VOA Special English: Birth Control Pill Sparked Contraceptive Revolution

In the post-World War II baby boom era, the impetus for promoting an oral contraceptive for women did not come from drug companies or the government. University of Minnesota historian Elaine Tyler May says it came from the vision of two women: Margaret Sanger and Katharine McCormick.
"Sanger had the political savvy, experience and connections while Katharine McCormick had the money," she says.

Sanger and McCormick felt the female contraceptive could emancipate women.
May says the team they worked with to make that happen attached other far-reaching utopian dreams to the project. The most idealistic hopes attached to the Pill were that it would solve the problem of overpopulation, and poverty; that domestically, it would create happy families because married couples could enjoy sex without fears of unwanted pregnancy; that single women wouldn't have babies anymore because they could prevent it until they were married.

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