Fifty years ago on May 9, the FDA approved the oral contraceptive. That may not sound all that important to some of you, but to those who remember what it was like before the Pill was widely available, it made a huge difference. Before the Pill, your choices were persuading a male to use a condom, getting hold of a diaphragm, inserting it (which was easier said than done because the damned thing was coated with greasy contraceptive jelly), or playing Vatican Roulette via the Natural Family Planning route (one of my college pals was one of ten kids, the result of NFP failures). The main reason girls were still virgins until at least engagement was fear of an unplanned pregnancy and the necessity of a back alley abortion (because abortion didn’t become legal until 1973); single motherhood was not acceptable back then.
The Pill allowed us to be sexual beings without fear of a missed period. We could have sex and still go to college. We could hold down a job and marry without fear that an unplanned pregnancy would derail our career path. We could choose when--or even if-- we would have children. We could decide how many children we wanted. The Pill allowed us to become Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton, women who held down important jobs while still having a family.
Sounds like a pretty good outcome for me, but a certain segment of the Religious Right is very unhappy with the Pill, Plan B and the IUD, all forms of hormonal birth control. As far as they are concerned, the Pill is as bad as an abortion because if the woman ovulates and the egg is fertilized, it may prevent implantation of that egg. Since they consider a fertilized egg to be exactly the same as a fullterm infant, some of them want it banned. Banning abortion isn’t enough for some of them’ no, they want to make sure that the safest and most reliable forms of contraception are banned too.
My suspicion is that they really want to turn back time, with or without Cher’s help, to 1952, when divorce was more difficult, women had a hard time getting good jobs, and families were, well, Quiverfuls. The admire Michelle Dugger, mother of 19, not than Michelle Obama.
Don’t let them. When we sing "Happy Anniversary" to the Birth Control Pill, let’s also take a pledge not to return to the Bad Old Days, when women had few choices other than marriage and stay-at-home motherhood. Don’t get me wrong. I admire mothers, though I chose not to become one. I commend those who choose to stay at home, as two of my closer friends did. But they had a choice. They weren’t forced into it. They weren’t fired from their jobs when they got pregnant. Other women chose to work and have a family. Some, like me, chose not to have children at all. Protect that choice, by promising to continue the fight to protect women’s reproductive rights. Don’t be lulled into a false sense of security.
In the last few weeks, we’ve seen draconian new measures passed in Oklahoma and Florida t restrict women’s right to abortion. If Roe is ever overturned or restricted into meaninglessness if it hasn’t already been in some states, the next battleground will be over the Pill.