who was already an extremely controversial and hated figure. He repeatedly spent time in prison for his publications. His wife and sister took over pub his pub publishing his works when he was in prison and they were in prison. So he had um quite, quite the life. Um, obviously, this book was massively scandalous. Um as were most of these early writings, this was basically a treatise calling for lowering the population and the acceptance of free love. So the main thing they were arguing, arguing was population control. We need less humans. And he was also arguing for free love and it was combined with a sex annual but also offered ideas on preventing conception. So here, I’ll just quote a little bit from it here. Then as in every other case of disease or other evil, it is better to prevent than to cure. And here prevention is the mo is most simply practicable a means within the reach of all. So he’s promising that he can teach us how to prevent conception. The matter is most simple and clear. It strikes us with physical reasons in a moment, why it must succeed. So it’s going to be obvious how successful what he suggests will be and why it is the only means that will succeed under complete intercourse. So if you’re not going to um abstain or some other things we’ll talk about, this is where you might wanna be careful about your kids. But anyway, either if, if you’re not going to either abstain or withdraw, which we will talk about more, then you have to use this suggestion. His suggestion was a sponge, a moistened piece of sea sponge. So it has to be moistened, redr out tied with a string and inserted before sex. And um I, I want to point out. So he says it’s obvious you can just see how obviously this would work and he recommends that everyone begin to use it. So, um a couple of things, modern contraceptive sponges that are manufactured intentionally to be the perfect space and provide the most coverage and which contain spermicide are still only around 80% effective. Um All of the recommendations for the say to also use a condom, which is kind of funny. So I couldn’t find, I couldn’t even find any stats on the failure rate of natural sponge without spermicide, basically because it is so unreliable. It is never recommended as we will see going forward. So that was really his, his suggestion, part of the purpose for writing his book. He had a few other suggestions that he only mentioned very briefly in passing because he couldn’t recommend them as they either were not available, not reliable, not enjoyable or not feasible. So I want you to pay attention to this 1828 1st book. Having anything to do with preventing conception in the English language. The best suggestion he has is a piece of sponge which is so ineffective that it was rejected immediately by the following writers as we will see. But these were the other things that he mentions but can’t recommend. So just so you can get a comprehensive idea of what the world was in the 18 twenties and 18 thirties, right? Um Well, I guess this was pretty much 1830 because it was in England in 1828 and got to America after that. So um let’s see. He says, oh, the bedros or glove, it was called the Bedros or in in, in France and in England, it was called the glove. France really is where they went to get all of their great ideas on birth control. If you wanted to have validity, you claimed you got the idea from France. So the Beruh or glove, which was an early condom made of animal intestine again, I spoke about this in the chat GP T episode.

[00:59:55] It had to be measured and made to fit and washed and reused. It was mainly only used or recommended for the aristocracy to prevent syphilis. It was that, that was its purpose to prevent syphilis. It was apparently very unpleasant to use and um more importantly, extremely expensive and hard to acquire, only available at high cost brothels. The vast majority of people did not visit those establishments. So really um sorry word coming up here. But, but Dru would have been in the same category as dildo. Like those are the kinds of, you know, you have to think of it in those terms. This was not what respectable people would talk about would want to know about and certainly would not consider using even if they could have access to it. So that’s the first thing he mentions but rejects the next is withdrawal and he says it is difficult to do consistently and very unpleasant. It causes problems. I’m just summing up what he says instead of reading it all, although it is fun to read. Um, we’ll get to this later. The health problems also. Well, the thing we’ll get to later is that keep in mind that it would have to be done every single time. It wasn’t something that could just be utilized at certain times in a woman’s cycle as we will see going forward, it had to be done every single time you ever had sex to prevent conception? And so, and then he includes a very strange explanation that I’m not going to try to describe of being at a certain angle that he claims would prevent conception. He even acknowledges that this is weird and unlikely to be effective. Here’s a quote, the theory of this practice can only be understood by anatomists or explained by anatomical plates. It certainly has been asserted by some to be efficacious, but upon the whole, it seems questionable. So those are his other suggestions. So the very first book on this topic in the English language with the most cutting edge information of the time in 1828 has these suggestions. Natural sea sponge is the only reliable form of contraception that you need to use. There are these other ideas but none of them are good or should be implemented. So, ok, we learn from him very clearly what the options, what the available options were. I want to point out that absolutely no scientific study was done for this book. Um He Carlisle was a printer, not a doctor or a scientist as if doctors or scientists would have had any better information. They didn’t, but he was basically spreading what pretty much amounted to old wives tales or gossip. That that’s, that’s how, that’s the first publication we have of birth control in the English language. So he does admit that their understanding of conception was woefully lacking he talks about that at length and I have to agree with him. It was, this book is bizarre to read. Um, he couldn’t assure that any of the methods he suggested would work. They would only know from experience. So he basically asked everyone to start experimenting so that they could move this body of knowledge forward. Um, ok, he does discuss abortion interestingly. Although again, it doesn’t have a name and from what we learn, um oh and, and from him, we learn even his thoughts, a malthusian who wanted to limit population and was not afraid of any breaking any social propriety. We still, it’s interesting to hear what he says about abortion at this time. I’m quoting the destruct. The destruction of conceptions has been sought by acts of violence by breaking. I’ll, I’ll say the bag of waters. He doesn’t have a term for that with a knitting needle or some similar instrument through the mouth of the womb or by doses of poisonous herbs and drugs, drugs such as ergot of rye Sine, which is juniper or violent purgatives that in that injure and sometimes destroy the body of the mother in her attempt to reach the body of the fetus in her womb. The first is safer of the two. So the surgical a knitting needle is safer than the supposed herbs and drugs that could be used. Keep that in mind. The first is the safer of the two but not a safe means of destroying a conception. There is danger and the operation must be repugnant to the feelings of the female who has any good feelings remaining. Either case is dreadful, truly dreadful. So keep in mind who this is. I don’t want to restate it again. But the foremost proponent of birth control and family planning and population control, this is what he has to say about abortion. Um He continues later conception therefore, should not be risked with any view to subsequent destruction as prevention is alike, moral and legal. While destruction of the fetus is degrading, immoral and illegal. So again, that those were his thoughts on abortion. So keep this in mind as we make these claims. Ok. This book was obviously a huge scandal. I’ll read just a couple of the reviews a most obscenely and delicate work, destructive to conjugal happiness, repulsive to the modest mind

[01:05:12] equally of man or woman and recommending the promiscuous intercourse of sexual prostitution. Another reviewer said so filthy, so disgusting, so beastly as to shock even the lewdest men and women. So really its main effect on society at that time was to bolster antagonistic sentiments. However, it did have another result because now we need to talk about the next person on our list who is Robert Dale Owen. He was Scottish born and raised and I emigrated to America in 1823 3 year, three years before Carlyle’s book was published. So he, he was he’s called the First Malthusian in America. He was very familiar with Thomas Malthus writings, but he wouldn’t yet have seen Carlyle’s book. He would have to get that while he was in America. So he has an interesting story. He’s the son of a utopian society founder, New Harmony Indiana. For anyone who’s heard of that, he took over running it in 1825. He’s, his father was a textile manufacturer and he was a textile manufacturer, but they became utopian society leaders instead. So it’s an interesting story. So he ran it until it failed less than two years later in 1827. But while he was in Indiana, he published a very controversial newspaper. And that’s why he’s known as the first Malthusian in America. The general idea from many of his publications was that it would be far better if poor people didn’t have Children from many of the things I’ve read. That’s how I will sum it up. Um Here’s a quote, it was a moral offense of no trifling magnitude to bring human beings into the world without the necessary means to maintain and instruct them. So, um you know, you know, it’s an interesting thing because I know that, you know, people might unfortunately be somewhat sympathetic with these ideas like, yeah, we don’t want really poor people having tons of Children. I understand that, but it’s really interesting to kind of be like we should kill people or have them wish them never born rather than like helping them and trying to improve things. You know, it it is this eugenics claim that we really need to be careful of if anyone starts to go that direction at all. So um at first, um he had no good ideas of how this should be brought about. His best suggestion was postponing marriage and practicing prudential restraint. So, again, the form, the first Milian in America who wrote and published on these ideas and was very interested in population control. The only suggestion he could offer was abstinence. That’s interesting. And this was in approaching 1830. So just to keep comparing this to the subject matter that we are trying to look at this, these writings in 1829 just published locally and not widely spread and not well accepted. These were published just a few years before we claim Joseph started messing around with teenage girls. And so this first man to promote population control and prevention of conception in America and who had met read more broadly on the topic than anybody else in America believed that the only way to avoid having Children was abstinence. And we’re somehow claiming that Joseph Smith and Fannie Alger didn’t get pregnant because they weren’t stupid cattle apparently. Right. So, ok, let’s continue. He moved to New York and it is not, it is not clear exactly what happened, but from what I gather, it was something along these lines. Sometime in 1829 a printer from London sent him the plates for some of Carlyle’s books. And so I guess he published a portion and then sent the plates to the New York Typographical Society. It’s not really known if he was doing it sort of as a, like a prank or, or out of spite toward them or if he really thought that they should and would publish it. But whatever the case was all hell broke loose, the society officially described Owen as quote, a moral incendiary of foreign birth and education who was laboring, who was daily laboring to degrade, nullify and destroy the whole holy conjugal relation. And who advocates a promiscuous and unrestrained intercourse of the sexes and unblemish surely recommends in a public paper the most filthy obscene and wicked publication that ever disgraced. The American Press, a publication which holds out inducements and facilities for the prostitution of our daughters, our sisters and wives. So I think that was their response to Carlyle and Owen publishing any of Carlyle combined with Owen’s own own writing. So needless to say, the New York Typographical Society did not print the book. And since Owen was under attack anyway, he decided to go ahead and speak for himself. And as a result, he wrote, published the very first pamphlet dealing with

[01:10:09] population control and birth control in America. It was called Moral Physiology, a brief and plain treatise on the population. So this keep in mind. This is 1830. The pamphlet was in 1830. The book was published in 1831 and it was the very first writing in America having anything to do with the concept of contraception. So, um the vast majority of the book was dedicated to his laying out the need for population control and birth control. So basically, it was a malthusian tract, right? And then there was a small section that begins with it now remains after having spoken of the desirability of obtaining control over the instinct of reproduction, to speak of its hectic ability. He then describes what he considers to be the one and only reliable form of birth control, which is withdrawal. Keep in mind, he, by this time was very familiar with Carlyle’s book which spoke against withdrawal, but advocated for the sponge. So um he is disagreeing with that and saying withdrawal is the method that they had to use. And so um keep in mind again, it would have to be done every single time. And also despite his, his, his assurances of complete reliability, we now know that withdrawal is less than 80% effective and rarely recommended because it is so easy to mess, mess up. It’s not usually the method that people who really don’t want to have Children rely on. I know a lot of babies that were born because withdrawal didn’t work well. So um he acknowledges that this may not be a practical solution for everyone. But claims that unselfish men will do it like Carlisle before him. He claims that his knowledge comes from France and claims that their men hold it that in France men hold it to be a point of honor. It’s honorable for men. And so in his first printing, he included two other methods, but he did not advocate them. And in later printings, his later printings that same year, he moved them to only a footnote and then he just cut them entirely. So I’ll read the footnote. One of these that of the sponge is particularly recommended in Carlyle’s every woman’s book. I do not allude to it in the text because I believe it to be of doubtful efficacy. So they’d already learned. Nope doesn’t work and more certainly physically disagreeable in its effects. He states that he personally knew three men who relied on this method unsuccessfully. Carlyle supposes this to be the Czech common among the cultivable cultivated classes in France. And this he is mistaken. It is not employ, employed and scarcely known there, right? So France is the expert land to get all of this magical information. So this is his second footnote or the footnote of his second um other method. I also pass over all allusions to the bedros again, the high class condom, which is in every way inconvenient and is chiefly used to guard against syphilis. I do not write to facilitate, but on the contrary, effectually to prevent the degrading intercourse of which it is intended to obviate the penalty. So, so the bedros is not a good option universally agreed upon then. Um So again, here’s the first book in America and the one method advocated is withdrawal. Um Let’s see, the main opponents of these works which were both atheistic, malthusian and immoral, especially for the time. Um One described it as a mean, disgusting and obscene work. Another as a work destructive to happiness, repulsive to the modest mind, equally of men or women and recommending the promiscuous intercourse of sensual prostitution. It was however reprinted several times, but the vast majority of sales were overseas. It sold much better in England than it did in America and in America, most of the people who bought it did so in order to oppose it and refute it, it was not at all well received. So O Owen was never prosecuted for writing and publishing his book in America. Although um people who reprinted it years later in England were prosecuted. Interestingly. So a few notes about the understanding of conception at this time, right? Both of these books and the next one we’ll discuss, shared the most advanced understanding. Um So the most advanced understanding of conception. So I just want to talk about their current understanding at this time of how conception worked. They believe that the sperm, the man’s seed was what became the embryo and the woman simply provided the womb, the house for the sperm to grow into a baby. Both um and the next writer address the theory of absorption, which was the cutting edge science, cutting edge scientific idea on how conception occurred.

[01:15:08] Basically, it says women had absorbent vessels in and around the vagina that basically absorbed the sperm and took them up and eventually deposited them through. They had different theories but deposited them in the uterus. A lot more could be mentioned to display how not advanced reproductive science was at this time. But I’ll, I’ll settle, let it sit there for just a minute. So just keep these things in mind as we go forward as we claim that the 18 forties were exactly the same as the 19 thirties, which is exactly the same as today as if there have been no advancements in society in many areas over that time span. So, ok, I also, if it even needs to be pointed out, pointed out, Joseph Smith would have had no access to any of these books. Very few people in America did have access to the to them. And so the only place that most Americans including Joseph Smith would have ever heard the pull out method discussed at all was in The Old Testament. And so as I said, it’s already not terribly effective. It has a 32% failure rate which is not great odds with over 30 wives. And more importantly, Joseph would not have dared use it. He would not have seen it as a viable option. Everyone who claims he was a polygamist, even those who believe it was based on Lust have to acknowledge that it was his study and belief in the Old Testament that led him to it based on the examples and promises of Abraham and apparently also Isaac and Jacob. So from the beginning, the purpose would have been producing seed or Children as they interpreted that which would prohibit any intentional prevention, including withdrawal. But there’s another point that’s even more important. There is a massive Old Testament, prohibition against withdrawal. So I’ve spoken several times about the troubling story of Judah and his daughter in law Tamar. She’s the one that describes, drives herself as a prostitute that he visits and impregnates. And yeah, that story. Well, before that happened, Onan, her deceased husband’s brother was supposed to go in unto her and impregnate her. And I’ll read this is Genesis 38 9 and 10. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his and it came to pass when he went in unto his brother’s wife that he spilled it on the ground lest he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord wherefore he slew him. So people who held to the Old Testament as Joseph Smith did would not have seen withdrawal as a safe or approved option. So that that actually was part of the outrage to these early tracts. So, keep that in mind. Ok. Now, let’s go forward. The second, the second book on Population Control and Birth Control published in America came the very next year. It’s called Fruits of Philosophy or the private companion of young married people by a physician. So this is the first doctor we have writing a book on this topic. It was written and published by Charles Knowlton who is considered or called the father of American Birth Control. This book was even more scandalous than first one. these two men very likely knew each other. They both frequented free thinker clubs in New York. Charles Milton and Owen both took turns being heads of various ones of them. So they absolutely read one another’s books because in ensuing editions of each of their book, they quote one another. And so anyway, so this was a limited circle. Um, Knowlton was also a malthusian who had been influenced by these other works, right? Who had read Owen’s book and knew Owen. So he only produced, I guess that’s important because you can see what the roots of this are. It didn’t just exist. It, it began in American society. So, um, he only produced it in extremely limited numbers. He knew it was not only scandalous but actually illegal. So he very carefully distribution, he only printed a small printing and he priced them very high and kept them locked in his desk only available for select patients. Um It was not until later that it was printed by others. So back in this day, you could just print someone else’s book and it was printed and distributed more broadly, which led to some interesting consequences that will go into. But first, let’s talk about Knowlton again. He also was a malthusian. Um and his book was cutting edge actually far beyond the cutting edge. It was way before its time in discussion. In addition to discussing methods of prevention, it also described in great detail, the very first time that this had ever been done, the anatomy and the female anatomy and genitalia, which was indescribably outrageous and was likely the main reason that he was prosecuted when Owen wasn’t. And so, um some of you will know of doctor Sims who’s considered the father of gynecology quoting on um an entry about him. It said in 1840 the field of gynecology did not exist, there was no training on the subject for anyone. So saying someone was a doctor does not mean they had any information about anything in the field of gyne. Um Sims himself, the father of gynecology said he hated having to do vaginal exams. Um So this subject matter was not welcome anywhere in American Society.

[01:20:36] And this book was written almost 10 years before Sims biographer said that there was no such thing as gynecology. So this was way ahead of its time. So Ok. Now, let’s talk a little bit about Milton. Like many of the sex researchers, including awful figures like Alfred Kinsey and John Money. He um, Milton was a pretty troubled guy. So I’ll quote from one of the essays about him at 17. He was 511 Â£135 and deeply troubled. He suffered from a condition then called gonorrhea do dorm frequent nocturnal emissions. That’s what it was. And so to be fair, I have to just say that there were horrible ideas at this time about masturbation and red wet dreams just to give you a little bit of information. Um Several years after this, a renowned English physician published a book um that described a 70 it was published in 1847. So several years later, these bad ideas, it just demonstrates them well. He described a 17 year old patient. Here’s the picture that accompanies this description whose self indulgence had left him bedridden and almost unable to pale emaciated more like a corpse than a human being. He apparently had lost his memory and um his memory almost completely though he retained just enough strength to acknowledge the vile habit believed to have brought him to this, um brought him to this pass, a pale bloody discharged issued from his nose. He foamed at the mouth and was affected with diarrhea and voided his feces involuntarily there was a constant drainage of seminal fluid within a few more weeks he was dead. So he had good reason of being really, really afraid of having wet dreams. This is really sad actually. So I’ll continue um to quote about Milton, due to Milton’s anxiety about his omissions and masturbation, he developed what he described as one countenance, debility, nervous gloom and despondency. He was really obsessed with this problem. He took bark iron and opium to no effect. Those remedies amazingly didn’t stop his nocturnal emissions or masturbation. So that that was I I’m, I’m trying to demonstrate the level of medical knowledge at this time, those things were not effective and he became a hypochondriac. And so he was terrified that his emissions would lead to his death after he discovered that exercise made him feel worse. He wrote take care on a piece of paper and fastened it to the coat to the, to his coat sleeve cuff this poor poor guy. So his masturbation related hypochondria led to his interest in medicine and he apprenticed with a physician in his teens. He continued to struggle with his health. His masturbation induced hypochondria which was finally cured when he went to stay with a family friend who offered electrical treatments. But while he was there, he fell in love with this friend’s daughter and married her, which might have been the actual cure. But in any case, he entered Hanover College, which is now Dartmouth. Dartmouth robbing two graves along the way and took taking the rodine corpses with him because he was told that the school would pay $50 for cadavers. The bodies were actually too, too decomposed to use. And he spent two months in jail for grave robbing. So that was his auspicious beginning to medical school. He graduated. That would not be his only time in jail. He graduated and set it up, set up his practice. A few years later, he published his first book and then he wrote, he wrote a couple of different books. I believe that this was his second book. And those who read it were positively scandalized. And Knowlton was prosecuted multiple times one time, he was fined $75 which was a pretty penny back then, another time he was sentenced to three months hard labor. Um, interestingly 27 years after his death, his book was reprinted and reprinted in London and a couple who published it stood trial for printing an obscene public publication. So that’s how scandalous it was. England was not. N that’s where Malthusians was widely accepted. So it would have been far more scandalous in America than it was even in England. And that would have been about 50 years later. So, ok, I’m going to give you a brief outline of the book. It has only four chapters. They’re called to limit at will. The number of offspring. On the second chapter is on generation, the third is of promoting and checking conception. And the fourth is remarks on the reproductive instinct. So the third chapter is the one we’re, we’re mainly interested in, but I want to just share a few gems to demonstrate what really was the cutting edge medical knowledge at this time, he was the one developing this field that did not exist. So, um here, this is from chapter four remarks on the reproductive instinct. He, he claimed all su summarize some of this and quote some of it. So to summarize, he claimed that sex during menstruation was likely to cause syphilis in men and um vaginal infections in women. He, he has a weird description for them. I think that you will see going forward that those vaginal infections likely had a very different cause that we get to.

[01:26:11] So here, I’m quoting in case of pregnancy, a temperate gratification for the first two or three months may be of no injury to the woman or the coming offspring. But it ought to be known that the growth of the fetus and may be cared and the seeds of future bodily infirmity and mental imbecility of their offspring may be sown by much indulgence during pregnancy, especially when the woman experiences much pleasure in such indulgences. So I I could give so many more examples, you know, that they didn’t have a lot of knowledge in these fields, but I guess I’m not trying to mock, I mean, at least was trying to create the field. Just we need to be aware that when we’re saying just because it was a long time ago, doesn’t mean that they didn’t know what we know. Now we need to think more critically about those claims. So, ok, now going to chapter three of promoting and checking conception, he starts by listing his completely mistaken causes of infertility in women. And I’m going to read some of the treatments that he recommends. Some of it is just good general advice, exercise, eat good food, wear flannel and only flannel. But um, he also recommends ingesting some scales which fall from the Blacksmith’s an Anvil or some still filings which may be put into old cider or wine cider is best. And after standing a week or so, as much as may be taken two or three times a day that as can as much be taken two or three times a day as can be born without disturbing the stomach. So, if you’re suffering with infertility, there’s a, there’s an option you can try. He also um offers a list of highly concerning herbal treatments. Um, um, let’s see. And he says they can be regular, regularly pursued for months if necessary until the system be brought into a vigorous state. His, I I didn’t read his causes of infertility, but they’re quite hysterical. Anyone who wants to read it. I had a lot of fun reading it. So, um I have to say that with his herbal remedies, I like herbs. I use them. I like natural healing. But even I find these extremely worrisome, the mildest thing he offers is one or two or even more heaping teaspoons of cayenne every day. That’s a lot. Um Others are far worse, including spirits of ammonia, which is an ammonia based smelling salts. Um He says to take that orally three times a day daily for months and it might chance to offend the stomach. He gives you that forewarning. Ok. Um He also recommends bleeding. So, yep. Keep in mind good old med medieval bloodletting was still the go to at this time. Still the foremost cure that doctors relied on bloodletting bleeding. This was where medical knowledge was. We can’t say, hey, they were just like us. What are you arrogant? Do you have some kind of modern pride to not think they knew everything that we know? So, um ok, let’s see what else? He said a third medicine for arousing the genital organs is t of flies, believe it or not. This one is even worse than it sounds a lot worse. So I looked it up and I’m going to tell you some information about t of flies um or t of Spanish flies. Spanish fly is actually the blister beetle. It’s called that because if it touches your skin, it causes blisters. It would be dried and crushed into a metallic green powder that when swallowed a person would experience a burning sensation in the throat and stomach have difficulty swallowing, experience nausea and ab ab abdominal pain, vomit, blood stained material, feel an intense thirst and have diarrhea with traces of blood and mucus. Sometimes blisters form on the mouth and parts of the intestine sounds sounds fun. It would also cause inflammation of the organs of the genital tract, which is why it was sometimes indicated for problems of infertility. Um however, the swelling induced could be extremely painful and the dose required to produce swelling was close to fatal. It also caused a number of medical problems. It could cause permanent kidney damage. It caused a dull, heavy pain in the and a constant desire to urinate. But, but passing only a small amount of blood stained urine after numerous cases of it being used. Ok. So that’s what it does. There were also numerous cases of it being used as a poison that it listed. People used tincture of Spanish fly to kill people intentionally. So the dose that Milton recommends is 25 drops in water three times a day, increasing each one, each one by two or three drops until some degree of string. That’s the word for the constant desire but inability to urinate caused by painful spasms of the urethra and bladder until string occurs, then omit until this pass as it will in a day or two. Should the strau be severe? Drink freely of milk and water, slippery elm or flax seed. So, ok, that sounds good. Um a few other insights that will help us to see

[01:31:36] the cutting edge knowledge of contraception of in 1832 and beyond a woman is most likely to conceive immediately after a menstrual turn. So the most fertile point is right, as soon as she finishes her period. But and he also says nature’s delicate beginnings may be frustrated by the same means that put her a going. I had to read that several times to get what he was saying. It’s actually kind of fun. What he’s saying is that sex is likely to cause miscarriage. So, um, ok, that’s another belief he had. He next discusses male impotence and infertility. There’s way too much to quote, but here’s just one sample. I have given directions for making the tincture of flies chiefly because it is esteemed. One of the best remedies for impotency caused caused by or connected with nocturnal emissions. In some bad cases, enormous doses of this tincture are required, say two or 300 drops. Remember 25 drops was more than enough to cause stren which could lead to death. So I guess, I guess though if you were dead, your wet dreams would be cured. So maybe it was effective in that way. It’s bizarre. Now, we’ll go on to his discussion of contraception in chapter one. He says the check to be the checks to be hereafter mentioned are the only moral restraints to population known to the writer that are unattended with serious objections. So again, the foremost thinker and writer and student on any of these topics, the first person to write about them in America. Well, I guess the second, but who had made more of a study than any of the others, the first doctor to write about them is saying this is the very best I know of, right? So it would be completely false to claim that there was any better knowledge anywhere. So, um here’s what he goes on to say. The first option he discusses is withdrawal. The one recommendation from his friend Owen. So keep in mind, um Carlyle said the sponge was the only viable option. Owen said, Nope Sponge doesn’t work. Withdrawal is the only viable option. Now we have Carlyle, these are all within this, I guess two years of each other and then the next year we have Carlyle saying, Nope Sponge doesn’t work. Withdrawal doesn’t work. I’m going to give you the only viable option. So I guess in a way, knowledge was progressing quite quickly because all of these ideas were not going ideas. So, um he does not recommend um um withdrawal at all. He says it can, he goes on extensively to talk about how it can be harmful to help and well health and well being, keep in mind had to be done every single time without fail. Um And he says I leave it to everyone to decide for himself whether this check be so far from satisfactory as to not render some other very desirable. So he’s like we can all agree, we need something better. So like Owen, he acknowledges that there was no to little knowledge of condoms or use for condoms. This is all he has to say about, about the idea of condoms as to the broche which consists in a covering used by the male made of very delicate skin. So note he has to define it. It is by no means calculated to come into general use. It has been used to secure immunity from syphilitic infections. So again, not even part of the discussion, um I will also point out just talking about these things. There is no, there are no entries in the Webster 18 8 Comprehensive Dictionary for any of these terms, broche condom contraception, right? Anything like it. And we’ve already covered this, the words didn’t exist because the concepts did not exist. And so the next sentence is another check which the old idea of conception has led some to rec to recommend with considerable or confidence consists in introducing into the vagina previous to connection, a very delicate piece of sponge, moistened with water to be immediately afterward withdrawn by means of a very narrow ribbon attached to it. But as our view would lead us to expect this checked has not been proved as preventative. So it doesn’t work. OK. So like his friend Owen, he rejects Carlyle I already said that now that he has correctly rejected the ideas offered by his two, the two previous writers, the only two previous writers, he goes on to offer his best suggestion and the purpose of writing his book. It consists in syringing the vagina immediately after connection with a solution of sulfate of Z of alum pearl ash or any salt that acts chemically on the semen and at the same time produces no unfavorable, unfavorable effect on the female. Oh, it doesn’t. Huh? Glad he promised us that a female syringe which will be required in the use of the check may be had at the shop of an apothecary for a sh shilling or less. So. Ok, so much to talk about here he goes on to describe the many benefits, many of which are that it doesn’t inconvenience the men. This would have been the best, most cutting edge information of the day for those, um, very few who had access to it. So only the people who got to read this book would even know about this. And it was the most advanced scientific knowledge at the time, medical knowledge at the time.

[01:36:56] So even if someone wants to claim that Bennett or Richards had access to these books, which there’s absolutely no evidence to support and quite a bit of evidence to argue against, um, how, how would these ineffective remedies be effective for Joseph Smith? And how would women in NAVOO get sponges, natural ocean sponges, right? How would they get female syringes? Was there an apothecary shop in Nauvoo that carried female syringes like there were, was in New York. Like really we need to think about this and apply it. So might be thinking maybe this could work. How do we know this doesn’t work? He could be a good scientific doctor and this could have been good advice. So I’m gonna tell you his own way of coming up with this, which to the end of his life, he he bragged about um inventing this method of contraception. He says such was my confidence in the chemical idea that I sat down and wrote this work in July 1831. But the reflection that I did not know that this check would never fail and that if it should, I might do someone an injury in recommending it caused the manuscript to lie on hand until the following December sometime in November. I fell in with an old acquaintance who agreeably surprised me by stating that to his personal knowledge. This last check had been used as above stated, I have since conversed with a gentleman with whom I was acquainted who stated that being in Baltimore some few years ago, he was there informed of this check by those who had no doubt of its efficacy. So again, like the two previous writers whose ideas were wrong and completely unscientific, he talked to someone who said, people used it and he talked to someone else who had talked to someone who had, who felt sure that it would work. That’s the level of the evidence for this. So um from what has, what from what has as yet fell under my observation, I am not warranted in drawing any conclusions. So he admits that he has no experience to claim that this is effective. I can only say that I have never known it to fail. He doesn’t tell how many times he’s used it. Such are my views on the whole subject that it would require many instances of its repute, reputed failure to satisfy me that such failures were not owing to an insufficient use of it. I even believe that quite cold water alone if thoroughly used would be sufficient as the seminal an immaculate are essential to impregnation. That’s his word for sperm. All we have to do is charge is change the condition of or if you will to kill them. And as they are so exceedingly small and delicate, this is doubtless, easily done and hence cold water may be sufficient. So you can either use these chemicals or just water. But all you need to do is basically douche after sex and you won’t get pregnant. So um let’s see, he he does say he knows that a sponge soaked in cold water doesn’t work, but maybe just cold water without the sponge will work. Um I will recommend at least two applications of this syringe the sooner the surer yet it is my permission that five minutes delay would not prove mischievous, perhaps not 10. So somewhere between five and 10 minutes later, you need to douche and you won’t get pregnant. What has now been advanced in this work will enable the reader to judge for himself or herself of the efficacy of the chemical or syringe check and will probably determine whether I am correct in this matter. I do not know that those married females who have much desire to escape will not stand for a little trouble of using this check, especially with the, when they consider that on the score of cleanliness and health alone, it is worth the trouble. So even if you’re not trying to avoid pregnancy, you should just be douching with these chemicals for health and cleanliness. So honestly, this reminds me of the atrocious 19 fifties, Lysol ads. Maybe some of you have seen these, they were designed to scare women into ding with Lysol in order to keep their husband, otherwise he would apparently be too grossed out and would leave them. I have no idea what kind of sick woman hater came up with this ad campaign or how much pain and how many millions of vaginal affections it caused. But it has troubled me since I first learned of it. And it was fascinating to read somewhat similar ideas in an 1832 tract. So that kind of also shows how slow knowledge on women’s health has been to advance how many bad ideas have stuck around for a very long time or continually reemerged. And it’s not like we have completely graduated from these struggles. I remember the ads for douches that were still running into the 19 nineties, maybe some others will remember the not so fresh feeling ads from Massengill. So, you know, we have, we’ve come a long way but we have still had a long way to go. It hasn’t been very fast progress. So um in case, it isn’t painfully obvious to everyone how

[01:42:20] both ineffective and unsafe to help these chemical douches would be. Let me just read a couple of things from, from current medical experts, the American College of Obstetricians and gynecologists recommends that women avoid the practice of vag douching douching can disrupt the balance of bacteria and can alter the normal ph. This can lead to an increased risk of vaginal infections such as yeast infections. Douching can also cause the spread of harmful bacteria further up into the reproductive tract. So that’s douching in general, even with just water women who douche state that they do so because they believe it offers health benefits such as cleansing, avoiding order odor and preventing pregnancy or infections. However, these beliefs are false douching is unnecessary, potentially harmful and does not protect against pre pregnancy or against sexually transmitted diseases. Another site that had questions, answers said does douching after sex prevent pregnancy. In bold letters, no douching does not prevent pregnancy. Then it goes on to say sperm swim very fast and many reach the uterus before someone even begins to douche. Also douching can actually push sperm into the uterus. Douching also makes it more likely that you can develop a pelvic infection. So even ignoring the health problems douching like the suggestions before it is out as an effective means of contraception. And so all of these men stated with certainty that their method would work and all of them were wrong. So OK, that is, that gets us um caught up on the publications that were written before or during Joseph Smith’s life. That is a full comprehensive understanding of the advancement of birth control in America. Up through the 19 forties, there’s just one more person we need to discuss to get us to the end of Joseph Smith’s life time in regard to contraception in America. And this time, it’s a woman. Her name is Anne Loman, the infamous madam Rel. She was known as in all the papers as the wickedest woman in New York. She was another British immigrant. She was born into poverty, went to work at 15 and married an alcoholic tailor at 16. I emigrated with her husband to America at 19 in 1831. And um and their infant daughter, she was soon widowed just a few months later. Well, one, some sources say just a few months later, some say a few years later. So um in any case, she was soon widowed and left alone with a young daughter. She struggled as a seamstress to try to get by. Around five years later, she married Charles Lohman, a German Russian immigrant. So neither of them were American. These ideas were all imported from abroad. A German Russian immigrant working as a printer at the New York Herald who belonged to the same free thinkers clubs as Owen and Knowlton, the two previous writers and had already worked on republications of both moral physiology and fruits of philosophy and had himself begun to publish some malthusian tracts on population control and contraception. So see how it all comes from the same sources. It was not part of American culture. Before this time, Charles encouraged Anne to set up shop as a self professed health care provider, offering the very first contraceptives in America. So she had no healthcare training, but this is what they did. So again, relying on the authority of the French, they invented a story of going to Europe where she trained with her, made up grandmother, a renowned French physician named Rel and she began, began calling herself madam Rel an open shop and she opened a shop at the same time that she ran her first local newspaper ad in 1839. So recall and this was I think mid 1839 by this time, the saints had already been chased out of Missouri and were struggling to survive the malaria outbreaks in Nauvoo. So just to give us the timeline of what was happening, I very much doubt any of them including John Bennett or Willard Richards who unlike madam Rel were both actually doctors were visiting madam Rel, New York. I want to talk really quickly about the claims that John Bennett and Willard Richards were doctors so therefore they could provide abortions. Keep in mind that noon was the first doctor to write anything on these topics. Being a doctor did not mean you had access to some magical knowledge that had not yet been discovered or taught in any medical school because it didn’t yet exist. Ok. So continuing on this is her first ad, I’ll read it to you to married women. It is not but too well known that the families of the married often increase beyond what the happiness of those who give them birth would dictate. It is more, is it moral for parents to increase their families regardless of consequences to themselves or the well being of their offspring? When a simple, easy, healthy and certain remedy is within our control, they, they often overstate their the effectiveness of their wares. The advertiser,

[01:47:54] the importance of this subject and esteeming the vast benefit resulting to thousands by the adoption of means prescribed by her has opened an office where married females can obtain the desired information and so she began selling preventative powers powders and female monthly pills. I will point out that um she advertises to married women so that it would be at all socially acceptable. She certainly didn’t only treat married women. So just to clarify that, um we don’t know exactly what her remedies contained, but we do have one case of a doctor who analyzed one of her products. He was treating one of the women that she killed, um analyzing one of her products and said it contained oil of tansy and spirits of and said it was not safe and nobody should take it. So this is actually these sources are where we get our knowledge about what 19th century abortions might have been were from these works. This is the only knowledge that we have. So from what I can find, her remedies were certainly not generally effective and the safety I don’t know about. She charged women for remedies to prevent conception or cause miscarriages and then charged them much more to come in for surgical remedies. When those, when her initial remedies failed, we know from one of the women who died from the surgical procedure, she offered that it was not her who performed them. They were performed by one or two men. So possibly her husband and then either a brother or a friend from the freethinker societies. So keep in mind even in 1870 so many decades later, after 30 years of important advancement in abortion techniques and general surgical techniques. The death rate for women given abortions by doctors in America was still over 30%. Ok. Did you hear that? So like claiming that abortions were viable options is ridiculous. So despite the pain and the danger, madam rel became a thriving business because it was the only option. There was no other form of contraception known before her shop opened. But there was immediate backlash. Her massive moral outrage resulted immediately and with multiple claims of women being harmed or killed by her remedies and surgical procedures, she started facing legal charges within her very year of business. Her many trials were covered in the newspapers which is how she became known as the wickedest woman in New York. She was even listed in travel brochures. It was, she was quite famous. Oh, she was quite infamous. I should say she was charged repeatedly and spent time in prison. Although she was often left let off on technicalities or because the women who would have testified against her had died as a result as a direct result of her activities and the fallout. Um It’s hard to know exactly how many women died, but there were several accusations and many women wouldn’t have said it was because of her because they wouldn’t want it to be known what they had done. So because of her activities and the fallout and the difficulties in prosecution New York State officially banned abortions in 1845. Um but she continued her business just no longer adverts advertising abortions, although she continued to provide them, but often at exorbitant prices when she treated wealthy women, she did basically extort them. She would charge them upwards of $1000. So like polygamy, the civil war took attention off her activities and she continued to thrive, becoming extremely wealthy in the process. But after the war, her resumed since there were no safe options for either herbal or surgical prevention or abortion. Women kept being harmed and killed by her remedies and surgeries, which again would have been a knitting needle. That that was the advancement of the knowledge at this time, she didn’t have any more advanced knowledge than what Carlyle had written about in his first book, she had no more advanced techniques than what he had already decried. And so um with the increasingly stringent laws, she was prosecuted again and arrested and ended up committing suicide in 1878. So that gets us all the way through the discussion of any form of birth control in America during, during Joseph’s lifetime during Rae’s lifetime after Joseph had already been killed. There were other cases of people being charged for murder, other doctors being charged for murder for women who died from abortions they provided. So even doctors did not have any form of abortion. That point needs to be made very clear. They also didn’t have any good method of contraception. So I thought that this was all very well known, but apparently in the need to justify Joseph’s polygamy without any Children, we seem to have forgotten some very basic but inconvenient historical facts. So I’ll quote a little bit from Chat G BT. In the 18 forties, abortions were extremely unsafe and often pose significant

[01:53:34] risk to the woman’s health and life. The medical knowledge and technology available at the time did not allow for safe and abortions again, quoting from chat G BT, some substance, substances such as toxic herbal mixtures or corrosive chemicals like turpentine or soap solution. Remember what we read about madam Rel were sometimes used to induce abortion. These methods were highly dangerous and frequently caused severe harm to women. Many women turned to herbal remedies such as Penny Royal Tanzi or Ergot, which were believed to induce abortions. These methods were often ineffective and could cause serious complications. Ok. So there’s an overview of the truth of contraception and abortion in the 18 forties. Remember what again, Carlyle’s take on abortion and rel would have had no better information. Just as a reminder, I’ll read it again. The destruction of conception has been sought by acts of violence by breaking with a knitting needle or some similar instrument through the mouth of the womb, the bag of waters or by doses of poisonous herbs and drugs such as the ergot of rye svi or violent purgatives that injure and sometimes destroy the body of the mother in her attempt to reach that of the fetus in her womb. The first, the surgical method is the safer of the two but not a safe means of destroying a conception. There is danger and the operation must be repugnant to the feelings of the, of the female who has any good feelings remaining either case is dreadful. Truly dreadful. The foremost family planning, um population control activist and advocate telling us the truth about abortion at that time period during those decades. So, ok, then we need to look at this. Um Let’s let’s consider a couple of other things as we’re claiming how safe abortions would have been just one point to consider Doctor Lister for those who have heard of him. He was the British surgeon who first developed and advocated for sterilization of hands and instruments before surgery. He didn’t develop his ideas until the 18 sixties. And it really was the turning point where you were more likely where a hospital was more likely to cure you, to kill you than to cure you to hospitals became becoming places generally of healing instead of death. So his, his advocacy for washing instruments, sanitizing changed everything on the surgical and medical front. But even he in the 18 sixties, when he presented these ideas was mocked terribly. He was mocked and ridiculed for daring to believe in advocating for something everyone knew. Could not be true. That sounds familiar I have to say. So doctors in America did not even begin to sterilize instruments until the 18 eighties. And it wasn’t until the 18, to the, till the 19 hundreds when the autoclave which had been invented in France, in 17, in 1879 became widely available in America that the practice began to become widespread. So it wasn’t until the 19 hundreds that doctors in America were sanitizing their instruments. So at madame Rel, the knitting needle or whatever they used to surgically end a pregnancy would likely not have even been washed. We don’t know it would not have been a safe option. Nobody knew how to do any of this safely and massive infections would frequently certainly occur and uterine infections would be extremely difficult if not impossible to treat without antibiotics, which would not be discovered until over 100 years later. That’s the situation we need to acknowledge this. So, and that’s not even considering the many dangers that are possible with these kinds of abortions, one of which is the baby not being automatically evacuated after the insertion of a knitting needle. Even today, miscarriages often need to be handled with care even when they are naturally occurring instead of intentionally caused. And so DN CS, a dilation and curit is not an uncommon procedure for this very reason because if everything isn’t cleaned out on its own, the woman can die and very likely will die. So that brings us to another point that we absolutely need to discuss the claim that John Bennett was providing abortions for Joseph Smith. So let’s get into that. There aren’t that many claims about it. There are just a few and most of them talk about John Bennett promising that he could give medicine to end an abortion if someone got in trouble. So a couple of things to look at here, John Bennett was a known liar and womanizer and he would be far from the first man who ever lied to a woman in order to seduce her. How many stories are there throughout time of men promising that he would marry her if she slept with him and then she’s left in a terrible situation, right? These kind of men or are notorious for saying whatever they need to, to get their way with a woman. So having these reports that John Bennett and his cronies were promising that he could take care of something if the woman got in trouble is not any.

[01:59:02] It’s only evidence that he was lying to women to seduce them. It should not be accepted as evidence that he had some magical knowledge of preventing measures that were not known yet. There’s I don’t know what he would have known of that these other men didn’t know about and madam rel right. Also was he disclosing to the women, how awful any experience with medications would be and that they were very likely to die but after massive suffering first, is this what he was telling these women in his effort to seduce them. So first of all, I think we should be very skeptical about John Bennett’s promises to women being evidence that he could follow through on them. But then from there, we make this huge leap to say that John Bennett’s false promises to women are somehow evidence that he was Joseph’s personal abortion provider. This one we really need to get into. So the main claim I know of for this um for the main testimony I know of for this claim or really the only one is Sarah Pratt and I want to look into that. So Sarah Pratt is the justifiably disgruntled first wife of Orson Pratt. She gave this testimony in 1886 just after the 57 year old or married his 10th wife who was 16. So, yeah, I think she had a right to be very annoyed. So we need to look at what she said because also we need to keep in mind that Sarah Pratt already has some questionable elements as to her credibility from throughout her life. So here’s the testimony that she gave to anti Mormons. Um She’s, she claimed that one day while talking to Bennett, I observed that he held something in the left sleeve of his coat. Bennett smiled and said, oh, a little job for Joseph, one of his women is in trouble saying this. He took the thing out of his left sleeve. It was a pretty long instrument of a kind I had never seen before. It seemed to be of steel and was crooked. At one end I heard afterward that the operation had been performed that the woman was very sick and that Joseph was very much afraid that she might die, but she recovered. Ok. Let’s look at this claim. Right. So again, ad NC is a dilation and curettage, right? There are two tools needed for it. A dilator, a cervical dilator and what’s called a cette. So the cervical dilator dilates the cervix. The curette is, it’s a long spoon with, I mean, a long handle with a curve on the end that’s used to scrape and clean the walls of the uterus, right? I will say I have had AD NC before without anesthesia and it is not anything that any woman would sign up for voluntarily, horrible, horrible amount of pain. So um ok, but let’s go on with this idea, right? So Sarah claimed that John showed her a cette. That’s what that would have been on his way to perform an abortion for Joseph. A couple of pieces. We need to look at John Bennett left Nauvoo in 1842 right? So this would have had to be in early 1842 or before that he had a curate. So here’s the problem. The cart was not invented until 1843 by a doctor in France. So no, Tourette would have existed before 1843 and certainly no Tourette would have existed in America until several years after that. And even then it would have come to like the um main medical establishments in New York or the big cities, not out to little towns throughout the west. Right. That would, that took many, many more years until DN CS were available widely available in America. And so to say, for Sarah to say that John Bennett showed her a cette completely eliminates her testimony right there. Here’s the problem. It’s, it’s interesting because yeah, anachronisms are hard. They stink. I know a lot of people who reject the book, Book of Mormon again, based on anachronisms are fine accepting this testimony of Sarah Pratt by 1886 when Sarah Pratt gave this testimony, DN CS would be widely available in America. For the most part, she could visit very well have been familiar with one. She might have even had one who knows. So she had her 1886 body of knowledge that she mistakenly tried to apply to a testimony of something that happened in or before 1842. And by doing that, she got herself in trouble, we know that this testimony is completely false and it needs to be soundly once and for all, completely rejected. I have to say, I am actually amazed that this research hasn’t been done before that no one has looked into these claims and studied them out in this way.

[02:04:06] I, I guess at the same time, I’m really excited that it hasn’t done before because it’s really fun to get to be the one to do it. But it’s amazing that we have just accepted these things without investigating them without approaching them with any degree of critical thought. Right. So, can we please agree at the very least first that Sarah Pratt’s testimony and the idea that John Bennett was an abortion provider for Joseph Smith needs to be completely rejected. And beyond that, the reason I have gone into such depth to really demonstrate the development of contraception in America is so we could also completely take this argument off the table. Nobody should ever say it again. It is not sound, it is not true. And my hope is that going forward, people will be embarrassed to make these claims because they have been proven utterly impossible and completely false. That’s my hope so. Um OK, let’s go forward. There’s only one more idea that we need to address in this episode. And it’s the one I mentioned at the beginning, the idea that Joseph Smith was employing the rhythm method with his many wives. Since he had so many wives, he could easily sleep with a wife that wasn’t fertile at the time. And that’s how he could time his rendezvous in that way so that he could prevent getting any of them pregnant and that’s a possible explanation. So, um I have to say that I was pretty mercilessly mocked for daring to make the perfectly plausible suggestion that Hebrew C. Kimball and Brigham Young could have employed a third person to pretend to be Joseph Smith in their efforts to seduce Martha Brotherton. I was accused of rampant speculation of being a fiction writer and things way worse than that. So I, I just want to say that um yes, that was speculative. I am looking at information going hm how could that have worked? Because because it doesn’t make sense, right? I will say that that that possibility is completely in sync with the historical and testimonial record that we have, it is perfectly plausible. This, however, the idea that Joseph Smith was employing the rhythm method with his wives, completely speculative rampant speculation, not a shred of evidence. And we are going to do the work of actually looking at the histo history to see if it is even remotely plausible spoiler. It’s not. So again. Ok, let’s, let’s look into this because I think it’s important. Um So I’m going to address this a couple of ways. I want you though to not, don’t, don’t stop watching until I finish because I don’t want you to miss the punch line. I just want to kind of tell you how I thought about this claim. My first thought was how in the world would Joseph implement this with his many wives. How would he manage it and carry it out first. Anyone who has actually ever implemented the rhythm method, natural family planning knows that for it to be at all successful. You absolutely need a thermometer because you need to take your temperature at the same time every day and you need to carefully track it so that you can know when you’re fertile. Right. That’s one of the reasons that it never worked for me. I had too many babies and Children to ever be able to take my temperature at the same time every day and track it. And I had too much ad d to ever keep records that, that carefully. And so anyway, that, that’s what you need for natural family planning. And I was like, where were these women supposed to be getting thermometers and then read that, oh, the clinical thermometer wasn’t invented until 1860 seven in London. So, again, that’s a problem. But maybe, um, you know, maybe we can give him a pass and say, well, it wasn’t going to be very effective, but it was at least an option to maybe lower the numbers of pregnancies. So, ok, we can give him a pass on that first piece. But then I still wondered how in the world Joseph would have taught this to his many wives because even now people don’t know about this until they actually read the book, Natural Family Planning. You have to learn these things. It’s not like it’s just automatic, you know, like we women just automatically know these things and no one has to teach them, how would these women have learned that? And then more importantly, how would this be managed? This would have actually been a big complicated organization to run, right. So all of these women had to be taught how to keep track of their fertility. Then they needed to report it direct either directly to Joseph or to one another or to whoever was managing the harm. Joseph didn’t have the benefit of eunuchs that, you know, more ancient polygamist kings would have had to manage their harm. He had to do this on his own and in secret, right? So somehow the women were all keeping track of their cycles even though we have no records anywhere of any women ever doing that. But beyond that, they were communicating that to Joseph, I guess who was using that information? We like the back and forth notes. Remember it had to be super secret. There couldn’t be any communication, but he was somehow using that communication

[02:09:33] to set up his secret trysts where he needed a secret location and the time and he had to incorporate this other huge piece of knowledge, keeping track of the fertility cycles of his many wives. OK? I thought that right, there was enough to call a giant Bs on this entire idea, but it gets a lot better. This is the part I wanted you to hear because we don’t need any of this. The rhythm method relies on a great deal of rep predictive reproductive knowledge that we have access to. So we can just take it for granted assuming that it’s just automatically known, not recognizing that it is modern technology that we have benefited from because of work that was done throughout both the 19th and especially the 20th century in this case. So speaking of modern knowledge, I just want to point out because this was mentioned that actually I I just want to say like read, read studies because several studies have been done that have officially proven that women’s cycles do not sync up when they are living in the same home. Many women have always known that, but it’s now been scientifically proven. So we can just add that little bit of knowledge to the things that are good to know if we’re going to try to talk about women’s reproduction with any degree of credibility. So, OK, first of all, by doing just a few minutes of research, which I highly recommend I learned that practically nothing was known about human fertility in the early 19. Well, anytime in the 19th century, certainly not in the 19 forties, I already read examples of the cutting edge knowledge in the um the 18 forties saying the wrong century in the 18 thirties, right? And things were not progressing quickly at this time. So remember the cutting edge absorption theory and the assumption that men implanted the seed that on that was the only necessary ingredient that just needed the womb to grow in. Right. All of these things or Noon’s advice that w that a woman is most fertile immediately after her period. OK. There’s a little bit of the information, but it gets a lot better. It wasn’t until 1905, almost 60 years after Joseph’s death, that Van De Velde, a Dutch gynecologist learned that women ovulate and only once per cycle. Ok. Right. So by 1905 gynecology existed that them because Sims had begun at the father of gynecology, but they still didn’t know about ovulation and they certainly it was Vanderbilt that had to learn that women ovulate once per cycle. That was 1905. We’re talking about the 18 0 forties. Right. Then it took another 15 to 20 years for two more dogs to figure out that when a woman ovulates that it’s about 14 days before menstruation. That’s how we got that bit of knowledge. Then it was not until the 19 thirties that another Dutch physician finally put this information together to develop the first timing based rhythm method. OK? 1930. So when we want to say someone in 1930 could practice family planning, yes, they could because this was developed in 1930. So by the 19 thirties, it would have been known and available the 18 forties are not the same as the 19 thirties. And in the 19 thirties, this would have been the brand new cutting edge information but still, it was not, it was not completely dependable because it took a few years later, a judge, a German priest to actually add the all important component of basal body temperature of taking and tracking the woman’s body temperature to know when ovulation was likely to occur. That was an essential part to make this actually reliable and effective. And then it wasn’t until I think the 19 sixties that the actual rhythm method was born. Because during the late fifties and early sixties, the discovery of the consistency of vaginal fluid and how that played into fertility, that discovery was made. So that added the final component to natural family planning, which was what they call vaginal mucus in, in, in that right. So by the 19 sixties, we had a full established practice of natural family planning, otherwise known as the rhythm method. We had a much, much, much less effective only timing based rhythm method. By the 19 thirties, we had none of that in anywhere in the 18 hundreds, let alone the 18 forties, let alone that someone would have known about in navoo. So again, I I have to say that if Joseph Smith did have knowledge of and access to and the ability to implement technologies that would not be developed until over 100 years after his death he was a prophet indeed. So if we are going to take any of these claims, we have to all agree that Joseph Smith was much more of a prophet than any of us have ever believed him to be. Right. So for those inclined to mock polygamy deniers, for coming up with perfectly plausible explanations for things like Martha Brotherton’s testimony.

[02:15:03] Please recognize the massive latitude that you have allowed yourselves to come up with not only unsupported but literally impossible explanations for the problems on your side of the argument. So I hope that again, all of these ideas will be completely put to rest to avoid future embarrassment because I don’t think these are good arguments and so to some and, and I think again, it’s good for all of us to introspect and recognize, OK, where am I coming up with speculation? Where am I using motivated reasoning? Where am I right? Because we all are doing it. That’s not an excuse to say I, we should, I can do it. I’m not saying that I’m saying we need to acknowledge. No one should say I don’t have any bias. I don’t, you know, I I’m not subject to motivated reasoning. I’m not wearing polygamy glasses. Nobody should ever say that we should instead try to find the areas where we maybe are doing that. That will help us get to truth much better and much faster. So, OK, for all of this long discussion, I’m going to sum it up during this way to claim that women during the 18 hundreds or at any other time had knowledge of and, or access to birth control or abortion is completely and utterly false. Some desperate women did try desperate measures in desperate circumstances and as a result, there was massive suffering and a lot of death right to claim otherwise. It’s so weird that people who claim this are completely ignoring and denying the horrible struggles of women, especially unwed mothers throughout time. It’s, it’s as if they are claiming that unintended pregnancies never happened or at least never needed to happen unless women were, what was it? Um stupid, aimless yokels who weren’t smart enough to take care of themselves. These are truly astounding claims from anyone but especially from anyone who claims to be any sort of feminist. I am, I am truly astonished by these claims they need to not be made anymore is what I would propose. And so um we shouldn’t need any examples to show how ridiculous this is. But I will just provide one of infinite examples. Remember the horrible mother and baby homes in Ireland with the forced adoptions that were, that started, I think in the 19 fifties and were still occurring up until the 19 seventies. That’s just one of many examples of the reality of unintended pregnancies, right? The reality of lack of access to contraception and birth control and the suffering that that has caused in many circumstances, which is why marriage and morality were held as such high ideals that those were the important things. And in some ways, things have gotten better. In some ways, I would say they haven’t gotten better because we have discarded the ideals of marriage and morality, which I don’t think, I personally don’t believe serves our society. Well, so anyway, to flippantly say, also, to flippantly say that just because it was a long time ago, we shouldn’t assume that they didn’t have all of the knowledge and information and technology that we have is also a ridiculous claim. I mean, we could just as easily say, just because they were in the hundreds, doesn’t mean that we should assume they didn’t have airplanes and computers, right? Like that’s, that’s what we’re saying here. It is so easy to track the development of technologies. We have the ability to do it. I’ve just demonstrated it. We don’t need to rely on these speculations that are completely unsearched and impossible. So I to really drive this home, I want to give one more example. Let’s consider this. The first automobile was invented in 1893 right? So before, well, before the rhythm method, right, it was, um, it was available for very limited sale in 1896 and it wasn’t until December of 1899 that the first, that the president of the United States first rode in an automobile, right? That’s when we got cars. It wasn’t until 1913 that Ford developed his assembly line and still, there weren’t gas stations and roads and all the things needed. So it wasn’t until 1930 that even half of American families had a car. By 1930 about half of American families had one car. Right. Let’s look at the light bulb. It was first invented in 1879 but that first one lasted only about 40 hours. Um It wasn’t until 1883 that the first electrical grid was developed in Roselle New Jersey. So people could actually use light bulbs in that one little town. And it wasn’t a until 1925 that half of American homes had electric lighting. So again, still five years before the rhythm method was even proposed, the unreliable rhythm method, right? So let, let’s look at this, honestly claiming that Joseph and his wives implemented any of these methods of contraception, which again goes completely against any testimonial evidence. Not to mention the historical evidence, right? Um That they were using any of these things when they were based on technologies which would not be developed or available until after half

[02:20:43] of the country had cars and electric lights is far more outlandish that claiming that he would get up in the middle of the night, flip the light switch on at the navoo house, call one of his wives on the telephone, then hop in his model t to go pick her up. Right. That is a more plausible story than the story that we are telling to, to justify Joseph, not, not having Children. I hope that puts it into context for people. It is absolutely ridiculous and completely impossible. And then on top of it, we could claim that. Well, of course, they would have access to electric lights and telephones and cars. They weren’t stupid, aimless yokels who were, weren’t smart enough to employ basic technologies. Those are the claims that were just made to justify Joseph not having Children. So I hope, please tell me that everyone sees the insurmountable problem here. I don’t know what to do to make it more clear. So for anyone who didn’t listen to the chat GP T episode, I’ll just add for anyone who might be wondering about other possibilities that it wasn’t until Charles Goodyear first discovered the vulcanization process which made rubber able to hold a shape that that was, wasn’t patented until 1844. And condoms were not produced and available at all until 1855 and still would have been in very small, um very scantily available and considered to be extremely immoral, right? And then diaphragms, right. Diaphragms were invented in Germany in the 18 eighties and they only came to America because Margaret Sanger was traveling in Europe and discovered them and she started secretly importing them using her husband’s oil factory as a cover. It wasn’t until he opened a manufacturing company in 1825 that diaphragms were produced in America. So you, I welcome anyone to present any other possible methods. Any other hypotheses of intentional means of preventing pregnancy? Let’s talk about them. But please do the minimum amount of research to see if it’s something you should even propose. So I will freely acknowledge as I always have that Joseph’s polygamy is just a big messy, complicated topic. That’s a big part of the reason that I didn’t want to get into it, it is difficult to learn enough to, to form any sort of informed opinion. What I think is important here is to recognize this. I am not claiming that anyone who doesn’t agree with me is an idiot, is a conspiracy theorist is incapable of critical thought. I’m not making those claims. I understand why people see it. The other way, what I am adamantly claiming is that this subject is far from settled and that name calling adds nothing to the discussion, right? Those are merely tactics to try to shame and silence people so that you don’t have to deal with the actual evidence. And I will adamantly claim that the case against Joseph’s polygamy is extremely strong and has not been even close to adequately responded to. This is a new big body of evidence that I hope people will consider and maybe, you know, again, put it on the scales instead of just hearing this and getting mad or, or having the knee jerk reaction of coming up with some other interest, excuse, actually consider the evidence and whether it should begin to shift the conclusions that you have drawn. I think that that’s what evidence should do for all of us. It should allow us to reconsider our conclusions. That’s what I very much hope that this will do. And if it, if you are just unable, completely, unable to reconsider your conclusions, at least reconsider your conclusions, that people who don’t believe Joseph was a polygamist are idiots are, what was it aimless, stupid yokels who aren’t smart enough to figure things out, right? And just are, are completely biased and ignorant and conspiracy theorists that is the part of the conversation that absolutely needs to end and we need to have better discussions and better evidence. So, thank you again for sticking with me for this long episode. Next week. I hopefully will be part two where we talk about a lot more evidence of the problem, the insurmountable problem of no Children. So, thanks again and I will see you next time.

132 Problems: Revisiting Mormon Polygamy

132 Problems: Revisiting Mormon Polygamy

76: The Insurmountable Problem of No Children Pt. 1 – Contraception in America

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Transcript

132 Problems: Revisiting Mormon Polygamy

76: The Insurmountable Problem of No Children Pt. 1 – Contraception in America

Links

Transcript

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