NYT
2009-11-06
September 6, 2009 — A few days ago, our country marked a pivotal milestone in the history of the American family. Forty years ago, on September 4, 1969, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared the new birth control pill to be “safe” for use by women to regulate births.
Forty years later, the true safety of oral contraception is still in question, mostly because the issue of birth control remains mired in politics and in the control of special interest groups who have an enormous financial and ideological interest in making sure the pill is deemed safe for use.
It has been this way from the very beginning.
The birth control pill was the dying wish of Margaret Sanger, a committed eugenicist and the founder of Planned Parenthood. She was 72 years old when she finally found someone willing to develop a “magic pill” that would prevent “undesirable” women, blacks, ethnics and the poor, from breeding.