11 May
What was the biggest medical advance of the 20th century?
Today in 1960 the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the sale of Enovid as a birth control pill. For two years previously ‘the pill’ had only been available for the therapeutic treatment of gynaecological disorders - resulting in a mysterious rise in the number of women suffering from severe menstrual disorders. The new FDA approval meant that Enovid became the first drug to be prescribed for social purposes.
At least in the west, it revolutionised contraception, freeing women from what was described at the time as ‘biological slavery’ and bringing about huge societal changes in a relatively short period of time.
Today more than 100 million women worldwide take the pill.
‘No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.’ Margaret Sanger
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365 days is co-authored by Steve Platt and Fiona Osler
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