Margaret Sanger (1879–1966), John Rock (1890–1984), Gregory Pincus (1903–1967)
MOTHER OF THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION. Although The Drug Book is replete with examples of drugs that have saved countless individuals, reduced pain and suffering, and improved the quality of our lives, Enovid arguably had the greatest impact on society. For the first time, in 1960, women had a safe, highly effective, reversible birth-control drug that could be used privately and independent of intercourse. As Sex and the City reveals, the Pill has enabled women to advance their educational, career, and financial objectives by determining if and when they become pregnant. Not surprisingly, the development and approval of Enovid, the first clinically available oral contraceptive, was confronted with legal and religious challenges.
The passage of the Comstock Laws in 1873 made the sale and use of any method of birth control illegal in many states for almost a century. Under the leadership of Margaret Sanger, a New York nurse and founder of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, these laws were overturned in many states. She was also instrumental in securing private funding for the American biologist Gregory Pincus to pursue research on developing the Pill.
In 1951, Pincus showed that progesterone injections inhibited ovulation and, thus, prevented pregnancy in animals. Three years later, working with Harvard obstetrician and gynecologist John Rock, Pincus ran the first human clinical trial using an oral synthetic progesterone. None of the fifty women became pregnant, and the trials were expanded using Searle’s Enovid. Because of anti-birth–control laws in Massachusetts and other states, the trials were conducted in Puerto Rico where, once again, the results were conclusively positive.
Enovid was approved in 1957 to treat menstrual disorders and in 1960 for contraceptive purposes. It left the market in 1988, with the vacuum amply filled by several dozen other oral contraceptive products, as well as hormonal contraceptive injections, implantable pellets, patches, and rings. Worldwide, some 100 million women use oral hormonal contraceptives, (of whom more than 10 million are in the United States). A 2012 study estimated that meeting contraceptive demands by women in developing counties could reduce maternal mortality worldwide by one-third.
SEE ALSO Estrone and Estrogen (1929), Progesterone and Progestin (1933), Mifepristone (1988), Plan B (1999).
Margaret Sanger, nurse and founder of the modern birth-control movement, opened the first birth-control clinic in the United States and in 1921 established what is now called Planned Parenthood Federation of America.