The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution

Later generations would complain that the birth-control pill put the burden for contraception on women, but that's not the way these women saw it. Sanger and McCormick were born in the nineteenth century. To them, an oral contraceptive wasn't a burden for women. It was a tool. It was an

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opportunity. [236]

The black women from the Deep South, the immigrant women, and the college women considering careers outside the home had something in common: they recognized that the pursuit of opportunity required independence, and achieving that independence meant avoiding -- or at least postponing -- motherhood. [220]

The Birth Of The Pill, that is: the realization that humans have a capacity for managing reproduction at the level of individuals, and not merely as a population, this is a story eminently worth telling, though I think Eig's effort is journeyman at best. There is in his narrative too much of the outlook of a crusade, with the implication we should be in awe of these four crusaders and their individual accomplishments. It is not so much that this interpretation is false or inaccurate, as that I think the more significant conclusion to draw is that it took so long for birth control to be pursued scientifically, that it almost didn't happen, and when it did it was not our culture or civilisation which nurtured this goal. No, it was a crusade undertaken by individuals who in many respects had to defy culture and civilisation in order to be succesful. They were opposed by the greater principles of our civilization, and the concerted efforts of our leaders and counsellors.

I recognise that, to reach this conclusion, I had first to hear Eig's story, and for Eig to tell that story, the crusaders had first to overcome. So I return to my opening admission: it is a story worth telling, yes, but also an indictment of modern life, its ideals and understanding of itself, and that story is also eminently worth telling but was not told here.

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The 4 crusaders of the subtitle:
1 - Margaret Sanger, birth control advocate & women's rights activist, founder of Planned Parenthood
2 - Gregory Pincus, biological bench researcher
3 - Katharine McCormick, heiress to Intl Harvester fortune, scientist, funding research into hormonal basis of mental health
4 - John Rock, Catholic family doctor and fertility researcher

This list omits Dr Edris Rice-Wray, physician in Puerto Rico and crucial organizer of medical trials and social activist. It also ignores Eig's hints at an activist in Japan who potentially was as influential there as these four were in North America. The list also omits the FDA reviewer who, diligent in face of pressure, provided a layer of protection to those taking the pill, given how against protocol and ethics some of the research was which resulted in the Pill. These additional people (each discussed by Eig, just not counted among the titular crusaders) underscore how much of an individual accomplishment this story was: had any of these people not performed their role, the entire thing very well may have failed. There was not much redundancy in this process, we are fortunate it came off at all.

The story which was not told could perhaps come at the question of birth control from the perspective of Planned Parenthood, Population Control, eugenics, the pharmacological industry. A parallel story, not of individuals but of social contexts, not of change but of resistance. Eig provides enough on all of these for the reader to recognise, the full story is not merely of four crusaders.

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I want to give this 4.5 stars, but it got knocked to 4, this is an excellent history of The Pill, and just how much work, energy, and love went into its research and production. I would have given it 5 stars, but it was a very slow read for me, I think it could have benefited from maybe more

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anecdotes or something to move the story along a little more, but that may just be personal preference, rather than a reflection on the writing. I do think it lacks a little in the exploration on the work we have yet to do, especially on effectiveness in women weighing more than 190 lbs. From my research, it seems to cause health problems in heavier women, and has a 20+% higher chance of failure, and these risks are usually NOT mentioned unless you explicitly look for them. (Excuse me, slight tangent, still an excellent book).

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Needed a bit more editing, but interesting none the less!

Fascinating account of four individuals whose passions and talents combined to bring us what we now know as "The Pill". Excellent journalistic work by the author who pulled together existing works and original interviews with surviving principals and their families.

A competent presentation of the 10 years it took from initiating research to FDA approval of the first birth control pill, with capsule biographies of the two women Sanger and McCormick who inspired and funded the work, and two men Pincus and Rock who lead and directed the research. And what a

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close run course it was that it happened at all in that time frame. But not much in the way of wow or sparkle, which I would be surprised if these people did not possess.

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A very interesting read about the development of the birth control pill. The author focuses on four individuals who were instrumental in bringing the pill to the world: Margaret Sanger, a crusader and founder of Planned Parenthood; Gregory Pincus, a scientist who had many failures and setbacks in

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his career but nonetheless persevered; Katharine McCormick, an intelligent woman with money to invest, and John Rock, a Catholic doctor committed to the project. Other important players are given their due, but these are the four who most contributed to the invention of The Pill.

The book sets the context for their work. Contraception was, at the time, illegal. And to many, notably the Catholic church, also immoral.

What struck me most was that we know so little about Katharine McCormick. Without her funding, the research necessary to develop the pill wouldn't have happened when it did. The scientist who perfected the pill (Gregory Pincus} was on the cover of Time Magazine. The woman who had the vision and dedicated her life to finding an oral contraceptive, and convinced Mr. Pincus to research it, (Margaret Sanger) and the woman who paid for it (McCormick) were not.

What also struck me was the way clinical trials were conducted: offshore and in asylums, often without what we would consider informed consent. And that the FDA approved a drug to be given to healthy women for extended periods of time with so little data on the long-term safety of the pill. This turned out to be okay, but the author does draw the parallel to thalidomide, which was a very different story.

Finally, I noticed how reliable contraception was driven by a handful of individuals. Governments and other public institutions did not see the need for women to be able to control their bodies from neither a health, poverty or moral perspective. That's kind of sad.

A very engaging read, written in an accessible style.

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