As far as felicitations go, it's worse than an impromptu chorus of "Happy birthday" from Iain Duncan Smith and his broken society bandwagon, with streamers. Asked to comment on this week's 50th anniversary of the oral contraceptive, the actress Raquel Welch – a woman surely more affably associated with bearskin bikinis than moral panic – told CNN that she held the pill responsible for marital decline and rampant promiscuity. No matter that it's more than a little odd to blame quantum social shifts – which may or may not have resulted in the abandonment of commitment to lasting relationships in favour of easy thrills – on a hormonal compound. It is testament to the revolution this most simple and effective of contraceptives facilitated, though didn't foment, that it should still be courting controversy from unlikely advocates half a century down the line.
Though it is often ironically remarked that the first oral contraceptive was developed by three male scientists, and one of them a Catholic to boot, the mothers of birth control were Margaret Sanger, a New York health campaigner who took her idea of a "magic pill" for contraception to the leading reproductive science experts of the day, and Katherine McCormick, an heiress whose sponsorship Sanger secured to fund the project. Sanger, the daughter of Irish immigrants, was propelled by the death of her own mother who, weakened by 11 childbirths and seven miscarriages, succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of 50.
Regardless of Welch's retrospective handwringing, when the pill first hit the market in 1960 in the United States, and a year later in Britain, courtesy of then health minister Enoch Powell, it was the already wedded and bedded who rushed to their doctors. Sanger's experience was far from unique. It is befuddling to contemplate in 2010, given the warp-speed of social change, but less than 50 years ago maternal health was as much of an issue in the western world as it is in the developing world now. Unplannable and unavoidable pregnancies rendered women ill, economically inactive and socially secluded.
In a way, it's peculiar that the oral contraceptive has become so yoked to the alleged sexual revolution of the 1960s. In Britain, it was the case for a long time that family planning clinics would only entertain married couples, or – according to their discretion – couples who were engaged, on presentation of a letter from their vicar. Single women had to fabricate a wedding ring during consultations well into the 70s. And establishment subsidy for birth control research pooled around a far less radical concern about the overpopulation of potentially communist states.
Nevertheless, the effect – though perhaps not the actuality – of the pill was indeed revolutionary. For the first time, women could contemplate – if not readily access – an easy, effective and affordable method of contraception. And it was fundamentally in their control – not reliant on the fiddly, unsexy interruptions of barrier methods, which allowed them to have sex for pleasure. Loretta Lynn was so thrilled, she wrote a song about it.
More than 200 million women worldwide have used the oral contraceptive since it was first approved, and the pill is one of the most studied medications in history – which is handy, as it's now variously blamed for increasing susceptibility to sickness, limiting libido and feminising fish. But studies of sexual desire have failed to account for other pertinent factors, like breast feeding. And the most recent longitudinal study, published in the British Medical Journal this year, concluded that the pill can in fact decrease the chances of getting some types of cancer. As for fish, best leave that to the fishmongers.
If there's one criticism that can be made of the pill, it's that it has become such a universal shorthand for "help me, I'd like to regulate my fertility this way" that it precludes discussion of the 14 alternative kinds of contraception on the market in Britain right now. And it's nowhere near eugenicist that the health service advisory agency, Nice, now recommends Larc – long-acting reversible contraception – for teenagers.
The immediate anxiety response to the pill back then was that it would result in women exiting the institution of wedlock and banging every man in sight. In fact, its availability only latterly smiled on those on the wild side. Likewise, the notion of a woman as nothing but a bag of hormones has surely been nixed now.
Back then, the question was: would women become dangerous harlots, and could the pope approve? Now the interrogation is rather more complex: who are you, what do you want, and do you have a birth control option that suits your lifestyle?
At a point when the crux of anxiety is all about the demeaning capacity of pornification, it's worth remembering that, not so long ago, we weren't meant to talk about sex at all. The pill changed that, and made unfettered congress for women, as well as men, a possibility. It's too easy to forget the weight of conception expectation. But for a modern audience, freedom is all.
