Friday, May 21st, 2010 - No comments

Fifty years of the Pill

It’s been fifty years since the Pill was introduced in America. How far have we come since then–and how far do we still have to go?

This year the revolutionary birth control pill will achieve a milestone-it has been fifty years since the contraceptive was introduced to women in America.

In the early years only married women could buy the pill. Looking back the struggle it took to make sure that all women have access to the pill,Campus Progress- a project of Center for American progress says,

“It was available for sale to married women on June 23, 1960, though it took a battle with the Supreme Court to guarantee that right to all married women in 1965. That right was eventually extended to all women in another Supreme Court decision in 1972. Today the pill is so much a part of everyday life for many women. Still, the pill remains controversial; anti-choice groups still try to wrongly claim the pill causes abortions and many family planning advocates worry that public policy would be used to restrict access to the contraceptive rather than expand it. “

Benefits of contraception access

Increasing woman’s access to safe contraceptives also lowers abortion rate. According to The Christian Science Monitor,

“Between 1995 and 2003, the number of abortions performed worldwide fell from 45.5 million to 41.6 million. The global rate of abortions fell as well: from 35 abortions for every 1,000 women of reproductive age (15-44) in 1995, to 29 per 1,000 women in 2003.

The decline corresponds with a growth in contraceptive use worldwide. The proportion of married women practicing contraception rose from 54 percent in 1990 to 63 percent in 2003, Guttmacher reports. Unmarried, sexually active women are also more likely to be using contraception.”

Opposition to the Pill

Although, increased contraceptive use has lowered abortion rate globally, in the Unites States some religious and social lobbies oppose certain kinds of contraceptives-especially Plan B emergency birth control pill, claiming that they cause abortions. Fox News reported in 2007 that,

Some critics — including Roman Catholic leaders — consider the pill tantamount to abortion, although Barr(Barr Pharmaceutical) says it has no effect on women who are already pregnant. Catholic bishops in Connecticut protested in May when the state legislature passed a bill requiring all hospitals, including Catholic facilities, to offer Plan B to rape victims.

Then there is the controversy over whether birth control pills and other forms on contraceptives should be covered by insurers. Jaime Sanderson says that birth control pills should be covered by the insurers. In his blog post he cites a survey commissioned by Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which reported that,

….· Three out of four people (74 percent) favor requiring insurance to cover the birth control pill and other forms of contraception at low or no cost, like they do for other preventive health care measures and medications.

It seems that debate over the pill and access to contraceptives will remain a sensitive issue in the United Sates, no matter how far the country has come since the pill was first introduced 50 years ago.

The views expressed in this blog-post are solely those of the author.