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(RNS) — On Aug. 10, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey signed House Bill H.5595, which prioritized doctors’ judgment about abortion over bans based on the stage of pregnancy. In response, far-right pundits dusted off age-old accusations that the women involved were “witches.”
Anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson described the signing ceremony as “a coven of witches celebrating depravity.” Harrison Smith, host of the “War Room” podcast, called the women signing the law “shrieking harpies.”
As someone who studies “granny witches,” Appalachian folk magic practitioners, I see these accusations as rooted in the same bigotry that ended a rich tradition of women providing reproductive care to rural communities.
When reproductive healthcare providers and advocates are called demonic and witches, it mirrors the language of far-right leaders’ ancestors, who also labeled the reproductive healthcare providers of their isolated communities “witches.”
But the irony is this: When women’s reproductive choices are eliminated, they are pushed toward the very solutions that these granny witches provided.
In Appalachian areas where doctors with formal medical credentials were scarce, Appalachian grandmothers created cures from the land around them, using local plants and Christian Scripture. These women were not just key providers of community healthcare but respected spiritual leaders. They fused together Native American, European and African wisdom in the mountains where all three identities collided.
European immigrants, tribal communities and free and enslaved Black people brought with them cultural knowledge — of what root would lessen a toothache, of what verse could be used to talk fire out of a burn, of how to create a poultice that would ease labor pains.
Traditional herbalism and matrilineal healthcare are not confined to Appalachian women — in fact, many communities that settled in the United States have long looked to “wise old women” to close the healthcare gap in areas where poor and enslaved Africans did not have access to institutional medicine.
As John D’Emilio and Estelle Freedman write in “Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America”: “In the early nineteenth century, and in rural areas for many later generations, herbal and home remedies for terminating unwanted pregnancies continued to be passed on through oral tradition. Native American healers and midwives prescribed roots or herbs known to induce abortion.”
Granny witches provided vital healthcare that extended beyond herbalism, encompassing roles as midwives and death doulas. In communities where resources were limited, these women provided herbal contraception and abortion medications that are still in use today in areas with restrictive abortion laws but carry serious risks of poisoning and organ failure.
For granny witches, this care was part of their midwifery roles, along with using herbal remedies to manage menstrual flow and period cramping. These women brewed teas from pennyroyal, mullein or tansy to soothe stomachaches. Pennyroyal was also mentioned in Clarence Meyer’s “American Folk Medicine” for “suppression of the menses,” which might indicate it was used to attempt to induce abortion.
Abortion and even childbirth were taboo topics in mostly Christian Appalachia. But granny witches did not consider what they were doing to be in conflict with their faith. For overwhelmed young women, another baby could stretch a poor family to the brink. This healthcare was a very private form of mercy, ensuring women could survive.
In an interview conducted by then-master’s student Harriet P. Masters with M. Greene, a Tennessee woman who is the granddaughter of a Southern Appalachian granny witch, Greene shared: “If a married woman thought she was pregnant and she did not want the child — maybe had two in diapers already — if it had been her own daughter Grandma would have helped her. I have an idea that she had one daughter that she probably did (help).”
According to Masters’ interviews and research by Appalachian students, “the Southern Appalachian granny-woman often served as the first ‘line of defense’ for women awaiting the birth of a child, but these women rarely, if ever, supplied specific information regarding herbal-based birth control or abortive measures.” Much, if not all, of their practice was coded in secrecy, and as the American medical system became more formal and gynecology became its own field, it was largely lost.
In the 20th century, childbirth transitioned to a hospital setting. States installed regulations requiring midwives to pass written exams and complete formal training. Since most midwives in the mountains learned through oral tradition, they were not licensed, and providing herbal remedies and assisting in births put them at risk of being prosecuted.
This remains a problem today in marginalized communities where midwives provide vital obstetrics care when outsider doctors are mistrusted, but they still risk fines and jail time. Amid a rise in Black maternal mortality, midwives have continued to step into the gap, providing vital care for communities that face systemic discrimination and dismissal in hospital settings.
As logging and coal mining corporations moved into Appalachia in the 20th century, they inspired new highways and bridges that connected previously isolated areas to cities with medical care. At the same time, these external companies caricatured mountain culture and cast skepticism and mistrust on folk healers. As Appalachian culture was lampooned by the media, these women were seen as superstitious “old wives” and “witches.”
Many grannies chose not to pass their traditions to daughters and granddaughters because of the stigma and legal risk. The practice largely died with them. But in the hurtful words of anti-abortion activists, the label lives on today.