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The rabbit died

Posted by Lotg on November 10, 2004

In Reply to: The rabbit died posted by ESC on November 09, 2004

: : : : : : : : : : : In simpler days a young lady would get her intended to marry her by going off birth control pills and getting pregnant.(A bunny trap) Her dad would often help by hastily arranging a wedding without a many guests - a shotgun wedding.
: : : : : : : : : : : Life is so much more complicated now. How does a girl actually rope in a reluctant groom in the current era?

: : : : : : : : : : Pretending to be an utterly faithful nymphomaniac who loves sports is a good start...

: : : : : : : : : The bigger mystery is how men get women to marry them.

: : : : : : : : Pretending to be a dyed in the wool romantic who enjoys shoe-shopping, home decor, Ayn Rand novels and Russell Crowe/Pierce Brosnan/Orlando Bloom movies (choice here is dependent on the nature of the target bride) is also a good start...

: : : : : : :
: : : : : : : Ayn Rand? Russell Crowe/Pierce Brosnan/Orlando Bloom? Ewww... Ewwwwwww...

: : : : : : : (clearly not the way to a camel's heart)

: : : : : :
: : : : : : Haha, what a bunch of cynics. Still, I do like some of the suggestions. And what's wrong with Russell??? I'll have him and Kevin Spacey any day.

: : : : : : BTW, I like the 'bunny trap' term - haven't heard that one either. Although, never ever ever did understand ANY women going to such lengths. Not for this self-centred girl would that method be.

: : : : : No matter how you slice it, the word "bunny" is funny. I understand what a "bunny trap" is but not why it is. Is "bunny trap" a reference to the fecund nature of rabbits or does it refer to the old pregnancy test in which a woman's blood was injected into a live rabbit and the rabbit was then dissected to look for ovary change?

: : : : Are you kidding me? And was there any ovary change? I would have thought unlikely.

: : : Not kidding. The well-known "rabbit test" preceded chemical pregnancy tests. Urine, not blood, was injected into the rabbit. The hormones in a pregnant woman's urine acted on the rabbit's ovaries.

: : : Home pregnancy tests haven't always existed. Women used to have to go to a doctor to find out.

: : I've heard the expression "the rabbit died" to mean that the girl was pregnant. What is the science behind that? How did the hormones act on the rabbit's ovaries?

: From www.snopes.com/ pregnant/rabbit.htm

: The origins of the "rabbit test" lie with the discovery in the 1920s that a woman starts producing a hormone known as human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) shortly after a fertilized egg implants itself in the uterine wall. (It was later discovered that the presence of hCG causes the placenta to produce progesterone after implantation, necessary to prevent rejection of the developing embryo.) In 1927, medical researchers found that not only is hCG present in the urine of pregnant women, but that female rabbits injected with urine containing hCG would, within a few days, display distinct ovarian changes. Thus the "rabbit test" was born, and with it the misconception that the rabbit's death was an indicator of a positive result. In those early tests, the rabbit always died, because the animal had to be killed before its ovaries could be examined. Later refinements to the test enabled clinicians to inspect the ovaries without having to kill the rabbits first, but as the example cited above demonstrates, the misconception that the test rabbit died only if the woman was pregnant is still with us today, even though the "rabbit test" itself is not.

Well I'm pleased to hear they don't do it that way any more - for the rabbit's sake. Although, how do they do it now?

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