To truly appreciate and comprehend the birth control pill, one must fully understand the science of it. The pill, less than one inch long, has been single-handily credited with revolutionizing American sex culture. (Reed 2) But how? Birth Control pills are now available in several types and in more than twenty formulations. The most commonly used is the combination pills which contain synthetic versions of the two major female hormones: estrogen and progesterone. The estrogen helps to

From the moment they came on stage in the saga of its development, they took command of the scene. They did no less than commission the eminent male scientists who were to be the principals in its emergence, to make or find them an oral contraceptive. The women made it plain that what they wanted was a pill -like an aspirin- that would be cheap, plentiful, and easy to use moreover, the women virtually directed the men to be quick about it. (Asbell 6)

The world-changing news of 1960 was not that the FDA approved the Pill as a contraceptive. The fact was that the women of the world had not waited for the FDA. Millions were already ‘on the Pill.’ (Asbell 11)

Besides giving women power to control their lives and their families, the Pill also gave women a new found sexual curiosity. Dr. Seymour Sholder, a gynecologist observed that “Frigidity is often caused by fear of pregnancy. With that gone, so too is the frigidity.” (Asbell 175) In 1974 a broad sample survey, of five thousand married women under age forty- five, found that married couples of the seventies were having sexual intercourse more often then corresponding couples of the sixties. Women using the Pill reported an average of ten sexual acts in a four-week period, twenty-five percent higher than the average for women using other contraceptive means. (Asbell 175) A mother in her late twenties told a writer for the Saturday Evening Post in 1965

The Pill enabled not only the planning of a family but also the planning of a life through the timing of a career. “ ‘ Modern women,’ declared the playwright Clare Booth Luce, ‘is at last free as a man is free, to dispose of her own body, to earn her living, to pursue the improvement of her mind, to try a successful career.’” (Marks 202) In June 1990, the Ladies’ Home Journal celebrated the Pill’s thirtieth birthday, declaring the Pill to have transformed the lives of women like nothing before or since.

Oh I know I’ve put on a little weight since I started on the Pill, but I think it is from contentment. I used to worry a lot about having another baby, and that kept me thinner, but I never have to worry anymore… I’d prefer to wait for the next until the youngest is at least two years old. And now I know I can wait. (Asbell 175) The pill opened doors, not only for women but it opened doors to the science of contraceptives.

The Pill changed lives. It gave women the power to choose, the power to control. A clinic volunteer ,Sylvia Ponson, recalls on her experiences with this life changing pill.

But what would have become of the science of the birth control pill without the great scientists and advocates that made it possible. The first man who played a very important role in the advent of birth control is Russell Marker. Marker never dreamed of contraception as a goal

Some topics in this essay:
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