Abortion

Most Indigenous American cultures, including my own, believe that each human being possesses an inorganic soul, and that the soul does not incarnate into the body until birth during the first breath of life outside of the womb. Therefore, abortion has never been taboo in most Indigenous American societies.

Back in the old days, and among "primitive" societies today, Indigenous American women exercised abortion as a means of birth control during the first trimester with the use of a special blade made of stone or bone that was inserted into the uterus. Medicinal plants referred to in Mesoamerica as "purgas" were used to help induce an abortion as well.

Some non-Indigneous American religionists believe that the soul incarnates into an embryo upon conception, or at some point when it develops into a fetus prior to birth. Most people who are opposed to abortion and who do not want it legal base their argument against abortion on that belief.

There are other people who are ethically opposed to abortion on the grounds that it potentially robs humanity of a human being who might end up contributing to the betterment of humankind significantly in some way, such as another Eienstein or someone who develops a cure for a disease. However, that category of anti-abortion proponent tends not to be opposed to the legalization of abortion, though, realizing that on the other hand, an abortion might be sparing the world from a potential evil tyrant like Hilter or Pol Pot, etc.. They also tend to respect from a legal standpoint a woman's right to choose whether she wants to go full term with a pregnancy or not.

From a scientific standpoint, a fetus cannot survive outside of the womb prior to the third trimester without artificial life support, and fetal brain activity is not fully active until about the seventh month of development. Some "pro-choicers" thus advocate that abortion ought to be legal up through at least the end of the second trimester.

Some people do not believe in a soul, and as just pointed out, there are varying beliefs by others about at what point it incarnates into the body, which cannot be proven scientifically. Therefore, abortion should be a matter of individual conscious on the part of the embryonic/fetal host, and not on the part of government legislators or the host's parents, even if she is an adolescent minor.

As for birth control and family planning, Indigenous Ameicans by-and-large never over-populated because they would abstain from sexual relations with the opposite sex during certain seasons. Europeans and some other cultures even used to use dried sheep intestines as condoms. Most Indigenous Americans today continue to suppport methods of family planning, and the utilization of various artifical means to prevent unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.