Did You Remember the Pill?

From the archive: 2010

Like most men, I should be enormously grateful for the Pill, which marks its 50th anniversary this year. 

However, I can't help but think the benefits have been largely one-sided.



For one thing, I doubt the male doctors who invented the Pill really had women's liberation in mind when they came up with a way to have condom-free coitus.

If they had, we'd surely have a male equivalent by now.

SEAMAN AND SUICIDE


An excellent article on the dark side of the discovery notes that the Pill was initially tested on poor women in Puerto Rico because they had less legal protection.

And it turns out that a woman named Seaman -- yes, really -- wrote a book highlighting the risks of the contraceptive in 1969: The Doctors' Case Against the Pill.

One thing the article doesn't mention is the tragic personal life of 'the Father of the Pill,' Carl Djerassi, who fathered his only daughter during an affair the year before he invented the contraceptive.

At the age of 25, his daughter decided to be sterilized, and she committed suicide three years later.

You can read a revealing interview with him here.

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