From USA TODAY:
On the eve of the birth-control pill’s 50th anniversary — which, coincidentally, falls on Mother’s Day — it’s time to clear up some misconceptions, if you’ll pardon the expression:
The Food and Drug Administration approved the first pill in the first year of the Swinging Sixties, , but the pill did not spark the sexual revolution. Nor did it cause a sudden drop in the U.S. fertility rate, which didn’t bottom out until the early 1970a…
It became a symbol of women’s rights and generational change — and, for a time, the focus of a debate over whether it led to declining morals.
The pill was groundbreaking in other ways: Women today have a wide range of effective contraceptive choices, virtually all of them variations on the pill. Concerns about adverse effects linked to the early, high-dose oral contraceptives galvanized feminists and gave rise to the consumer health movement. Americans no longer assume doctors, regulators and drug companies know what’s best for them…
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